Tony, that argument breaks down because it has one fundamental fault. To get people where they have few children means that their standard of living has to get to approximately where we in the most developed countries are at. By the time the world gets to that stage we would have an overwhelming population and the world would have already run out of resources.I would suggest that a greater challenge to the world is to reduce the present population by the year 2100. With an almost exponetial rise in the population will inevitably come an even greater rise in the demand for resources of energy as standards of living are also rising, particularly in India and China. The insane drive by the worlds economists for growth is just madness and must inevitably lead to the greatest depression that the world has ever seen. The supply of food will be but one of the many challenges that we face.

What we really need is the medical researchers to stop finding all theses cures for diseases and get the mortallity rate back up to where it would have been if the rule of the survival of the fittest had been left tp apply. As it is, we have passed the peak in the genetic development of the human race and are now already starting on a decline.

Ah, that’s the spirit VK3AUU !! more death and disease as the key to improving human welfare – deep green insanity in a nutshell.

Population growth is slowing worldwide as medical technology and life expectancy improve. Life expectancy is growing in part because for the past 300 years the world has risen to the challenge of raising food production faster than population. Yes, there are challenges ahead in maintaining that progress, but we can meet them if we don’t give in to luddism (e.g. anti-GM hysteria) anti-globalisation reactionaries that want to stop poor people richer for their own good, and neo-Malthusians who see population a the root of all evil despite a few millennia of evidence to the contrary.

This article should appear somewhere it would get a much, much wider audience.

VK3AUU & Rhiann,

"The insane drive by the worlds economists for growth is just madness and must inevitably lead to the greatest depression that the world has ever seen. The supply of food will be but one of the many challenges that we face" is something we really can't avoid, clever as we are.

At the same time we've yet to find the technology to overcome the sheer scale of challenges needed to maintain the progress we're accustomed to. In which case we'll need to redefine progress. For what it's worth, given the precis of the article "a few millennia of evidence to the contrary" won't mean Jack Schitt. This is totally new ground. I think Maltheus would've been struck for words.

There is no food shortage. Hundreds of thousands of metric tons of food go waste each year. We currently over produce all foodstuffs. And investments in food manufacturing and processing has given all foodstuffs greater shelf life. Not only do we over produce we have developed arbitrary end dates for processed foods that must be wasted in order to make shelf space available to the next production cycle. Our system is not so much supply and demand but, rather employment regulation through continuous supply regardless of demand.

That people in the world go with out food is not due to the lack of food. It's due to lack of government with in those areas. Including Australia.

aqvarivs, while there is currently no shortage of food in the world, that situation will not last. Last year saw the first time in decades when world wheat carryover stocks were down virtually to zero - that is demand had overtaken supply.

There has not been a global food shortage over the last 50 years because innovation in agricultural research has kept pace with increasing demand. In most Western countries, crop yields per acre of land have doubled. The same is true of cereals across much of Asia (but not of other crops). The challange we now face is that wealth is rising in countries like China and India. With rising wealth is a demand for more meat and non-rice grains. As these are the two most populous cultures on the planet, increased demand will seriously impact food supply. Increased urbaization, by depriving use of good fertile land and water is also a threat.

There are three choices for the future:

1) Reduce the population so that the increased demand for food can be met off existing agricultural land;

2) Speed up innovation in agriculture so we can keep pace with demand; or

3) Do some of both.

J.Cribb responds: I'm glad the issue of population has been raised by several contributors. There wasn't room to discuss it in the original piece. However, in the absence of a totalitarian world govt, my assumption is that the only truly effective instrument we will have to check population is prosperity. People stop having kids when they become affluent. It is my personal view we must reduce global population to 2-3 billion by 2100, but the only voluntary way to do this is to end poverty and give people reasonable prosperity, so lowering birth rates. Hence I assume there will be a mid-century peak when demand for all resources, including food land and water - will be huge and far above the earth's sustainable limits.
There are many things we can do including recycle nutrients, grow water-efficient crops, end food wastage and replace racehorse properties with real farms. And ignore silly politicians who keep urging us to 'have more babies'. No doubt these will occur to govts as food supplies in various regions give out.