At one point, the prevailing wisdom was that nations needed robust birthrates to protect their economic welfare, and that if only we could produce food more efficiently, feeding the Earth’s burgeoning population wouldn’t be a problem. Now, with 1 billion of the world’s people chronically hungry and the population expected to increase by 50% before the end of the century, we know better. Or we ought to.
A recent five-part series by Times reporter Kenneth R. Weiss detailed the multipronged dilemma facing the thinkers and global leaders whose aim is to reduce famine and sickness without devastating the world’s finite resources. There would have been even higher rates of starvation already had it not been for the development of modern agricultural techniques, but the world’s capacity for producing yet more food is limited. The easily arable land has been taken, and it is actually shrinking because of the encroachment of cities and suburbs; water clean enough for agriculture is increasingly tapped out in some key regions. Climate change is expected to put further strains on food production.
No one has a good solution. That’s why family planning assistance is one of the most important forms of humanitarian aid that the United States and other developed nations can provide.
SPECIAL REPORT: Beyond 7 billion
As a matter of policy, that can be tricky. If the U.S. makes contraception available, will it be seen as pressuring developing nations not to bring more of their numbers into the world? Some nonprofits have backed away from funding birth control after antiabortion forces pushed against it, especially during theGeorge W. Bush administration. It hasn’t helped that a couple of attempts at population control have led to unpardonable coercion — forced abortions in China and forced vasectomies in India.
How big one’s family should be is a highly personal choice that should not be subject to any form of coercion. As it happens, though, many women would choose to have fewer children. According to the Worldwatch Institute, 1 in 5 births results from an unwanted pregnancy. If just those pregnancies were prevented, the birthrate would fall below replacement level.
What keeps women from keeping their families smaller? Most often, poverty; they can’t afford contraception. As Weiss’ series showed, in many places where free or low-cost birth control is made available, demand far outstrips supply. But political, religious and cultural forces also play a part. In the Philippines, Weiss wrote, pressure from the Roman Catholic Church led to the virtual elimination of birth-control services at public clinics. In some countries, women have so few rights that they are not allowed to decide how many children they will have.
Nations also tend to view population growth within their borders as a force for their own economic well-being; ever-larger numbers of younger people mean enough workers to build up businesses and help support retirees. This view is shortsighted, however; dramatic drops in birthrates have created temporary hardships in some countries but also long-term benefits once that smaller population reaches retirement. Without the necessary resources and an existing economy prepared to absorb large numbers of new workers, nations that promote high birthrates set themselves up for economic distress and political unrest.
Even if it went only to nations that want it, increased family planning aid would make an enormous difference. Yet U.S. funding for such aid has been flat-lined for two decades, and the difference has not been made up by others.
That has to change; such assistance is one of the best ways to reduce and prevent a global litany of suffering. Of almost equal value is aid for girls’ education in nations where families cannot afford it; repeated studies have found that girls who receive even a minimal amount of basic schooling choose to have smaller families.
Because of the political sensitivities around birth control, abortion and family choice, too few world leaders have been willing to openly address what is clearly one of the most important factors affecting hunger, international economics, agriculture, energy and the environment. It’s a topic we have minimized at our peril.
Bob Owens on Sat, 11th Aug 2012 5:19 pm
Nothing is going to change. Ever since the book “Population Bomb” and the green revolution in agriculture we have done NOTHING. We never will do anything. Nature will have to do the job for us and we won’t like it. It’s time to face the facts: we have had 50 years to fix this problem and have done NOTHING! It will take Wars, Famine and Pestilence to do the job and at the end we will not have a civilization left. Time to face the facts.
DC on Sat, 11th Aug 2012 5:37 pm
Q/At one point, the prevailing wisdom was that nations needed robust birthrates to protect their economic welfare, and that if only we could produce food more efficiently, feeding the Earth’s burgeoning population wouldn’t be a problem.
At one point?? The corporations still push this line. The US population has more than doubled since the end of Ww2. Mostly through immigration. Had the corporations not been in charge of immigration, the US would have likely have a population much closer to its ww2 level than the one it does today, and in a lot of other ‘western’ nations as well. And the US does produce food ‘efficiently’ thought it subsidized corporate mono-cropping. Hasnt done much to stop world hunger there either has it? Course the purpose of the so-called green revolution was to allow amerikan oil, chemical and agri-corps to gain control of food production, not to end hunger.
To think, it will take a full blown collapse to do what we could have done voluntarily. Maybe a few years of heat waves like the one in the Us of Oil will start to chip away at the problem. But keep pumping out millions of GM shyte-boxes and corn-bio-fools while the planet burns USa!
keith on Sat, 11th Aug 2012 7:27 pm
In nature every species has a threshold where population out paces food source. To is a cyclical process that ebbs and flows. Oil has allowed humans to step out of this cycle. As the peak approaches people will begin to starve to death. In natural systems a species population will hit the threshold wall and then hop a bit over it followed by a huge crash in the species population. This process is always the same.
Rick on Sat, 11th Aug 2012 11:59 pm
Yep, those who can’t keep it in their pants, will screw us all. Humans, prove there is no God.
DMyers on Sun, 12th Aug 2012 12:23 am
Think we’re dealing with a powerful, natural force here, something on the order of magnetism or gravity. The force that drives population growth. We know some of its parts but not the sum of its parts. We know it has certain biological and cultural roots. It is a force which charts an exponential pattern.
Looking at a few ways this force has lodged itself in the evolution of civilization sheds some light on its invincibility in the latter stages.
One, it is tied in with the will to power. Any coherent group, such as a nation, religion, a people of any sort, increases its power and influence by growing its population, and this occurs exponentially.
The other is an economic system evolved from a positive relationship with population growth. The modern, industrial, Ponzi Scheme economy relies on markets born of population growth to build the base of its pyramid. In an infinite growth system such as we have, infinite population growth is primary.
If the force I’m postulating exists, population growth is bound for overshoot, as the force itself pushes on, independently, even after all that sustains a growing population is exhausted. That appears to be the nature of this thing. It builds us up and then tears us down.
BillT on Sun, 12th Aug 2012 2:27 am
Had we put education before profits and common sense before religion, we might have had a world where everyone knew how to ‘plan’ their families, had access to the means to accomplish it, and know how to have the pleasures without the population increase. But, we didn’t. We put greed and stupidity in place and here we are.