FREE ESSAY ON FAMINE & POPULATION GROWTH

FAMINE & POPULATION GROWTH

The need for action is pressing in order to feed the expanding human population, expected
to increase by almost one billion people per decade for the next three decades at least.
Much of this increase will occur in developing countries in the low-latitude regions of
the world. To meet the associated food demand, crop yields will need to increase,
consistently, by over 2% every year through this period. 
Most research on agriculture and climate change has focused on potential impacts on
regional and global food production, yet few studies have considered how global warming
may affect food security. Food security has been defined as access by all people at all
times to enough food for an active, healthy life. (World Bank, 1986). The World Food
Summit, convened in 1996 by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations
in Rome, highlighted the basic right of all people to an adequate diet and the need for
concerted action among all countries to achieve this goal in a sustainable manner (FAO,
1996). 
The overall world production changes mask a disparity in response to climate change
between developed and developing countries. The largest negative changes are predicted to
take place in developing regions, although the extent of decreased production varies
greatly from country to country, depending on the specific nature and degree of the local
change in climate. The welfare effects of climate change on individual countries will not
only depend upon changes in domestic yields, but also on changes in world prices, and the
country's relative strength as an exporter and importer. Cereal-price increases resulting
from climate-induced reductions in yield are estimated to range between 24 and 145%. The
combination of production declines in developing countries and increases in prices due to
climate change would increase the number of people at risk of hunger. 
Furthermore, the results show that adaptation strategies do little to reduce these
disparate effects. This is due to the fact that developed countries have many more
resources to utilize in adaptation strategies than do developing countries. Globally,
both minor and major levels of adaptation can help restore world production levels
(especially when CO2 physiological effects are included), compared to climate change
scenarios with no adaptation. Low level adaptation largely offsets the negative climate
change effects on yields in developed countries, thus improving their comparative
advantage in world markets. However, developing countries are predicted to benefit little
from this level of adaptation, and may experience a negative change of -9% to -12% in
cereal production. More intensive adaptation may effectively eliminate the overall global
reduction of cereal yields. Whereas under low adaptation cereal price increases range
from 10 to almost 100%, under more intensive adaptation the compounding price responses
range from a decline of 5% to an increase of 35%. 
Not only do preliminary analyses of direct effects of global warming indicate greater
adverse effects in poor countries, but these same countries are less able to achieve the
changes required for adapting. Less developed countries also tend to have less developed
capital markets, with access for farmers being a pervasive and chronic problem for many.
High interest rates are common even where loans for the agricultural sector can be
obtained. If the needed adjustments require investment, these factors will slow or
eliminate farmers' ability to adapt. 
Alternative assumption -lowering of trade barriers, low economic growth, and low
population growth- were tested both in the absence and in the presence of climate change.
Without climate change, the combination of full trade liberalization and low population
growth would have beneficial effects on the world food system, whereas the effects of low
economic growth would be detrimental. With climate change, the beneficial effects of full
trade liberalization and low population growth would be equal to or even exceed the
otherwise adverse effects of climate change. Therefore, there may be much to be gained
from altering the conditions of trade and development as a strategy for helping to
mitigate potentially negative climate change impacts. In the absence of such measures,
cereal production would tend to diminish, particularly in the developing world, while
prices and population at risk of hunger would increase due to climate change. 
The unequal distributional aspects of climate change are further supported by differences
in income level (poor peasants have a higher degree of risk aversion, they are likely to
use fewer purchased inputs and to be less able to make large purchases of equipment; the
premium put on assuring minimal levels of production of needed food crops may inhibit
rapid shifts in farming systems), access to credit and possibility for diversification
(monoculture producers in vulnerable areas -tropical developing countries- will be more
heavily affected). 
Given a presumption of adverse effects in tropical areas, developing countries can expect
a slowdown of growth and a decrease in agricultural incomes. Given the large percentage
of the labour force engaged in agriculture in low income countries, this effect is likely
to increase overall income inequality within countries. Urban-rural disparities would
also increase with resulting increases in urban migration and overcrowding. 
How, then, may climate change alter the ability of the world's growing population to gain
access to food? For subsistence farmers and people who now face a shortage of food, lower
yields and yield quality, when and if they occur, may result not only in measurable
economic losses but also, indeed, in malnutrition and possibly famine. A compendium of
recent work on this topic is found in Downing (1995) 
Vulnerability to famine is a complex concept that integrates environmental, social,
economic, and political aspects. Groups most vulnerable to climate change in regard to
food security may be those who are most exposed to the risk of climate change impacts on
crop productivity and changes in commodity prices, with the least capacity to cope with
unfavorable changes in agricultural conditions and to access food, and therefore, prone
to suffer the severest consequences of famine, malnutrition, and debility. 
Groups vulnerable to hunger in the present, and likely to be vulnerable to climate change
effects in the future, include rural smallholder farmers, pastoralists, wage laborers,
urban poor, refugees, and other destitute groups. 
Of these, the most vulnerable to the negative effects of climate change are probably
rural subsistence farmers, landless wage earners, and urban poor: they have little food
security now and therefore are susceptible to even small changes in agroclimatic
circumstances or economic status (Bohle et al., 1994). For households that both raise
food and work off the farm, climate change may affect the time for crop planting, but
this may conflict with critical off-farm employment. 
In the Basic Linked System, the number of people at risk of hunger was defined as those
people in developing countries (excluding China) with an income insufficient to either
produce or procure their food requirements. 
The BLS estimates that with climate change, declines in yields in low-latitude regions
are projected to require that net imports of cereals increase under all scenarios tested.
Higher grain prices will affect the number of people at risk of hunger. For the climate
change scenarios without adaptation, their estimated number increases 1% for each 2-2.5%
increase in prices. The number of people at risk of hunger grows by 10-60% in the
scenarios tested, resulting in an estimated increase of between 60 million and 350
million people in this condition, by 2060. 
With less agricultural production in developing countries and higher prices for
foodstuffs on international markets, the estimated number of people at risk of hunger
will inevitably increase. The largest increase occurs with a global mean surface
temperature rise of 50C and with no beneficial physiological effects of CO2 on crop
growth and yield. The smallest change, a decline of 2%, is seen to occur with a 40C
warming, full CO2 physiological effects on yields, and high levels of farmer adaptation.
As a consequence of climate change and adaptation level 1, the number of people at risk
of hunger increases by 40-300 million (6-50%) from the reference scenario of 641 million
people.