Integrated Resource Management: Agroforestry for Development

acknowledged.

Part I

Overview

Introduction

Chapter 1, Food Production. Compiled by Charles V. Kidd based primarily on material drawn from drafts of the Parts that follow.

Chapter 2, Population Change: Global Trends and Future Implications. Written by Paul Demeny, with contributions by Donella Meadows and Charles Kidd.

Supplemental papers on aspects of population/food relationship were prepared by a study group on the Interdependency of Population and Food, consisting of Donella Meadows (Chair), William Hudson, Ralph McCracken, Peter Rogers, Peter Timmer, and Beverly Winikoff. The papers include The Global Problem of Nutritional Adequacy (Beverly Winikoff), Food Supply Adequacy and Food Distribution (William Hudson), and World Food Production (Ralph McCracken). Ideas and facts drawn from these papers appear in Parts II and IV, as well as in Part I.

Chapter 1

Food Production

INTRODUCTION

At the beginning of the agricultural age about 10,000 to 12,000 years ago, when human societies first began to turn from hunting, fishing, and gathering to agriculture, the total population of the earth was about 5 to 10 million—somewhere between the population of Bangkok and Bombay. For thousands of years the total population of the earth increased very slowly in absolute numbers. By the time of Christ, the total population of the world had reached a level of about 300 million—slightly more than the current population of the United States (Douglas, 1966; Harris, 1977). Only at the time of the beginning of the industrial revolution around 1700 did world population begin to grow rapidly.

The world population reached 1 billion in 1825. It took a century, until by 1925, for this population to double. The third billion was reached in 1960—35 years. Then in 15 years—1975—another billion was added. Then, at one unspecifiable moment in 1987, the baby who made the world population 5 billion was born somewhere on the planet, probably in Asia, where nearly 60% of the world’s population lives. An annual growth rate of 1.7% is adding 77 million people per year—a number equal to that of the population of Mexico—to the number who share the planet’s resources. The annual increment to the world’s population will continue to increase for decades, reaching a peak of almost 90 million over the period from 2000 to 2005. The United Nations projects a population of 7.8 billion by 2000 and 12 billion by 2100. Of these future population increases, 90% will occur in the developing countries. In 1950, 66% of the world population was in developing countries. By 2020, 82% of the world population will be in these countries. Over the period from 1950 to 2020, the proportion of the world population in North America and Europe will drop from 22 to 11%. (These trends are discussed in Chapter 2.) These sharp population increases threaten the delicately balanced ecosystems of planet earth. They call into question the ability to feed hundreds of millions of additional people without exhausting renewable natural resources.

About 60% of the world’s total 1990 population of about 5.2 billion live in rural areas. In the less-developed countries, 70% of the total population is in rural areas (Population Reference Bureau, 1989). In Asia and Africa, about 80% of the population live in rural areas (World Bank, 1984). In Latin America, about 30% of the population is rural. The vast majority of the rural populations in developing countries is engaged in or dependent on agriculture, and a high proportion of the agriculture is low energy, small scale, and labor intensive. For example,

Low-resource agriculture is the predominant type of agriculture practiced throughout Africa, and it makes a crucial contribution to food security—both the availability of food and the ability to buy it. It is the source of most of Africa’s food, a primary income and employment source for the majority of Africans, a source of foreign exchange, and a buffer against food shortfalls and famine. [Office of Technology Assessment (OTA), 1988]

As noted in more detail in Chapter 2, the rural population of developing countries is likely to increase by about 1 billion by the middle of the next century. These are all rough estimates, but they are sufficiently accurate to demonstrate that rural populations directly dependent on small-scale, low-input, subsistence agriculture are substantial proportions of the world population. Any solution to the problems of feeding the growing world population must pay specific attention to the needs of this group. Yet relatively little research has been done on the crops of major importance to them—millet, sorghum, cassava, yams, maize, and cowpeas. Similarly, only recently has substantial attention been devoted to the design and management of agricultural systems to meet their needs.

While the rural population is increasing, the urban population will also increase, not only in total numbers, but also as a proportion of total population (World Bank, 1984).

The agricultural systems of the world must provide not only for the needs of the rural population but also for those of the urban dwellers who produce much less food and other agricultural products than they consume. The nature of this problem varies widely among countries and regions, as indicated by the fact that in the year 2000,75% of the population of Latin America but only 35% of the population of India will be urban.

If the increasing numbers of city dwellers are to be fed, either domestic agriculture must produce increasing surpluses above the needs of the rural population, or food imports must increase, or a combination of both will be required.

While low-input, small-scale agriculture systems are now producing food and other products—especially fuelwood—that are consumed by urban dwellers, the primary function of those systems is to meet the needs of rural people. Most of the food and other agricultural products consumed by urban dwellers is produced by high-energy-input systems, either domestic or foreign, in the form of food imports.

UNPRECEDENTED INCREASE IN FOOD PRODUCTION, 1950–1985

An outstanding characteristic of the food/population relationship between 1950 and 1985 was a rapid rise not only in total grain production but also in per capita production for the world as a whole, thereby confounding prophecies of mass starvation. World grain production almost tripled from 600 million tons in 1950 to 1700 million tons in 1985 (USDA, 1988). During that same period, the population of the world almost doubled from 2.5 billion to 4.8 billion (UN, 1988). Accordingly, per capita grain production increased from 480 pounds to 710 pounds per year.

Not only did total yields increase rapidly, but production per hectare also increased. In 1950 the grain yield was one ton per hectare (2.47 acres) (USDA, 1988). By 1985 this figure more than doubled to 2.3 tons per hectare. Irrigation, fertilizer, new high-yielding crop varieties, and education of farmers were the primary sources of this increase in productivity. These overall figures mask some wide regional variations, but they convey correctly the story of an unprecedented growth in food production, outstripping a similar growth in world population.

Another measure of the adequacy of food supplies is provided by prices. Rising prices are an indication of scarcity; falling prices indicate decreasing relative scarcity. In many respects, world grain prices are a better measure of scarcity than is per capita food production, because international grain shipments integrate world markets and thereby make per capita output in individual countries and regions a misleading indicator of food supply. The World Bank reports, For decades the real dollar prices for grains in the world market defined as crop-year average prices deflated by the 1980 U.S. consumer price index have declined (World Bank, 1988). Both the increasing per capital production and the long-term decline in prices indicate increasing adequacy of total world food supplies.

The primary source of the tremendous increase in output and the downward price trend has been high-energy-input agriculture. This system is generally characterized by large farms, the introduction of new and more productive crop strains, irrigation, expensive machinery, heavy use of commercial fertilizer and pesticides, extensive education and training programs, and strengthening of many features of the infrastructure, such as transportation, storage, and financial institutions. At the same time, it is important to note that some characteristics of this system are missing in many parts of the world. For example, most of the rice in the world, from the high-yielding rice in Japan and Korea to tropical Asia, is not produced on large farms and is sometimes produced with substantial machinery inputs.

However, this increase in food production has had consequences that raise serious concerns:

• The increases in food production have been at the cost of extensive environmental degradation and resource depletion. The environmental degradation attributable to rapid increases in food production has been accompanied by other sources of degradation, such as deforestation, rapid increases in pollution of air and water from industrial and power production, and production of waste on a scale that often overwhelms the capacity of disposal facilities. Environmental degradation, as a result of human activity, is not new. In 1864, G. P. Marsh published Man and Nature, or Physical Geography as Modified Action, in which he pointed out, The scale of change initiated by man is no longer local, but global (p. 11). Almost a century later, in 1956, the environmental degradation characteristic of the 1980s was fully documented in Man’s Role in Changing the Face of the Earth (Wenner-Gren Foundation). But what changed between 1956 and 1990 was not the nature of environmental degradation created by man, but the speed and scale of degradation. The adverse environmental consequences of high-energy-input agricultures are an integral part of the larger picture.

• The increases in food production have been accompanied not by a decrease but by an increase in the number of malnourished people in the world. An estimated 1.5 billion humans are malnourished—more than ever before in history (Kates et al., 1989).

• The rapid increases in production and productivity characteristic of the first decades after the introduction of high-input, large-scale agriculture may not be sustainable.

• Relatively little attention has been paid by politicians, governments, nongovernmental organizations, scientists, academics, and international organizations to the welfare of one half of the world population dependent on small-scale, labor-intensive, low-energy-input farming, mostly in rural areas. The core of this book is an analysis of some ways of dealing with this problem.

BIOMASS PRODUCTION—FIREWOOD AND FORESTS

It is often forgotten that the capability to feed an expanding global population, particularly in developing countries, depends on total biomass production as well as on agricultural production from the ecosystem (biomass is the mass of all kinds of organic substances—trees, bushes, weeds, and insects as well as agricultural crops). This is primarily because of almost total dependence on fuelwood for cooking. In view of the intense study given to food output and of the relatively scanty attention paid to biomass production, this latter aspect of the total picture will be emphasized here. Two aspects of biomass production and consumption are of special significance. The first is consumption of fuelwood, and the second is deforestation that does not result from collection of fuelwood.

Biomass energy accounts for more than a fifth of the total energy consumption in developing countries. At present about 90% of the poor in developing countries use biomass for fuel, and most of this biomass is in the form of fuelwood (Chatterji, 1981). Studies by FAO have suggested that 1.5 billion people, or 70% of those who depend on fuelwood to meet a major part of their household energy needs, are cutting wood faster than it is growing back (FAO, 1983). The most urgent use is to cook food, and for this reason alone, biomass production as well as food production must be taken into account. In addition, other uses such as heating dwellings, drying tea, smoking fish, brick making, etc., are also important. The demand for firewood (or its derivative, charcoal) exists in both urban and rural areas. Demand expands with population growth.

High levels of biomass production and consumption have generated serious problems. Heavy demand for firewood leads to overcutting. As the woody vegetation disappears, the soil becomes compacted, unproductive, and eroded. As the easily available wood supply is exhausted, workers must go farther afield to gather firewood. The radius of the circle of denuded land around urban centers increases, reaching far into the countryside.

The more serious problem is that people are burning both crop residues and animal dung. Use of crop residues as substitutes for firewood and dung for fuel intensifies water runoff and decreases soil fertility. The degradation of soil by water or wind erosion is of particular concern because soil fermentation is extremely slow. Under both humid tropical and temperate agricultural conditions, soils are renewed at an average rate of about 1 t/ha/yr (tons per hectare per year) and range from 0.1 to 5 t/ha/yr (Swanson and Harshbarger, 1964; Larson, 1981; Hudson, 1981; McCormick et al., 1982; Lal, 1984a, b; Scott, 1985). Current agricultural practices in most regions of the world are resulting in estimated soil-erosion rates ranging from 20 to 100 t/ha/yr, with soil erosion being more severe in the tropics (Pimentel et al., 1987). Rates of soil degradation attributable to overcutting accelerated over the period from 1950 to 1985. While these estimates are rough, they are adequate to buttress a solid consensus that soil erosion is a serious worldwide problem, because it decreases agricultural productivity and tends to increase