Food Production: Problems and Prospects 3 



annual rate of 2.8 percent, while population growth was 2.0 per- 

 cent per annum. Thus per capita food production expanded at an 

 average annual rate of 0.8 percent.' Over that period, production 

 expanded in all eight regions in figure 1.1. Per capita production 

 was at worst constant— in Africa— and at best growing at 2.2 per- 

 cent per annum in East Europe. The potential for growth was 

 greater in the West, but market forces and public regulations 

 have limited further expansion of food supply in West Europe, 

 and particularly in North America. 



The increasing production of food is the consequence of a 

 worldwide process of expansion of arable land and of continuing 

 intensification of agriculture. One of the main components of this 

 process is the increasing use of fertilizers, following substantial 

 reductions in their prices resulting from technological improve- 

 ments in the chemical industry (Sahota 1968). Between 1950 and 

 1970, fertilizer consumption in the world grew fivefold at an 

 average rate of 8.5 percent per annum, increasing much more 

 than food production in all eight regions (figure 1.1). Other, less 

 well-documented aspects of the intensification process are ex- 

 panded irrigation facilities, multiple cropping, better varieties, 

 and greater inputs of power and energy from human labor, 

 animals, and machines. 



A more detailed analysis of the intensification process of 

 agricultural production is presented in table 1.1, in which growth 

 of grain production is decomposed into the contribution of in- 

 creased area and increased yields. Over the period 1950-71, world 

 cereal production grew 2.5 percent per annum, area 1.5, and yield 

 1.0. Worldwide, the rate of increase of yield accelerated over this 

 period: the average for the period was 1.0 percent. During the 

 shorter 1959-71 subperiod the yield increase was 1.7 percent, 

 while for the last subperiod of 1965-71 it was 2.9 percent. On the 

 other hand, area planted to field crops grew at a decelerating rate. 

 Consequently, the importance of yield increases grew with time. 



1. Trends in total agricultural production have been very similar to trends in 

 food production surveyed in this section. It should perhaps also be added that per 

 capita food production is only a crude indicator of the food situation (see Poleman 

 and Freebairn, 1973). 



