A Possible Future

In 1990, there were about 5,300 million people on Earth. In that year, the International Rice Research Institute estimated that by 2020 there would be 8,300 million. This figure assumes that, from the year 2000, population growth will start to slow down, mainly because people who live in towns in ‘developed’ countries tend to have fewer children.

If the forecast is correct, which it may not be, we can see that we have to produce a lot more food than we are doing now. Rice farmers, in particular, have to produce more. If they don’t, they will have to grow other staple foods instead. It’s true that there is a move away from rice in some Asian countries towards the fashionable Western-style staples, wheat and beef. But these, by and large, use land much less productively than rice does. Wheat is attractive now chiefly because it is cheaper to produce than rice, per tonne, and the world already has (in most years) a large wheat surplus. Much of that surplus, of course, would be eaten now if very poor countries could afford to buy it.