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Since the 1800s, machines have been replacing muscle, making work more productive. Machines and science have produced easier living, more wealth, leisure and better health care. Nations with the higher per capita GDP enjoy a higher average length of life. On average, people in Japan with a little over 81 years, and for every 1,000 live births only 3 infants die before the age of one year. China has a lower per capita GDP: $6,200 estimated for 2005. In China the average lifespan is 72 years and around 24 infants die for every 1,000 live births. Tanzania has a per capita GDP, estimated for 2005, of only $700. There the average life span is 45.25 years and an estimated 98 infants die per 1,000 births.
Agricultural development and inexpensive food has made affluence possible. Machines and larger farms improved agricultural production and now the most affluent societies have the smallest percentage of its population devoted to agriculture. In the United States 2.4 percent of the work force is in agriculture. The poorer countries are those with a greater percentage of people in animal husbandry and in growing food. In Sierra Leone, around 75 percent of the work force is in agriculture. And, typically, agriculture is largely subsistence - enough to feed one's family with little left for trade.
Between 1950 and 1984, agriculture advanced faster than ever before in human history. The world's grain harvests in those years increased 260 percent. Millions of acres were added to cultivated lands. Newer machines were used, with more fertilizer and better irrigation. Hybrid rice strains were planted that were more resistant to disease and pests. Between 1965 and 1984, world rice production almost doubled. Then the great agricultural boom ended. To the year 2000, agricultural production continued to grow, but more slowly than the world's population.
A number of countries are struggling with low per capita food production, aggravated by drought or other calamities that can be expected to occur periodically. Niger is one such country. Drought has been a common recurrence in Niger across the decades. Food production has been growing in Niger, as indicated by the yellow line in the chart on the right, but population growth has created a decline in the availability of food per person - the chart's green line. In 1998 per capita food production was almost half what it had been in 1961. In 1940 Niger's population was 2,070,000. In 1970 it was 4,024,000 inhabitants. Today it is 11,666,000.
The Philippines was one of the wealthier countries in Southeast Asia, but it has one of the faster growing populations in the Far East. Food production rose between 1960 and 2000, but not per capita food production, as indicated by the green line to the right. The population growth is about twice that of the United States and almost five times that of South Korea. The agricultural boom between 1960 and 2000 probably will not continue. And hunger in the Philippines already exists. A family of five must have two members working outside the home in order to feed itself. In 1986, when democracy returned to the Philippines, hopes were high that their lives would be transformed and that prosperity was on the horizon. Population growth has helped to prevent that prosperity.
In November, 2005, a new United Nations report, "The State of Food Security in the World," wrote of 75 percent of the world's hungry living in rural areas. It wrote of "physical and cognitive capacities ... impaired by low birth weight, protein-energy malnutrition and shortage of essential vitamins and minerals," and contributing to poverty. The report described data from India indicating that growth in agriculture has had a greater impact on reducing poverty than has urban and industrial growth.
1. Afghanistan
4.77%. Already a food aid recipient. 48% of children undernourished
(1995-2000).
2. Yemen, 3.45%. Imports
food paid for with oil exports.
3. Kuwait, 3.44%. Imports food paid for with oil exports.
4. Somalia, 3.38%. Extreme poverty. Aid recipient. Hunger today.
1.7 % of land arable. Livestock 40% of GDP.
5. Uganda, 3.38%.
Aid recipient. Exports only 47 percent of imports. Imports cereals.
6. Oman, 3.32%.
Imports food paid for with oil exports.
7. Madagascar, 3.03%.
Aid recipient. 619 persons per square kilometer of arable land. (U.S.= 168,
France 331)
8. Democratic Republic
of Congo, 2.98%. Imports food paid for with exports, which are 152 percent
of imports.
9. Chad, 2.95%.
Aid recipient. New oil production. Subsistence farming and livestock
support 80% of population.
10. Gambia, 2.93%.
Aid recipient. 637 persons per square kilometer of arable land.
Growth percentages are estimates for the year 2005.
SOURCE: CIA World Factbook, World Resources Institute
according to per capita Gross Domestic Product, are:
$300 Democratic
Republic of the Congo (2007 estimate)
$500 Zimbabwe (2007 estimate)
$500 Liberia (2007 estimate)
$600 Guinea Bissau (2007 estimate)
$600 Somalia (2007 estimate)
$600 Comoros (2002 estimate)
$600 Solomon Islands (2005 estimate)
$700 Ethiopia (2007 estimate)
$700 Niger (2007 estimate)
$700 Central African Republic (2007 estimate)
SOURCE: CIA World Factbook.
1. Swaziland, 38.8 5%
2. Botswana, 37.3%
3. Lesotho, 28.9%
4. Zimbabwe, 24.6%
5. South Africa, 21.5%
6. Namibia, 21.3%
7. Zambia, 16.5%
8. Malawi, 14.2%
9. Central African Republic, 13.5%
10. Mozambique 12.2%
These are estimates for the year 2003, except for Zimbabwe, for the year 2001. It includes ages 15 to 49.
SOURCE: CIA World Factbook.
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Copyright © 2006 by Frank E. Smitha. All rights reserved.