These tools will no longer be maintained as of December 31, 2024. Archived website can be found here. PubMed4Hh GitHub repository can be found here. Contact NLM Customer Service if you have questions.


Pubmed for Handhelds

PUBMED FOR HANDHELDS

Search MEDLINE/PubMed

  • Title: Food for tomorrow's population.
    Author: Hugo G.
    Journal: Majalah Demografi Indones; 1983 Jun; 10(19):ii-33-60. PubMed ID: 12266480.
    Abstract:
    This discussion outlines and clarifies the dimensions of the world's current food-population balance and examines likely future changes in this balance over the next 20 years. The 1st section summarizes the contemporary world demographic situation in the early 1980s, focusing on regional differences in patterns of population growth and the significant food shortages in the developing countries. A subsequent section considers the outlook for population growth up to the year 2000 with particular reference to the most recent UN population projects. The discussion of food production and supply includes some specific comments on the situation in Indonesia. The world's population in 1983 has been estimated at 4677 million. It will reach 5 billion in the next 5 years. The countries which can least afford it are growing the fastest. These countries will account for 79% of the world's population in 2000 and 83% by 2020. Fertility in the less developed countries (LDCs) is twice that of more developed countries, with women in the former group having an average of around 4.5 children and in the latter, 1.9. The substantial declines in fertility in many countries are not fully reflected in declines in population growth and natural increase rates. This is because of major improvements which have occurred in mortality. During recent decades there has been a marked increase in world food production. In the developed countries increases in food production have continued at more than twice those for population, but this was not the case in the less developed countries where the margin narrowed during the 1950s and 1960s until in the early 1970s population was increasing at a slightly faster rate overall than was food production. Food crisis situations continue to occur with disturbing frequency in several regions. Seasonal, regional, and national variations in food shortages are not the only dimensions to food-population imbalances. Within nations there is inequality in access to and consumption of food, even where there is no national food deficit. The increasing occurrence of food shortages and insecurity in many developing countries has resulted in huge numbers of the world's population being malnourished. Clearly, malnutrition lays at the basis of much of the mortality differences between developed and developing countries. The preferable option is to expand agricultural production, but in addition to this, there must also be more equitable and better distribution so that increased food yields actually benefit the world's poor.
    [Abstract] [Full Text] [Related] [New Search]