World Population and Food Supply and Demand Situation: Hearings Before the Subcommittee on Department Operations of the Committee on Agriculture, House of Representatives, Ninety-third Congress, Second Session, July 23, 24, and 25, 1974 |
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American areas assistance Bangladesh Butz Chairman Church World Service committee commodities concern CONGRESS THE LIBRARY consumers cost crop DENHOLM developing countries distribution drought economic effort energy Ethiopia exports family planning famine farm feed fertilizer fiscal food aid food and population food crisis food policy food prices food problem food production food security food shortage food situation food supply foreign funds GARZA global going grain reserves Green Revolution HENRIOT human hunger important improve increasing food India issues LA GARZA land LANDSBERG livestock MAIR major malnutrition MARTIN metric tons million tons nutrition PAARLBERG percent political poor population growth protein Public Law 480 question rates reserve stocks response Sahel SEBELIUS social soybeans statement subcommittee sulfur sulfur dioxide surplus Thank tion trade U.S. Government United Nations weather wheat World Food Conference World Food Program world food reserves World Population Conference
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Page 91 - Canada, per capita grain utilization is currently approaching one ton per year. Of this total, only about 150 pounds are consumed directly in the form of bread, pastries, and breakfast cereals. The remainder is consumed indirectly in the form of meat, milk, and eggs. The agricultural resources — land, water...
Page 133 - In recent years, the need to draw down grain reserves and to utilize the reserve of idled cropland has occurred with increasing frequency. This first happened during the food crisis years of 1966 and 1967 when world grain reserves were reduced to a dangerously low level and the United States brought back into production a small portion of the 50 million idle acres, and again in 1971, as a result of the corn blight in the United States.
Page 128 - Two major constraints are operative in the case of beef. Agricultural scientists have not been able to devise any commercially viable means of getting more than one calf per cow per year. For every animal that goes into the beef production process, one adult must be fed and otherwise maintained for a full year. There does not appear to be any prospect of an imminent breakthrough on this front.
Page 132 - ... capacity. The Indian subcontinent provides a third dramatic example of ecological overstress. Over the past generation, as human and livestock populations have grown, the subcontinent has been progressively deforested. This trend has increased the incidence and severity of floods. The situation is most serious in the Himalayas and...
Page 129 - But the principal constraint on efforts to expand world food supplies during the final years of this century may well be water rather than land. In many regions of the world, fertile agricultural land is still available — provided that water can be found to make it productive. But most of the rivers that lend themselves to damming and to irrigation have already been developed. The expansion of irrigated area is slowing as the more attractive sites are exhausted.
Page 139 - The world community of course also has a basic humanitarian interest in ensuring that famine does not occur in the densely populated low-income countries following a poor crop year — an assurance the affluent nations may be less able to provide in the future if the current system of autonomous, nationally oriented food planning is allowed to continue without modification. An important first step would be international adoption of the concept of "minimum world food security" proposed in early 1973...
Page 133 - ... idled under farm programs in the United States. Grain reserves, including substantial quantities of both foodgrains and feedgrains, are most commonly measured in terms of carryover stocks — the amount in storage at the time the new crop begins to come in.
Page 134 - It happened again in 1971 as a result of the corn blight in the United States. In 1973, in response to growing food scarcities, world grain reserves once more declined, and the United States again resorted to cultivating its idle cropland — but to a much greater extent than on either of the two previous occasions. Government decisions in early 1973 permitted much of the idled cropland to come back into production, and in 1974 no Government payments will be made for keeping cropland fallow.
Page 27 - In general. That has changed. The subject of food reserves clearly merits the kind of thorough discussion which can plac-e it in a rational, realistic perspective. We must get over the idea that there is something evil about reasonable rises and falls in food supplies and prices.
Page 132 - ... to rise every year. Many marine biologists now feel that the global catch of table-grade fish is at or near the maximum sustainable level.