779 



Rock testified at hearings of the Subcommittee on Health of Senate 

 Committee on Labor and Public Welfare that there are many anomalies 

 in the field of reproductive physiology that still remain to be worked 

 out.^' For example, more is known about the process of sperm genera- 

 tion in the rat than in man. 



If the food/population problem in the developing countries is to 

 be brought under control, there must be strong motivation for couples 

 to limit the number of their children. Mere expressions of general 

 interest in the idea of fertility control will not suffice. For example, 

 surveys have been made which suggest that 70 percent of the women 

 interviewed were interested in controlling the size of their families,^® 

 but experience indicates that this does not mean that all of these 

 women will use family planning services if they are made available. 

 Presumably the same applies to men. In any event, there is little infor- 

 mation on incentives and inducements for birth control in the LDCs, 

 particularly where strong motivation is necessary to overcome cultural 

 barriers to contraception. 



Among other behavioral matters in which additional data would be 

 helpful are the following: the sociopsychological aspects of male- 

 female interaction; socioeconomic factors affecting human behavior 

 relative to marriage, fertility, and migration; and social processes 

 leading to cultural change. Human behavior is, after all. the most crit- 

 ical factor in maintaining a balance between population and available 

 food resources, and indeed in the whole development process. 



Sum-mary Statement of the Food/Popiilation Problem 



An examination of the background of the changing food/population 

 balance in the developing countries suggests that the interaction of 

 technical, social, and political factors has obscured until quite recently 

 the gravity of the problem. The United States, whose policies are of 

 particular concern to this study, furnished both technical and material 

 assistance to increase agricultural production in the LDCs but balked 

 initially at furnishing information which might have helped arrest 

 population growth. The less developed coimtries, for their part, 

 seemed to deal with the problem of population growth in a desultory 

 and inadequate fashion, where they dealt with it at all. 



The problem of achievinjg a relatively stable balance between food 

 resources and population in the less developed countries is one of 

 enormous complexity. It has biological and medical aspects relating to 

 the development and employment of safe and effective methods of con- 

 traception. It involves decisions about basic economic questions such 

 as the allotment of resources, manpower needs, the use of incentives, 

 and the establishment of channels of distribution. It calls for the 

 modification of cultural and social values that have existed, in some 

 cases, for millennia. It affects the internal politics of the developing 

 countries, and adds to the strains on their relativeljr weak administra- 

 tive machinery. It tests the effectiveness of communications techniques 



'5 Ibid., page 448. It should be noted that not all areas in the LDCs are arens of hifih 

 population density. The existence of large uninhabited areas within their boundaries is one 

 of the reasons why leadership elements in some LDCs either oppose family planning or take 

 a lukewarm attitude toward it. 



1" National Academy of Engineering. "Symposium on the Food-People Balanre P^nel <>n 

 the Interactions Between World Food and World Population," op. cit., pages 10-11. 



