By Craig Cormick
"I say that the power of population is indefinitely greater than the power in the earth to produce subsistence for man." — Thomas Malthus.
In the five minutes or so it takes you to read this article, an estimated 830 new people will be added to the earth's population. Ten thousand new people every hour, 240,000 every day, 87 million every year.
The earth's current population is about 5.3 billion. On average, that means there are three hectares of land for each person, and two of those three hectares are desert or only marginally productive. Just 15 years ago, when the population was 4 billion, we had almost four hectares per person.
In Australia, we are relatively better off with an average of 45 hectares per person, even though much of it is desert. In Nigeria, there is less than one hectare per person, and in Sri Lanka and Haiti, the figure is less than half a hectare.
As population increases, there is more and more pressure on an already fragile environment. Forests are being cleared for farming, cities are becoming more overcrowded and polluted, and we are losing about 25,000 hectares of arable land daily to desertification and land degradation.
According to the US-based Worldwatch Institute, we have less than 10 years to turn things around if we are to have any hope of long-term survival.
Most of the world's population growth is in developing countries already hard-pressed to feed all their people. India, with a current population of 850 million, is expected to surpass China as the world's most populous country early next century. In Africa, the population will treble from the present 560 million to 1.5 billion by 2025. Some countries are even promoting population growth. Malaysia is aiming at fourfold growth, 70 million people, by the end of this century.
World population growth is uneven. Developed countries have the lowest birth rates, and some, such as Italy and the western part of Germany, have slipped below the level necessary to maintain present populations. This will have important implications for future migration trends to sustain labour requirements.
Recent United Nations demographic research estimates that world population won't stabilise until it reaches 10 billion by the end of next century. By that time, our present three hectares each will have dwindled to 1.5 hectares, probably of diminished quality.
If our global resources are already under pressure from 5.3 billion people, how will they cope with 8 billion by early next century?
Some economists, such as Professor Julian Simon of the University of Illinois (author of The Ultimate Resource), argue that population growth will solve the problems it creates by driving technological development. Supporters of this view say a large population need not be a poor one, and they compare India's 135 people th Britain's 140 or the Netherlands' 250.
Others argue that our planet could easily feed a larger population, that most of the problems are caused by rich countries consuming more than their share, and that calls for population control are usually directed against the poor and are racist and repressive.
It is certainly true that, on average, people in India receive less than half the calories of people in the USA. According to the Hunger Project publication, Ending hunger: an idea whose time has come, in France alone the amount of protein used in pet food could feed 12 million people.
Professor Simon writes: "There is no persuasive reason to believe that the relatively larger use of natural resources that would occur with a larger population would have any special deleterious effects on the economy of the future".
But others disagree. The Brandt Report, North-South: a program for survival, which largely set the agenda for development issues in the '80s, said: "The present staggering growth of world population will continue for some considerable time. It will be one of the strongest forces shaping the future of human society ...
"The strain on the global environment derives mainly from the growth of the industrial economies, but also from that of the world's population. It threatens the survival and development opportunities of future generations."
More recently, the UN's Brundtland Report, Our common future, said population growth should be limited, and recommended that each country develop broad population policies: "Many governments must work on several fronts — to limit population growth; to control the impact of such growth on resources and, with increasing knowledge, enlarge their range and improve their productivity; to realise human potential so that people can better husband and use resources; and to provide people with forms of social security other than large numbers of children".
In many developing countries, children are associated with security: the larger a family, the better the survival chances of poor parents as they get older. However, the World fertility survey found that many mothers in developing countries wanted no more than four children, and many wanted no more than two. More recent figures show that women generally want fewer children, and the trend is strongest among younger women.
But even with a collective will to act, world population growth will not slow quickly or easily. If, from today, replacement-level fertility rates (slightly more than two children per couple) were adopted all over the planet, population would still grow by one third before stabilising. According to the UN, even if replacement-level rates were achievable by 2000, the world's population would not stabilise for another 50 years, at around 7.7 billion.
Regardless of whether our population reaches 7.7 billion or 10 billion, there will be enormous pressure on our planet just to feed us. On paper, we can feed up to double our present population, though ion die annually from hunger-related causes.
With new technologies and agricultural techniques, the planet has so far been able to feed us. The green revolution of the '60s and '70s brought a 40% increase in grain yields in the major grain-producing countries over the past 25 years. However, this growth only kept pace with population growth, and many agricultural experts believe such increases have peaked and we will be unable to keep pace with further growth.
If this is so, we will have no choice but to reduce population growth. But how? Contraception programs have had some effect, notably in China, but they are expensive and often run up against serious cultural and religious obstacles.
There are some encouraging signs. Countries that have spread the benefits of development widely are more likely to have achieved reduced birth rates. As well, improved education for women has produced lower birth rates.
One conclusion is clear: to prevent our less than three hectares of land dropping to 1.5 or even one hectare, we should share the produce of our more arable land with those on less productive land. Thomas Malthus offered us the cruel alternative: "A man who is born into a world already possessed, or if society does not want his labour, has no claim or right to the smallest portion of food, and in fact has no business to be where he is. At nature's mighty feast there is no cover for him." n