far the most important — wheat, rice, corn, sorghums, 

 millets, oats, barley, and so on. They are grown on 

 approximately half of the cultivated land area of the 

 world. They have the great advantage that our friend 

 here from Burlington Northern can ship them hither 

 and yon more cheaply than most other kinds of food, 

 because they are low in moisture and they can be 

 stored much more easily than perishables And this 

 lends to developing our vast quantity of international 

 trade. 



In addition to these are grains, legumes, pulses, 

 sugars, oil seeds, vegetables, fruits. And then we 

 come to the animal products, all kinds, meats, 

 cheese, milk, eggs. And finally to those things that 

 we call beverages, tea, coffee, Coca-Cola 



it is a vast array. And all of them are important 

 Some are more important in one part of the world 

 than in others. Much of our feed grain, for example, 

 is converted to meat, milk and eggs This is a luxury 

 that cannot be afforded in many of the developing 

 nations, where more of their food is consumed directly 

 from grain 



"Based on the best evidence, it's only 



been 12,000 years since agriculture 



was discovered — a recent 



development/' 



What IS the amount of food that is needed? With- 

 out correcting for grain in 1975 when the world 

 achieved a population of 4 billion people, the total 

 production was 3.3 billion metric tons — quite a pile. 



Now let's take a look at what this growth in 

 demand has been and what it is likely to be for the 

 next several decades. 



Before we do that, we have to set the stage a bit 

 The planet Earth is about 5 billion years old and the 

 photosynthesis that we all depend on, either directly 

 or indirectly, for our food, based on the best evidence 

 available, is also very old The blue-green algae 

 seems to have been in existence 3.2 billion years 

 ago — not the day before yesterday. 



Man was a "Johnny-come-lately" species to this 

 planet Earth. So far as we know now, only 3 to 5 

 million years ago, and by the time he arrived, probably 

 98-99 percent of all of the species that had ever 

 existed on this earth had become extinct. 



So when we talk about endangered species, let us 

 be careful. I think we have got some very great elitists 



with a great deal of political lobbying power that are 

 disturbing the total picture as to what is going to hap- 

 pen to the planet Earth and its life system. 



Now, it IS important to understand something about 

 growth in human numbers in order to see what we are 

 likely to be confronted with in the future. Man seemed 

 to wander around most of his existence on earth as a 

 hunter and collector of wild plants and a hunter of wild 

 animals and of fish Based on the best evidence, it's 

 only been 12,000 years since agriculture was discov- 

 ered — a recent development When we stop to 

 think about this tremendous development in that short 

 period of time, I think we should all take a great deal 

 of pleasure in this accomplishment. 



At the time of the discovery of agriculture, there 

 were about 15 million people on Earth From then 

 until the time of the Christian era, population doubled 

 four times to arrive at 250 million at the time of Christ. 

 Since then, up to 1975, it doubled four more times. 



We should look at the size of the populations we 

 are doubling and the periods that it required to 

 double The first doubling after Christ took 1,650 

 years to bring us to 500 million people in the year 

 1650, approximately The next doubling we did in 

 only 200 years 



By the year 1850, it had brought us to the dawn of 

 medicine. We understood something about infectious 

 diseases, we took better care of our children, and, 

 also, nutrition was improving because of improvements 

 in agriculture So arrived in 1850 the dawn of 

 medicine with a billion people. The next billion took 

 only 80 years This brought us to 1930, shortly 

 before the advent of sulfa drugs and antibiotics, which 

 again greatly reduced infant mortality. All of these 

 increased longevity, in part because of better nutrition. 



The last doubling to 4 billion took us just 45 years 



What lies ahead? Population growth has been 

 slowed in many countries, but in others it is still going 

 on at a rapid rate Sadly, in many of the developing 

 nations, where already hunger, lack of education, lack 

 of employment are very great, where population prob- 

 lems are greatest. The political leaders there have 

 their hands full. 



What is the outlook? Let us assume that a popula- 

 tion of 4 billion — and we are about 4.5 billion right 

 now — will double: if we are pessimistic in 40 years, 

 by the year 2015; if you want to take the choice of 

 something a little less difficult to deal with, 2035, 60 

 years; if you want to be optimistic, 2065 Be it 40, 60, 

 or 80 years, we are going to have to increase food 

 production to maintain the adequate per capita food 

 consumption at the level it was in 1975, when there 



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