The following is a Jay Hanson clip from a Worldwatch book review. To Visit the WorldWatch Institute page review of Who will Feed China go to WorldWatch

Farmers also often lose in the competition for land. During the five years since 1990, the diversion of
cropland to nonfarm uses has offset gains in land productivity, preventing any growth in the grain
harvest. When Japan went through the stage of development that China is now entering, cropland
losses overrode gains in land productivity, leading to a 32 percent decline in the grain harvest
between 1960 and 1994. 

"If China is to avoid a similar decline in grain production, it must either do a better job than Japan has
done of protecting its cropland," says Brown, "or it must raise land productivity much faster than
Japan did. Both will be difficult." 

If China is able to somehow outperform Japan and hold the decline in production to, say, only one
fifth by 2030, then, assuming no further improvements in diet, population growth alone would push
grain imports up to 200 million tons in 2030, an amount roughly equal to this year's world grain
exports. 

If China continues moving up the food chain, raising its total grain use from just under 300 kilograms
per person at present to 400 kilograms in the year 2030, roughly the same as that of Taiwan, or half
the 800 kilograms consumed in the United States, it will need to import some 369 million tons of
grain in 2030. 

Can China afford to import massive quantities of grain?, the author asks. The answer is, "Yes."
China's trade surplus with the United States alone of nearly $30 billion in 1994 was sufficient to buy
all grain exported by all exporting countries last year. 

Brown says the more difficult question is, "Who can supply grain on this scale?" The answer is, "No
one." If China's rapid industrialization continues, its import demand will soon overwhelm the export
capacity of the United States and other grain-exporting countries. In addition to China, more than
100 countries depend on the United States for grain, including many others whose needs are also
rising rapidly. 

"With its grain imports climbing, China's rising grain prices are now becoming the world's rising grain
prices. As the slack goes out of the world food economy, China's land scarcity will become
everyone's land scarcity," says Brown. "As irrigation water losses force it to import more grain, its
water scarcity will become the world's water scarcity." 

See also: FULL HOUSE and THE LAST OASIS by Worldwatch Institute. Also see: THE
MILLENNIUM INSTITUTE: Food and Land. 

DWELLERS IN THE LAND, by Kirkpatrick Sale, 1991, New Society Pub. Phone:
800-253-3605 ISBN 0-86571-225-5 

OVERSHOOT by Catton, 1982, University of Illinois Press. Phone: 800-545-4703; FAX:
217-244-8082. ISBN 0-252-00988-6 


SAN ANTONIO, Tex., Feb 6, 1996 (Reuter) - A "truly monumental" turnaround in Chinese grain
trade caused China to become a net importer of feed grains in 1994 and will push purchases up
more than 450 percent to 17.6 million tonnes by 2004, the U.S. Feed Grains Council said in its
10-year Outlook Report. 

Three major factors were said to be primarily responsible for China's switch in its export-import
balance—a drop in China's grain production in 1994, expanding grain consumption, and a hoarding
of grain by individuals and local governments. 

Demand in China is strong for both food grains and meat proteins and is increasing rapidly, said the
report. Growth in consumption is expected to outpace any increases in yield and production, and
population growth will continue to generate "significant new demand," the report said. China's
expanding economy wil continue to fuel demand for improved diets and more livestock and dairy
products that require additional feed grains to produce. Pork production is seen rising 45 percent in
the next ten years, it said. 


LONDON, Feb 21, 1966 (Reuter) - Asia will account for 75 percent of growth in global grain
imports between 1995 and 2000, of which 50 percent will be in China, a USDA expert said on
Monday. 

Speaking at the Annual Agra-Europe Conference in London U.S. Department of Agriculture
(USDA) Asia researcher William Coyle said a substantial gap between consumption and production
was developing in Asia. 

He predicted a deficit of over 80 million tonnes by 2005 in China alone - a dramatic shift for a
country that in 1992/93 was the world's second biggest exporter of corn. 

ASEAN countries, like China, would experience a growing gap in grain consumption and
production. 

But rice output is seen rising in those countries, because of higher yields and increased production
areas, Coyle said. 


LONDON, March 12, 1966 (Reuter) - The international grain market was thrown into confusion on
Tuesday when discovery of a fungus in Arizona forced the United States to suspend wheat exports
to 21 nations. 

America is expected to sell about 33.5 million tonnes of wheat or one-third of world trade this year. 

It halted many deliveries even as global grain stocks stood at 20-year lows after drought in Australia
and North Africa. Prices are already higher than at any time since the late 1970s when Soviet Russia
made huge raids on the world market. 

But some experts predicted that Tuesday's U.S. action might not be very dramatic if, as reports
suggested, only durum seed wheat in Arizona was affected by the karnal bunt fungus. 

"It's amber light rather than red," said a top London-based grain expert. U.S. officials said the fungus
looked confined to Arizona but other areas were being checked. 

European grain traders said that wheat prices would soar across the globe, except in the United
States, if the extent of the problem is found to require any prolonged export freeze. 

Traders said the fungus damages the wheat. "It makes it stink like fishmeal" one said. 

[snip] 


BEYOND OIL forecasts that a major consequence of our oil vulnerability is that between 2007 and
2025 the US will cease to be a food exporter, due primarily to rising domestic demand, topsoil loss,
food production inefficiencies, and shortages of costly petroleum used in agriculture—to say nothing
of feared climate change problems. 

BEYOND OIL, by Gever, et al., 1991, Univ. Press of Colorado, 800-268-6044 or
303-530-5337 ISBN 0-87081-242-4 


                               GIGADEATH 

BALTIMORE (Feb. 9, 1996)—If humans can't control the explosive population growth in the
coming century, disease and starvation will do it, Cornell University ecologists have concluded from
an analysis of Earth's dwindling resources. 

A grim future—without enough arable land, water and energy to grow food for 12 billion people—is
all but inevitable and all too soon, a worried David Pimentel today (Feb. 9) told an American
Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) session on "How Many People Can the Earth
Support?" "Environmentally sound agricultural technologies will not be sufficient to ensure adequate
food supplies for future generations unless the growth of human population is simultaneously
curtailed," the Cornell professor of ecology said, speaking for researchers who produced the report,
"Impact of Population Growth on Food Supplies and Environment." 

The "optimum population" that the Earth can support with a comfortable standard of living is less
than 2 billion, including fewer than 200 million people in the United States, the Cornell scientist
noted. But if the world population reaches 12 billion, as it is predicted to in 50 years, as many as 3
billion people will be malnourished and vulnerable to disease, the Cornell analysis of resources
determined. The planet's agricultural future—with declining productivity of cropland—can be seen in
China today, Pimentel suggested. 

China now has only 0.08 hectare (ha) of cropland per capita, compared to the worldwide average
of 0.27 ha per capita and the 0.5 ha per capita considered minimal for the diverse diet currently
available to residents of the United States and Europe. Nearly one-third of the world's cropland has
been abandoned during the past 40 years because erosion makes it unproductive, he said. 

Competition for dwindling supplies of clean water is intensifying, too, the Cornell ecologists

concluded. Agricultural production consumes more fresh water than any other human
activity—about 87 percent—and 40 percent of the world's people live in regions that directly
compete for water that is being consumed faster than it is replenished. Further, water shortages
exacerbate disease problems, the ecologists' analysis pointed out. About 90 percent of the diseases
in developing countries result from a lack of clean water. Worldwide, about 4 billion cases of disease
are contracted from water each year and approximately 6 million people die from water-borne
disease, Pimentel said. "When people are sick with diarrhea, malaria or other serious disease,
anywhere from 5 to 20 percent of their food intake is lost to stress of the disease," he said. 

Prices of fossil fuels will rise as the world's supplies are depleted. While the United States can afford
to import more petroleum when its reserves are exhausted in the next 15 to 20 years, developing
countries cannot, Pimentel said. "Already, the high price of imported fossil fuel makes it difficult, if
not impossible, for poor farmers to power irrigation and provide for fertilizers and pesticides," he
said. The analysis was conducted by Pimentel, professor of entomology and of ecology in the
College of Agriculture and Life Sciences at Cornell; Xuewen Huang, a visiting scholar in the
agriculture college; Ana Cordova, a graduate student in the agriculture college; and Marcia Pimentel,
a researcher in Cornell's Division of Nutritional Sciences. 

The ecologists pointed to two alarming trends: At the same time that world population is growing
geometrically, the per capita availability of grains, which make up 80 percent of the world's food, has
been declining for the past 15 years. Food exports from the few countries that now have resources
to produce surpluses will cease when every morsel is needed to feed their growing populations, the
ecologists predicted. That will cause economic discomfort for the United States, which counts on
food exports to help its balance of payments. But the real pain will wrack nations that can't grow
enough, Pimentel said. "When global biological and physical limits to domestic food production are
reached, food importation will no longer be a viable option for any country," he said. "At that point,
food importation for the rich can only be sustained by starvation of the powerless poor." 

EDITORS: David Pimentel can be reached at 607-255-2212.
Cornell University News Service, 840 Hanshaw Road, Ithaca, NY 14850
Phone: 607-255-4206; FAX: 607-257-6397cunews@cornell.edu