World overpopulation and famine

One of the single largest threats to the planet is its over population, which is getting closer to seven billion every year. This desperate problem which is being largely ignored at the moment because of the climate issues that preoccupy the public and their governments, is far more serious than climate change – and that is because we have time to implement climate change policies, but the population increase is on going from month to month.

What compounds the population crisis is that the world population increase is in the areas of the world which cannot manage the large number of extra citizens. In spite of initiatives – such as the one child per couple in China, a dubious policy that created an odd surfeit of males children because of the way that the Chinese people chose to circumvent the laws related to this policy, the population continues to spiral out of control.

What can be done about the increase of the world’s population is unclear, but as with climate change, if something isn’t done soon the life on earth for all will be dreadful, and surely we humans should care about the quality of the life they lead.

As the populations of the planet increase it is worrying to note that the production of food is actually dropping. The undeveloped nations struggle to feed their populations, and some such as Zimbabwe starve their people because of government policies and of course areas that once produce food are polluted or flooded with seawater. This situation can only make life worse for all members of the human race.

But there is a more worrying issue that has come to light, and that is the wish of large companies to control food production. Vast areas of the satellite nations of the exSoviet Union which were left fallow after the Soviets withdrew are being bought by multinational companies and turned back to farmland.

It is the belief of those multinational companies and some whom study their activities, that the single most important and expensive commodity in ten to twenty years time, won’t be Oil or Gas or Gold or even Uranium. It will be food – especially the cereals that are being grown in ever larger quantities in these exSoviet countries like the Ukraine – which was the bread basket of the Soviet Union at one point in history – and will become the bread basket of the world, but of course at a price and you can guarantee that the price will be very, very high.

So unless the undeveloped countries can get their growing population numbers under control, the price of food will create a number of problems. Firstly, the poorest nations with the biggest populations won’t be able to feed them without even more aid than they already receive – and would you believe for all of their technological and exporting prowess, China and India still get aid from the developed counties of the world?

Secondly, the desperate shortage of food that the vast populations of the world will create will mean that the new elite are the agribusiness who will be able to dictate government policy, and of course in the long run decide who lives and who dies.

Filed Under: World & Culture