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VII. Future Diplomatic Issues of the Food/People Equation 



Rapidly advancing technology shows promise of enlarging world 

 supplies of food to meet completely the needs of the world's burgeon- 

 ing population. Technology has also demonstrated that it can be used 

 to slow the rate of human reproduction. On a global basis, mankind 

 need no longer be the inevitable victim of a postulated Malthusian law 

 that condemns some fraction of the total number to starvation or 

 semi-starvation. The question now becomes one of skill in human man- 

 agement: Can man so order himself and his institutions of govern- 

 ment and administration that he can make use of the food and popu- 

 lation technologies he has been permitted to discover ? 

 . Scientific agriculture, vigorously pursued in the United States 

 since the 1860's, has enabled five percent of the population to feed the 

 rest, with a surplus. By 1980, it has been estimated that there will be 

 only about 1.9 million farms (down more than one-third from the mid- 

 1960's) with a farm labor force of 2.5 million workers (down 1.3 

 million from the mid-1960's) . Although one-third of all farms in 

 1980 will be small, their share of total farm receipts will be only 

 1 percent. Nearly one-third of all farms will be large, with cash re- 

 ceipts exceeding $20,000 per farm."^ The presumption is that this same 

 direction is likely to be taken by agriculture in the developing coun- 

 tries, as they embrace modern farm technology. Starting from an 

 agricultural population ranging from 60 to 80 percent of the whole, 

 the LDCs can expect the proportions of population on farms to 

 shrink even as their total populations continue to rise. Much has been 

 said and written about the importance of encouraging labor-intensive 

 technology in the agriculture of these countries, and there are as- 

 surances that the Green Revolution requires not only capital but ?in 

 initial increase in labor for irrigation, dam and well construction, - 

 and the like. However, the ultimate end result still seems likely to 

 be a reduction in farm labor ; man-hour productivity will rise, larger- 

 sized farms will gain the most and expand accordingly, and farm 

 workers will be displaced. The more rapidly the Green Revolution 

 takes place, the more rapidly — ^it would seem — ^will agricultural work- 

 ers be displaced. Only a positive and vigorous governmental effort 

 can interrupt this process, and one of the effects of such an effort 

 would be to diminish the incomes of the class that today provides 

 much of the leadership in the LDCs. The alternative course — ^merely 

 permitting surplus ex-farm labor to aggregate as urban unemployed — 

 invites grave dissatisfactions, tensions, and organized insurrection. 

 These consequences are primarily domestic, but assuredly have diplo- 

 matic aspects. It would seem prudent to recognize these early rather 

 than late. 



i«U.S. Department of Agriculture. "The Farm Index," (July, 1971), page 3. 



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