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English
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(Box 4—1 continued)
down to 7.5 billion. These figures could be sunstantially higher if the area under food production and the productivity of 3 billion hectares of permanent pastures can be increased on a sustainable basis. Nevertheless, the data do sugest that meeting the food needs of an ultimate world population around 10 billion would require some changes in food habits as well as greatly improving the efficiency of traditional agriculture.
Sources: B. Gilland, 'Consideration on World Population and Food Supply', Population and Development Review, Vol. 9, No. 2, pp. 203-11; G.M. Higgins et a1., Potential Population Supporting Capacities of Land in the Developing World (Rome: FAO, 1982); D.J. Maler (ed.), Rapid Population Growth and Human Carrying Capacity. Staff Working Papers No. 690 Washington, D.C.: World Bank, 1985).just not available. Health, housing conditions, and the quality of education and public services all deteriorate: unemployment, urban drift, and social unrest increase.
13. Industrial countries seriously concerned with high population growth rates in other parts of the world have obligations beyond simply supplying aid packages of family planning hardware. Economic development, through its indirect impact on social and cultural factors, lowers fertility rates. International policies that interfere with economic development thus interfere with a developing nation's ability to manage its population growth. A concern for population grorth therefore be a part of a broader concern of a more rapid rate ecconomic and social development in the developing countries.
14. In the final analysis, and both the developed and developing worlds, the population issue is about humane and not about numbers. It is misleading and an injustice to the human condition to see people merely all consumers. Their well being and security old age security, declining child mortality, health care, and so on are the goals of development. Almost any activity that increases well-being and security lessens peoples' desires to have more children than they and national ecosystem can support.
II. THE POPULATION PERSPECTIVE
1. Growth in Numbers
15. Population growth accelerated in the middle of the 18th century with the advent of the Industrial Revolution and associated improvements in agriculture, not just in the regions that are more developed but elsewhere as well. The recent phase of acceleration started around 1950 with the sharp reduction in mortality rates in the developing countries.
