P, h |<? 4. Portland OlMUirvor, J.inu.iry 16, 1985
Special Coupon
Ethiopia: tip of the iceberg
Editor's Note P h lures of the fam
me in I thiopiu should warn us o f
more than the immediate tragedy they
represent Hasicallv. writes PNS com
mentalor I ester R Hrown. the world's
ab ility to produce adequate fo o d
supplies is fulling, and will continue Io
do so unless we act Hrown is presi
dent o f Worldwutch Institute and
protect director o f its Annual State of
the World Reports
be I ester H Hrown
Lihm pia's lamine is more than a
tragic bul lemorary emergency II is
ihe most visible sign uxlay of »hat
has been a dangerous, decade-long
shifi in ihe entire world food econ
omy
From 1950 until 1973, global food
production surged, outstripping pop
ulation growth and holding out the
hope that hunger could be banished.
Hut since 1973, food production has
barely kept pace with population —
and this trend seems certain to con
tinue, or worsen, unless the global
economy comes into better balance
with the ecosystem.
— Less farmland per person. Most
ol the world's tillable soil is already
being tilled. A U .S . Dept. o f A g ri
culture study indicates that world
farmland will expand by only four
percent between 1980 and 2(XM) while
population grows some 40 percent.
At the same time, cities, industries
and **automobili/ation** are taking
an even bigger bite out of the earth.
In fact, Ihe area of arable land has
been declining for nearly two decades
in Western Europe, Eastern Europe
and Eastern Asia, including China
and Japan.
Factories in China, for example,
are built along the coasts, where most
Chinese live — and where most of the
good farmland is located. Closer to
home, the Science Council of Canada
reports “ half the farm land lost to
urban expansion is coming from the
best one-twentieth of our farmland.”
It estimates 240 acres of new farm
land in Canada’s western provinces
are needed to replace every 100 acres
urbanized in the east where rainfall is
higher.
STARVATION
M y granary u empty.
The rams are nowhere.
the sun u baking the grounds dry
That the soils thirst fo r rains just as I do
Looking beyond all I see are mirages.
Ihe grounds roast my bare feet as I trod in search o j J ood.
The green pasture is gone.
The trees are leafless.
There is no shade fo r my bald head
I have scratched every inch o f the ground in want
o f something to fill m v lummy.
As I count day and night. I pray fo r the rams.
Hoping that I will live to see the next day.
I have been living on my sour salt a fo r days;
My tummy grumbles and my children hunger
They are weak, hungry, sick and restless;
they know not the tragedy — all thev want is food
II is painful, sorrowful and heartbreaking,
Hut there isn ’I much one can airomplish
l^ t those who hear o f us, bear with us
the drought has left us without.
We are homeless and hungry;
It feels like you are all alone in the world
A t the mercy o f famine.
by Melisa T. Wambalaba
(In Remembering my Ethiopian Sisters and Brothers)
These losses are not being offset
elsewhere. Throughout the Third
World, the newest land to be farmed
also lends to be the poorest. As a re
sult, in countries such as Nigeria or
Brazil, improved farming techniques
have barely compensated for a steady
decline in land quality, so cereal yields
have not increased since 1950.
W ith fertile land shrinking, it
stands to reason that virtually any
growth in world food supplies must
come from raising the productivity of
land. Here, too, recent developments
arc discouraging.
— Diminishing returns. World food
(Hitput doubled over the past genera
tion, in part, because o f a massive
increase in the use o f chemical fe r
tilizers. But price hikes and mounting
foreign debt have made that sort of
growth considerably less likely in the
Third World. And even where ferti-
lizer use stays high, as in the United
States, diminishing returns are setting
in, and many farmers find it no longer
profitable to use more at current
farm prices.
Irrigation is Ihe other big key to
improving land yields, but it loo is
constrained — in some places by a
scarcity of fresh water, in others by
lack of capital Depletion of the Ogal
lala aquifier, a vast natural reservoir
underlying America's southern plain
stales, has reduced this nation's total
irrigated area by three percent. Sim
ilarly, water drawn for industrial
and agricultural uses in the Heijing-
Tienlsin region of Northeast China
lowers the aquifer several feet a year.
Lack o f fresh water in the Soviet
Union is frustrating efforts to expand
feedgrain production for that coun
try’s swelling livestock herds.
In poorer countries, much of the
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LONG DISTANCE
DIALING
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cheapest irrigation is already in place
and newer projects carry hefty price
tags. These places could modify irri
gation practices to conserve water
and energy, yet it seems the world
today is paying no more attention to
efficient water use than it did to effi
cient oil use in 1970.
One other natural resource, even
more vital to farmers than petroleum
or water, is being exhausted at an
alarming pace. A record 25 billion
tons of topsoil are lost through ero
sion of each year, draining land of its
productivity on every continent.
As land and water become more
precious, and fertilizer and pesticides
more expensive, how affordable will
the daily meal be for the world's
poorest, who already spend most
of their income on food?
— Clim actic change. Increasing
food production further will also
bring another great cost. When mar
ginal land is asked to produce more,
fragile ecosystems can be irreversibly
damaged. In A frica, for example,
deforestation, farming and grazing
in semi-arid regions have evidently set
o ff a round o f climactic changes,
actually reducing rainfall and drying
out ihe continent.
Similar phenomena have been
observed in northeastern Brazil,
northwestern India and northwestern
China, where growing populations
cause wholesale shifts in land and
deserts are expanding. In South
America's Andean countries popu
lation pressures have pushed farming
up mountainsides where even the
casual observer can see that much of
the freshly-plowed soil will be washed
away, leaving only bare rocks and
hungry people.
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If the world is to be able to feed
itself in the future, policymakers
must begin to re-think that future.
The solution lie in population con
trol, restoration o f soils, reforesta
tion, Ihe creation o f an energy-
efficient world
Americans shocked and haunted
by images o f Ethiopians starving
may find some solace in knowing
that they live in one of the world’s
great breadbaskets, with food to
share.
If present trends continue unabat
ed, even breadbasket countries will be
caught up in the breakdown of a
world economy
a
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