Would food scarcity be an issue in the coming years?

In a large number of poverty stricken countries, there are some alarming agricultural trends. The ozone and greenhouse cries are bad enough, but there are other problems that are far more immediately pressing-soil loss and deforestation, the shrinking of cropland, the genetic erosion of the major grain crops and the terrifying depletion of the oceanic fisheries. The world is realizing that the technologically triggered green revolution which brought food abundance with its industrial farming of genetically hybrid and chemically dependent grains has not been completely successful. The abundance it generated was temporary. It is now realized that it has also brought diseased soils, pest-infected crops, water-logged deserts and disgruntled farmers. There was prediction in 1968 that, as population grows, life would get nastier. Today, world population has strike the 7 billion and as doomsters say, people are trapped in absolute poverty. Population has growing 90 million a year and the production of grain has dropping by 1% a year. A current emphasize to fight hunger, which gives hope, is to help the small farmer who was squeezed out by industrial agriculture and made landless and unemployed.

The optimism of the early eighties that food shortage will not be a global problem owing partly to food sufficiency and import from the U.S. has since faced. In the nineties, world wheat and corn prices set records height-a sign that demand had outstripped production. The addition of 90 million a year and rising affluence accounted for the increase demand. Several factors, including policies related to the use of water, land and energy are covering to create food scarcity and raise prices.

Using more fertilizer will have little effect on yields as developments in recent times have shown. There was a time when fertilizer use raised land productivity and expanded the world's food supply. Farmers in many countries realize that fertilizer use has now exceeded the physiological capacity of existing crop varieties to absorb the applied nutrients .Additional use of fertilizer seems to have little or no effect on yields. What farmers have discovered is that the key to high agricultural productivity is water resources.  A new formula has to be worked out.

Asian countries, especially china and India, are becoming industrially strong but agriculturally vulnerable. Economic development of the Asian region and the consequent rise in affluence has boosted grained livestock products. The broiler industry grows. The demand for milk products increases. Grain that should sustain the poor is diverted to livestock to satisfy the demands of the affluent. Feed grain use is rising throughout Asia and some Asian countries like Japan, South Korea and Taiwan import more than 70% of the grain they consume and depend on the U.S. for grain exports, but these exports vary widely year by year. Aid from donor countries cannot be always relied upon since fiscal stringencies weaken support for food aid.

Population growth is also another frustrating factor. Countries with grain deficits are expected to experience rise in population. China, now turning to the outside world for massive quantities of grain will need by 2030 an amount equal to current world exports. India and Pakistan that are now experiencing depletion of water resources will also have to rely on imports. Will the U.S. able to cover the need of all these countries that are to experience grain deflects? It has seen probably impossible as there is little land to plough and agricultural productivity slow down yearly. A concomitant of food scarcity and spiraling grain prices is social unrest and political instability.

Therefore, global food scarcity can be averted if the deleterious practices of today are checked. The concept of small family size can be encouraged by educating women and empowering them. Non-farm uses of land for industry transport and recreational facilities are to be reduced and efficient use of water help to expand production of food. We may hope that man is capable of developing new technologies to bring a quantum jump in world food production.Probably,don't we?