CONTENTS Editor's Summary Credits         Chapters Population Growth and Food Needs Hunger in the Midst of Plenty Limits and Constraints Steps Toward Food Security Coordinating Population and Agricultural Policies Figures Profiles Side-Bars Bibliography HIGHLIGHTS World Food Summit urges action Water resources become scarcer POPLINE Other Issues To Order CCP Home Page Return to Chapter 2 Population 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 Volume XXV, Number 4 December, 1997

Profiles Z ongo Adulsallam Kokologo, Burkina Faso "If I had practiced family planning, my grandsons might be able to make a decent living from the land today. Maybe my children could all have gone to school." Zongo Adulsallam has lived his entire 68 years as a subsistence farmer in Kokologo, one of thousands of villages in Burkina Faso. Kokologo is in the middle of Burkina Faso's farm belt, about 60 kilometers west of the country's capital, Ouagadougou. Even in a good year the harvests produce only enough to feed the people of the village for barely half the year. Like other farmers in the area, Zongo works the dry soil to grow millet, sorghum, peanuts, and beans. Rains are seasonal and often sparse, the land has been overworked, and the soil is degraded. "Life is very hard for us," Zongo said, "but at least we have our own little plots." With every new generation of sons, however, the farm plots are divided into smaller and smaller units. "My grandsons cannot make a living from their plots," he said. "They spend half the year in Ouagadougou doing odd jobs." Life in Kokologo is gradually improving; the infant death rate is dropping, for example. A United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) project recently brought family planning to the village. Reflected Zongo, "If I had practiced family planning, my grandsons might be able to make a decent living from the land today. Maybe my children could all have gone to school." Food production remains a problem. Chronic drought has brought the desert ever closer. But the government has begun to provide the village with a better strain of millet capable of surviving on less rainfall. Zongo hopes the villagers' yields of millet and sorghum will improve. He is optimistic about the future. "We will do our part. We can only pray that God does his part." R angit Kaur Thaska, India "If we also had the possibility to plan our families better, our chronic food shortages would not be such a burden. We would have fewer mouths to feed."

For the 175 households in Mrs. Kaur's village, which is located in the hill country of Haryana State, cattle are not the only problem. Neither nature's bounty nor the works of man have been kind to Thaska. During the monsoon rains the village is water-logged and filled with mud; during the dry season it is hot and dusty. There are no public health care facilities and no family planning clinics.

Along with the effects of the cattle, prolonged droughts have degraded much of the village's farmland. The village is far from self-sufficient in food production. The villagers grow wheat, corn, and groundnuts. They also harvest wood and grasses from a nearby forest under an agreement with the Haryana State Forestry Department. Nevertheless, as Mrs. Kaur said, "Even if we are lucky, our food stocks last only half the year. Many of our men, including my husband, must migrate to nearby towns in search of work. Or else they hire themselves out to larger landowners" [for the equivalent of 50 US cents a day].

Recently, the government built a catchment dam in the wooded hills behind the village, raising peoples' hopes of having a more secure source of water for most of the year. "If we also had the possibility to plan our families better," said Mrs. Kaur, "our chronic food shortages would not be such a burden. We would have fewer mouths to feed."

L eopoldo Torrez El Chile, Nicaragua "I wish that, when I was younger, I had family planning. I would not have had as many children."

Leopoldo Torrez is a subsistence farmer in the tiny village of El Chile, Nicaragua. El Chile clings to the side of a steep slope deep within the hilly district of San Ramon. Patches of tropical forest remain, but most of the land has been cleared by farmers like Torrez. The one dirt road through the hills to the village is washed out during the rainy season. Even when the road is passable, only 4-wheel drive vehicles and horses can get through. Most people make the 3-hour trek to and from the nearest paved road on foot.

Torrez has spent 20 years trying to scratch a living from a 2-hectare rocky plot. He and his wife have six children to feed—three girls and three boys. Their two crops each of beans and corn can feed the family for only half the year. Between harvests Torrez tries to find work as a day laborer. The children all attend school, but at harvest time everyone has to work on the land.

Life is hard for the Torrez family. If the harvest fails or Leopoldo cannot find enough work between harvests, there sometimes is little to eat. He is fatalistic about the future: "Whatever happens, happens," he said. "We have survived this far. We just have to keep going." But, he added, "I wish that, when I was younger, I had family planning. I would not have had as many children."