CONTENTS
HIGHLIGHTSPopulation Reports is published by the Population Information Program, Center for Communication Programs, The Johns Hopkins School of Public Health, 111 Market Place, Suite 310, Baltimore, Maryland 21202-4012, USA
December, 1997 |
Winning the food race is likely to require decades of effort at international, national, and local levels. It will require cooperation among policies and programs in agriculture, resource management, health care including family planning, and economic development. In any strategy, reaching replacement-level fertility as quickly as possible provides a needed foundation. Particularly for the more than 80 low-income food-deficit countries, slowing population growth could buy more time to address the needs of farmers, improve living conditions, and raise agricultural productivity, while helping to protect the soil and water resources needed for food production in the future. With less need to demand greater yields from already overworked agricultural resources, governments could give more attention to improving the quality of life, emphasizing health care, nutrition, family planning, education, and opportunities for women as well as men. In the next century we cannot expect to ask ever more of the earth's resources or continue to disregard natural systems as we have in this century (124). With a stable population and sustainable use of natural resources, however, the world might be able to feed itself on a healthy diet for centuries to come (25). |