[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 6 (Tuesday, February 1, 1994)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: February 1, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]

 
                        INSUFFICIENT FOOD SUPPLY

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                       HON. CONSTANCE A. MORELLA

                              of maryland

                    in the house of representatives

                       Tuesday, February 1, 1994

  Mrs. MORELLA. Mr. Speaker, in its 1994 State of the World report, the 
Worldwatch Institute documents a number of deeply disturbing facts 
about global resources and the environment. According to the authors, 
there is now real evidence that our planet has reached its biological 
limits. They cite a number of signs, including: rising prices of 
seafood and rice; shortages of fresh water in Asia and the Mideast, as 
well as Mexico and the United States; a dramatic reduction in grain 
production, and rapidly vanishing cropland.
  There is enough bad news in the report to guarantee sleepless nights 
to anyone seriously concerned about the Earth's carrying capacity and 
the quality of life for future generations. But amid the prophecies of 
gloom and doom, there is also a glimmer of hope. The report suggests 
that the keys to future food supplies are family planning and a 
continuing search for new ways to produce food. Later this year, 
universal access to modern contraceptives will be high on the agenda of 
the International Conference on Population and Development to be held 
in Cairo. In view of the fact that this people summit will tackle 
social, cultural, and environmental issues connected with population 
growth, in addition to family planning, the 1994 State of the World 
report is especially timely.
  My understanding is that this report is being made available to every 
Member of Congress. For those of you who have not yet got around to 
reading it, I offer for the Record an article on the report that 
appeared recently in the Washington Post.

               [From the Washington Post, Jan. 16, 1994]

      Food Supply Might Be Insufficient to Feed World, Report Says

       Slowed growth in world food supplies provides real evidence 
     that the planet's biological limits may have been reached, 
     according to an environmental group.
       Among the signs: a three-month doubling of world rice 
     prices, billions of acres of range land chewed down to 
     uselessness, spreading water shortages and an $80,000 tuna.
       ``As a result of our population size, consumption patterns 
     and technology choices, we have surpassed the planet's 
     carrying capacity,'' Worldwatch said yesterday in its 11th 
     annual ``state of the world'' report on global environmental 
     and social conditions.
       The growing pressure on world food resources points to 
     hungry times ahead as Third World populations continue to 
     explode, said the report.
       For more than two decades, scientists have been saying that 
     the world can produce enough food to feed all its inhabitants 
     and that hunger problems can be solved by increasing yields 
     and improving distribution.
       But this new report says family planners, not farmers or 
     scientists, hold the key to future food supplies
       Lester Brown, Worldwatch president, said in an interview 
     that his staff of economists and social scientists has been 
     noticing the trend for a few years but that the critical 
     picture came into focus only with this year's research and 
     analysis. Worldwatch is a private, nonprofit research group.
       Without radical scientific breakthroughs, large increases 
     in crop yields that have allowed production to keep up with 
     40 years of rising consumption probably will not be possible, 
     Brown said.
       ``Human demands are approaching the limits of oceanic 
     fisheries to supply fish, of range lands to support livestock 
     and, in many countries, of the hydrological cycle to produce 
     fresh water,'' Brown said in the report.
       The study notes that from 1950 to 1984, world grain 
     production grew 260 percent, raising per-capita production by 
     40 percent. During the same period, the world's waterways 
     yielded so much fish that the seafood catch per person 
     doubled.
       ``But in recent years, these trends in food output per 
     person have been reversed with unanticipated abruptness,'' 
     the report said.
       It points to several trends;
       Fish harvests from the world's oceans have leveled off at 
     about 100 million tons a year, which may not be exceeded. 
     Brown noted that seafood prices are rising rapidly, and a 
     bluefin tuna can now bring as much as $80,000, or more than 
     $100 a pound.
       Water bodies are increasingly polluted and fresh water 
     shortages are occurring in the United States, Mexico, China, 
     India and the Mideast.
       Grain production has slowed dramatically in the last few 
     years, with per-capita output of rice, corn and wheat falling 
     11 percent since 1984. Worldwide stocks of rice are at 20-
     year lows, and the price on the Chicago Board of Trade has 
     doubled since Aug. 30.
       Fertilizer use has dropped 12 percent since 1989, evidence 
     that maximum yields may have been reached for many crops.
       Cropland has increased only 2 percent over the last decade 
     worldwide, with topsoil disappearing and some areas such as 
     China rapidly losing farmland to industrialization.
       Overgrazing, deforestation and agricultural mismanagement 
     have ruined 5 billion acres since 1945.
       While some of the limits may be good news for agriculture 
     and the fishing industries, which can expect higher prices, 
     they are bad news for the millions of people facing 
     starvation and malnutrition.
       Population is projected to increase at the rate of 90 
     million people a year, 96 percent of them in poorer 
     countries.
       The only hope lies in family planning and a continued 
     search for new ways to produce food, Brown said.

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