Essay/Term paper: Chap.7 state of the world

Essay, term paper, research paper:  Cliff Notes

Joe Crosariol

613-07-4881

12:30-Interdisciplinary

3/7/00





Critical Analysis on Chapter 7, State of the World 1999

Feeding Nine Billion



While reading chapter 7 of State of the World I was very interested in the changing course because it made me think about the things that our world can do that can drastically benefit the future of our agricultural production and food prospect. We must be able to solve the two major food issues currently facing our world, which are malnutrition and price stability. All governments need to establish a population policy so that their country does not exceed the limitations of its carrying capacity. It is important that we can produce enough food for our country, which is estimated to increase by 74 million in the next fifty years.

A quote from the book, "The worst mistake political leaders can make entering the new millennium is to underestimate the dimensions of the food challenge". I certainly agree with this because most of the future food growth in the world is going to be croplands and we need to understand that we are going to need to be able to produce as much crop as possible for the land. I also agree with the fact that the governments that are experiencing rapid population growth must figure out their future population carrying capacity by calculating how much land is available for crops and how much water is available for irrigation.

It is estimated that 3.3 billion more people will be living on this world in the first half of the next century and unfortunately many of those people will be born into already over populated countries. For example, India with some of the highest poverty rates in the world will have an additional 600 million people inhabiting the country by the year 2050.

It was interesting to learn that educating young females would be a good way to control future population growth because "the more education that women have, the fewer children that women have". Another way to ensure food supply in the future according to the book is to eat food in moderation to keeping a healthy diet, which helps conserve food, and at the same time keeps you healthy. I definitely do not agree with this approach because even though it would work with everyone"s cooperation, you are not going to get everyone"s cooperation because there are still all those people who love to eat and they don"t care if they are overweight or obese.

Water is also a scarcity we are going to have to pay attention to because it is not a resource that can be increased in supply, it can only be increased in efficiency. By doing this, the book says we must use more efficient water irrigation technology and I agree that this is one of the only things that we can really do in order to grow the most crops with the minimum waste of water. The main Idea is to use water in every way as efficient as possible.

In order to ensure our future as the dominant species we must prove that we are the dominant, prove that we can take responsibility for ourselves by keeping families small and conserving in every possible way that we can think. If we really put our minds to it we can make for a good future with plenty of food and resources.