Is Famine Best Examined as a Result of Overpopulation or as a Crisis of Entitlements - Essay Example

Is Famine Best Examined as a Result of Overpopulation or as a Crisis of En ments? Among the developed countries, increases in per-capita food production since the 1950s have generally moved upward in tandem with increases in total food production. But among the developing countries, per-capita food production has generally lagged behind. Moreover, even in countries of the South where the Green Revolution has produced spectacular production gains, the distribution of its rewards has often been quite uneven. Recent decades the problem of famine has been examined more as a result of overpopulation than a crisis of entitlement. Such authors as P. R Ehrlich and Mike Davis pay a special attantion to the problem of overpopulation and its impact on famine. Researchers state that population growth has a great influence on food shortage. Famine affects countries with the high average population growth rate. They prove the fact that famine affects many countries with high average population growth rate. Countries on African continent belong to less developed countries which resulted in economic and social disasters influenced native population. The statistical date gives the facts that in Africa most people are seriously affected by hunger and different diseases. In his book F. Osborn examines the general impact of overpopulation on the planet stat. His explains that the environmental toll of population growth and rising affluence seemingly binds humanity in a common fate, but, as the tragedy of the commons suggests, countries do not share the costs and benefits associated with the exploitation equally. Herein lies what many describe as the overpopulation. The symptoms and sources of environmental deterioration are discussed from different perspectives. For instance, Sudan is one of the countries populations of which died of widespread famine and destitution (Alemu, 1997). The latest US estimate says up to 1.2 million people now face starvation in the south of the country - many more than previously thought. The dramatic increase has prompted the humanitarian aid to call for an unprecedented relief operation to target those most at risk in several areas it describes as famine zones. The studies examine that the increases in the worlds food output were particularly impressive after World War II. In the thirty-five years from 1950 to 1985, world grain harvests increased from less than 750 million tons to 1.7 billion tons. Even though the world experienced unprecedented population growth during this period, the growth in food production was so spectacular that it permitted a 25 percent increase in per-capita food supplies and a corresponding increase in meeting minimum nutritional standards. Primarily, these studies concern European countries and the USA but do not take into account Asian and African countries where population growth has a direct impact on famine. P. R Ehrlich in the book “The population bomb” explains that; "Our position requires that we take immediate action at home and promote effective action worldwide. We must have population control at home, hopefully through changes in our value system, but by compulsion if voluntary methods fail." (Ehrlich, 1971). As a result, a secular decline of Europes population is now in motion: It will take over three thousand years for Italys population to double, and a German population less than three-fourths its current size is now foreseeable. What these data suggest is that fertility rates vary widely across countries. "In a number of countries, such as Brazil, Egypt, Indonesia, Mexico, and Thailand, fertility rates have been dropping as they did in the 1970s in China and India. At the same time, many developing countries have not entered the demographic transition. For instance, the first warnings that many parts of rebel and government-held southern Sudan were likely to face extreme food shortages came in November 1998. Aid efforts are struggling to reach many areas, despite the use of extra planes. Ehrlich suggests that “the population explosion is an uncontrolled multiplication of people” (Ehrlich, 152). Even if his theory has been criticized, it depicts the general trends leading to famine. Whether world food production will continue to grow as it has in the past is uncertain, yet that will have to happen if output is to keep pace with an expanding world population and improvements in living standards. In spite this fact, it will not be enough to feed the population around the world. Researchers underline that problem that its essential elements are the availability of food and the ability to acquire it. Conversely, food insecurity is the lack of access to sufficient food and can be either chronic or transitory. Chronic food insecurity is a continuously inadequate diet resulting from the lack of resources to produce or acquire food. Transitory food insecurity, on the other hand, is a temporary decline in a households access to enough food. It results from instability in food production and prices, or in household incomes. The worst form of transitory food insecurity is famine (Osborn, 1983). As a generalization, population growth accounts for the difference between total and per-capita production of food in developed and developing countries. Africa stands in stark contrast. It was predicted that the population growth would outstrip food production appear more apt than here. During the 1970s, Africas food production increased by only 1.8 percent annually, but its population grew at a rate of 2.8 percent. Starvation and death became daily occurrences in broad stretches of the Sahel, ranging from Ethiopia in the east to Mauritania in the west. The situation was repeated a decade later when, in Ethiopia in particular, world consciousness was awakened by the tragic specter of tens of thousands suffering from malnutrition and dying of famine at a time of unprecedented food surpluses worldwide. As population growth has moved hand in hand with desecration of the environment, sub-Saharan Africa has experienced the tragedy of the commons in all of its most remorseless manifestations (David, 1988; Alemu, 1997). As the nineties unfold, the world is facing a day of reckoning. Many knew that this time would eventually come, that at some point the cumulative effects of environmental degradation and the limits of the earths natural systems would start to restrict economic expansion. But no one knew exactly when or how these effects would show up. They are slowing growth in food production—the most basic of economic activities and the one on which all others depend. After nearly four decades of unprecedented expansion in both land-based and oceanic food supplies, the world is experiencing a massive loss of momentum. Affluence and rising consumption alongside population growth will greatly strain the ability of food producers to ensure global food security. This proposition applies to other resources as well. It should be mentioned that the problem of famine as a crisis of entitlement was also examined. Such researchers as David tried to prove that famine has social roots and does nothing with overpopulation. It is possible to agree that soil erosion, desertification, and deforestation are worldwide phenomena, but they are often most acute where population growth and poverty are most evident. The search for fuelwood is a major source of deforestation and a primary occupation in developing countries. Deforestation and soil erosion also occur when growing populations without access to farmland push cultivation into hillsides and tropical forests ill-suited to farming. It is possible to say that the problem of famine as a result of overpopulation is better examined from the historical perspective as well. Historians pay a special attention to the rate of population and food consumption. As trends in births, deaths, and migration unfold worldwide into the twenty-first century, demographic changes will promote changes in world politics. At issue is how these trends will affect traditional national security considerations, economic development opportunities, and the prospects for achieving global food security (Ehrlich, Ehrlich, 2004). Where population growth rates remain high, a kind of ecological transition occurs that is almost the reverse of the demographic transition in that its end result is disastrous. In the first stage, expanding human demands are well within the sustainable yield of the biological support system. In the second, they are in excess of the sustainable yield but still expanding as the biological resource itself is being consumed. And in the final stage, human consumption is forcibly reduced as the biological system collapses. Excessive population growth doubtless strains the environment and contributes to destruction of the global commons, but excessive consumption is even more damaging. In this respect it is not the Souths disadvantaged four-fifths of humanity who place the greatest strains on the global habitat but the affluent one-fifth in the consumption-oriented North. Differential fertility rates among various ethnic populations will also have internal and international consequences (Ehrlich, Ehrlich, 2004). In Israel, for example, the Jewish population may one day become the minority, as fertility rates among Arabs and Palestinians within Israels borders outstrip those of Israels Jews. Analogous trends are already evident in South Africa, where the white population is expected by the year 2020 to comprise only one-ninth to one-eleventh of the total population compared with the one-fifth it accounted for in the early 1950s. Many researchers (Davis, 2002; Ehrlich, 1971) stress the adverse effects of population growth on economic devel­opment. What they often ignore, however, is that the world has enjoyed unprece­dented levels of economic growth and unparalleled population increases simultane­ously. Even those countries with the highest rates of population increase are arguably better off economically today than they were at the dawn of the twentieth century. Declining infant mortality and rising life expectancy coincide with improved living standards throughout the world, even if, ironically, these are the very forces that drive population growth. Some researchers examine the role of politics in famine (Healey, 2000). They suppose that famine is a political, military and economic weapon for the government and its coalition of allies in civil society. In Sudan, the pattern of famine relief - concentrating on refugee camps in Ethiopia and on government garrison towns in the south - tended to assist the Sudanese governments attempts to depopulate parts of the south (notably, the oil-rich areas) (Fluehr-Lobban, Lobban, 2001). Nevertheless, this problems is less examined in comperisin with population growth and its impact on food shortage. Studies state that population growth contributes to the widening income gap between the worlds rich and poor. It also contributes to lower standards of living for many, as poor people tend to have more children to support than do those who are relatively better off. Furthermore, by depressing wage rates relative to rents and returns to capital. (Osborn, 1983) Researchers (Ehrlich, Davis) state that many people live in absolute poverty. Their condition of life so limited by malnutrition, illiteracy, disease, squalid surroundings, high infant mortality, and low life expectancy as to be beneath any reasonable definition of human decency. Alany of the agricultural products produced in developing countries (such as sugar, tea, coffee, and cocoa) are exported abroad, where they are dietary supplements (with little nutritional value) for the worlds rich. The problem of overpopulation is possible to illustrate by the fact that there is only about one working-age adult for each child under fifteen in the Third World, compared with nearly three working-age adults in the developed countries. Such a large proportion of dependent children burdens public services, particularly the educational system. It also encourages the immediate consumption of economic resources rather than their reinvestment in social infrastructure to promote future economic growth. To conclude, famine is a complex problem which effects world’s society from ancient time. Researchers point out different causes of this problem, but the problem of famine as a result of overpopulation is better examined. A lot of researchers mention political and social factors but they do not provide deep analysis of these problems and their direct impact on famine around the world. References 1. Alemu, Tadesse 1997, "Nutritional Assessment of Two Famine Prone Ethiopian Communities", Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health, Vol. 51, No. 3, pp. 278-282. 2. Average population growth rate - 2000-2005. 2005. Available at: http://globalis.gvu.unu.edu/indicator.cfm?Country=ER&IndicatorID=134#rowER 3. David, A. 1988. Famine and the Crisis of Social Order. Blackwell Publishers. 4. Davis, Mike, 2002, Late Victorian Holocausts: El Niño Famines and the Making of the Third World, London, Verso. 5. Ehrlich, P. R. 1971, The population bomb. New York: Ballantine Books. 6. Ehrlich, P. R., Ehrlich, A.H. 2004, One With Nineveh: Politics, Consumption, and the Human Future. Island Press. 7. Fluehr-Lobban, C. and R. Lobban 2001, "The Sudan Since 1989: National Islamic Front." Arab Studies Quarterly 23, pp. 1-9. 8. Healey, J. (ed) 2000, Foreign Aid and World Debt. The spinney Press. 9. 2004 World Population Data Sheet. 2004, Available at: http://www.prb.org/pdf04/04WorldDataSheet_Eng.pdf 10. Osborn, F. 1983, Our Crowded planet. Greenwood Press Reprint. Read More