IMPACT OF POPULATION GROWTH ON FOOD SUPPLIES AND ENVIRONMENT

by David Pimentel, Xuewen Huang, Ana Cordova, and Marcia Pimentel

Submitted for publication to Population and Development Review, New York, NY, USA

As the world population continues to grow geometrically, great pressure is being placed on arable land, water, energy, and biological resources to provide an adequate supply of food while maintaining the integrity of our ecosystem. According to the World Bank and the United Nations, from 1 to 2 billion humans are now malnourished, indicating a combination of insufficient food, low incomes, and inadequate distribution of food. This is the largest number of hungry humans ever recorded in history. In China about 80 million are now malnourished and hungry. Based on current rates of increase, the world population is projected to double from roughly 6 billion to more than 12 billion in less than 50 years (Pimentel et al., 1994). As the world population expands, the food problem will become increasingly severe, conceivably with the numbers of malnourished reaching 3 billion.

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I think this a huge concern right now in the world. As our population grows the amount of areas in which there is adequate land has decreased. As the years pass and our population grows how will we be able to make up for the shortage that is already effecting our earth.

Riam Fox