II. Defining the Food/People Equation In Developing Countries 



The consequences of population pressure pn insufficient food sup- 

 plies are generally recognized. The technologies of expanding agri- 

 cultural output and of exercising control within the family on num- 

 bers of progeny are sufficiently advanced to make famine generally 

 avoidable. The problem of holding food and population in balance 

 appears to lie elsewhere: (1) in stimulating public recognition of the 

 need for concerted action, (2) in devising economic incentives for 

 action, and (3) in developing political programs to make necessary 

 actions feasible and acceptable. 



The history of western civilization during the epochal events of 

 the Industrial Revolution affords insufficient guidance for the coun- 

 tries now striving for development and encountering unprecedented 

 pressures of population. The industrialization of Western Europe 

 coincided with enormous emigration to the open lands of America, the 

 expansion of American agricultural productivity, and the broad ac- 

 ceptance of a middle class ethic and living standard. Each developing 

 country has its own special problems of balancing food and people; 

 l)v aiul large the circumstances of the United States or Western 

 Eiiro])e during the expansionist period of the Nineteenth Century 

 donot ap])ly. 



Fanihu- as Perceived in an A^iwrit Canntrj/ 



From the U.S. perspective of a national economy in which agricul- 

 tural surpluses have been troublesome for more than half a century, 

 it is hard to comprehend the causes, ronditions, or conseouences of 

 famine. In the United States, virtually every factor contributing to 

 fimniip is absent: Relative to population there is abundant 

 arable land, well watered, favored by a long growing season, and 

 worked by educated farm managers; production areas are connected 

 with consuming markets by a network of railroads and highways; 

 economic support is highly institutionalized in the form of farm 

 credit, price supports, and producer cooperatives; farm technology 

 (especially plant genetics, fertilizers, mechanization, and pest con- 

 trol) has been developed over a f-entury of public and private invest- 

 ?nent and applied in a hich-capital, low-manpower system of indus- 

 tiiali/ed. electrified farms: the technology of crop storage is similprlv 

 de\eloped in the form of grain elevators, deep-freeze lockers, drving 

 rbanibers. packing houses, and wholesale warehouses, so that the food 

 carrv-over provides a secure ffiiarantee of future supply- 



]\fanv of the human factors assuring: an absence of famine condi- 

 tions have developed gradually in the United States, from the earliest 

 settlement of the new Continent. Although pockets of poverty and lag- 

 ging regions persist, even in the face of many favorable elements, 



