
Norman Borlaug: How to Continue the Fight Against Hunger - rms
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121271006714350451.html
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Tichy
Not saying the starving masses don't need to be fed, but is enhanced food
production really a long-term solution? Seems to me no matter how much food
production is raised, population growth will eventually catch up.

That's assuming that there is a natural limit to the amount of food that can
be produced on the planet. Also, do we really want to reach that limit, or
maybe we all live more comfortable if we can stop population growth before
that?

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mhb
_Seems to me no matter how much food production is raised, population growth
will eventually catch up._

How do you reconcile this assertion with the negligible population growth in
many of the developed countries?

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Tichy
Well if you assume that population stops growing, there is no need to raise
the food production. Of course in theory population growth can be stopped. I
just meant that ever growing food production can not be the solution. Instead,
it would probably make more sense to focus on stopping population growth.

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mhb
It works the other way, though. People in less developed countries have kids
because they need them to produce food. When they know that they won't starve
without having many offspring, they have fewer.

Another way to look at it is that having a child in a less developed country
is closer to a net gain in terms of payback to the parent over the life of the
child. In developed countries, children are a big investment on which no one
expects to come close to breaking even.

