EcoSummit Expert Talks Family Planning

The Columbus EcoSummit brought together experts from all over the world to talk about ecology, sustainability and how we can work together to protect the place we all live. You know, our planet.

But one crucial topic has been mostly absent: Population growth, and how on Earth we’re going to feed everyone. That changed on Thursday morning as Lester R. Brown, president of the Earth Policy Institute, took the stage.


Lester Brown

“We are in transition from an age of food surplus to one of food scarcity,” Brown said, but “some people are affected much more than others.”

People who live high on the food chain (including Americans) feel the effects of high grain prices less. If grain prices go up, we might pay $2.10 for a loaf of bread instead of $2. But that change is a huge hit to people who rely on grain for most of their diets and spend a larger percentage of their incomes on food.

In Nigeria, 27 percent of families are planning “foodless days” every week, Brown said. In Peru, it’s 14 percent.

“Food is the new oil, and land is the new gold,” he said.

Demand-side pressures on food production include population growth – 219,000 more people at the world’s dinner table every night – the use of grain for fuel, and increasing meat consumption, Brown said. The average Indian eats 400 pounds of grain per year. The average American eats the equivalent of 1600 pounds of grain per year – much of it in the form of feed to raise animal products we consume.

Just growing more food isn’t an option, either. Half of humans are living in places with water shortages, Brown said. Saudi Arabia used to grow all the grain it needed for its own population. But the nation has pumped its aquifers dry and will end grain production by 2016. Here in the United States, Texas and California are experiencing water shortages.

On top of that, research shows that photosynthesis – the process plants use to turn solar energy into chemical energy – stops entirely when the temperature gets high enough (global warming, anyone?) Increased soil erosion is leading to a new era of dust bowls and dust storms. And we may have hit an agricultural “glass ceiling,” Brown said. Wheat yields in France, Germany and the United Kingdom have plateaued, and farmers are using all currently available technologies to increase harvests.

Brown joked that he has the reputation of a doom monger. Former Illinois Sen. Paul Simon once said of Brown’s books that “Once you put it down, you can’t pick it up again.”

But there’s no need to curl up in a ball under your desk and whimper. Brown also offers solutions – if we’re willing to pursue them. Here is Brown’s prescription for feeding everyone:

• Raise water productivity. Irrigation uses 80% of available water. We need to rethink agriculture in an era of water scarcity and figure out ways to make every gallon go as far as possible. 
• Stabilize population and eradicate poverty. Filling the “family planning gap” for the 222 million women in developing nations who don’t have access to family planning would help the world shift to smaller families, which in turn reduces poverty, which in turn leads to smaller families.
• Cut carbon emissions – and fast. Brown wants something on the level of a “wartime mobilization” to cut carbon emissions 80% by 2020. Our food security depends on shuttering coal-fired power plants and moving toward wind energy and electric cars – which could charge at night while demand is the lowest. 

The real threats to our nation aren’t other nations, Brown said. The real threats are climate change, population growth, rising food prices, political instability and failing states. And family planning will help humanity meet the challenge.

We wholeheartedly agree!

Feeding World Will Take All of Us

By John Seager, Population Connection President

American farmers feed the world. But what happens to the world if they no longer can because of events beyond their control?

This might not be a hypothetical question much longer.

America’s growers are being devastated by the worst drought since the 1950s – and the hottest summer since 1936. Instead of the record corn crop farmers planted, we’re looking at record losses. A map from the U.S. Department of Agriculture shows that the breadbasket of the nation is over-baked indeed.

Drought is ravaging corn crops in the Midwest. (Paul Bica/flickr)

As Lester Brown, president of the Earth Policy Institute, told the British paper, The Guardian: “Although the world was hoping for a good U.S. harvest to replenish dangerously low grain stocks, this is no longer in the cards. World carryover stocks of grain will fall further at the end of this crop year, making the food situation even more precarious.”

It’s not just our disaster. Hungry mouths around the world depend on our farmers.

In the past, the world has relied on advancing technologies – the so-called “Green Revolution.”  New seed varieties and additional fertilizer and irrigation allowed for amazing increases in yield. But those increases in yield are slowing down. The best land is already in production. Returns on using more fertilizer are diminishing and subject to rising oil prices as concerns over fossil fuel emissions mount. And as the water needs of cities grow, the cost to irrigate crop land will keep on climbing.  

Meanwhile, our human population keeps growing. There are 150 new mouths to feed every minute. Most of that growth is happening in the least-developed nations – the nations least able to feed themselves.

Keeping everyone fed – and avoiding a global disaster – is going to take a worldwide effort. American farmers will do everything they can – they always have. We can help them out by making sure every woman who wants to plan her family has the ability to do so.

According to the Guttmacher Institute, there are 222 million women in developing countries who want to avoid pregnancy but have no access to affordable and appropriate contraception. Right here in the United States, nearly half of all pregnancies are unintended. By meeting the need for family planning, we’ll be able to slow population growth, reduce the economic strain on individual families and help ensure that our farmers can continue to feed the world.

The United States has long supported voluntary international family planning – we invested $610 million in 2012 alone. But opposition is increasing in some political quarters. Reducing that investment now would be disastrous for families and our fiscal future. Estimates are that every dollar invested in family planning saves governments up to $6 in public service costs. Contraception pays for itself.

Americans will keep seeking agriculture innovations.  But in the meantime, we need to keep investing in the world’s women. Because when women do well, so do families, communities and nations, and everyone can be fed.