Review of Reading 15: Feeding the World

This reading was very interesting to me, just like all the other ones we have been reading in this course. The article is Written by Luther Tweeten and Carl Zulaf in 2002 and discusses issues based around the global food crisis and potential ways it can be avioded. The authors focused on five different sections in their writings: Society's Four Transitional Stages, Evidence for Negative Population Growth, Future Food Supply/ Demand Balance, Protecting the Environment, and The Challenges Ahead.

Society's Four Transitional Stages

Economists refer to the four transitions or stages of societies based on demographics, economics, agriculture productivity, and technologial advancements. The first stage is a tradtional society- low population, low economic and population growth. The second stage is a developing stage- a society's technologial advancements result in sustainable production and plant and animal domestication. Increases in agriculture productivity and production bring economic surpluses that allow growth in capital and per capita income; the third stage, the Developed society is born. The fouth stage is the mature society that sees notable technologial chenge evolve beyond agriculture making deth rates futher. It seems that when one thing gets better, it can harm something else, a cycle we must take into consideration.

Evidence for Negative Population Growth

This section was packed with statistics regarding population projection around the world. It seemed as though the only major exception to the downtrend in North America. The United Nations' medium population projection of 2.1 children after 2040 is widely used as a demographic forecast, but it unrealistically assumes that this rate will be the same in both developed and developing countries. However, many researches do not support the UN assertion the fertility would increase to replacement level in developed countries.

Future Food Supply/ Demand Balance

This section discusses how food porduction is increasing and growth in world food production outpaced growth in population. As a result, average per captia food production increased by .5% annually while real food prices declined by 1.8% annually. It's scary to think that someday our demand might pass our supply. In a devloped country like America, it seems as though we have a good supply, almost more than mwe need, while other countries don't have enough. We can't take things like this for granted or the saying "you don't know what you got till it's gone" may hit hard.

Protecting the Environment

This section discusses how natural-resource depletion and environmental degradation could confound the foregoing food supply and demand projections. It offers information on how we can go about helping save the earth. There have been several studies done the interaction between population and income will ultimately save the enviornment while leaving sufficient land for food productions. I found reading about this study very interesting and how money is such a huge factor in EVERYTHING we do, even if if means saying the earth.

The Challenges Ahead

This is section goes over what was discussed in the previous sections. It discusses internation migration and how migration will lead to greater cultural diversity within nations and could cause narrowing of culutre gaps. The potentail for cultural and ethnic strife will be real, however, and could negatively affect food production and trade. Agriculture may someday not need laborers, will they someday be replaced by machines and computers?

My Thoughts

Overall, I found this reading really interesting, but sometimes confusing. Its crazy how everything affects something. Economy affects birth-rates, birth-rate affect populations, populations affects food demand. I think it is important for every country to take on one challenge at a time. It's good to help eachother, but when there are problems right in front of you, they should be addressed first.