World Food Supply

A

United States, Canada, and Western Europe

Food supply in the United States, Canada, and Western Europe is ample, mainly because these regions have abundant natural resources and sufficient wealth to afford modern agricultural technology. These nations produce a surplus of food, and donate a significant amount, mostly grain, to poor countries. In addition to a dependable supply of beef, pork, poultry, cheese, milk, eggs, corn, wheat, and rice, Western Europe, the United States and Canada enjoy year-round consumption of fresh fruits and vegetables. The United States imports tomatoes and zucchini from Mexico, plums and peaches from Chile, and bananas from Honduras. The United States also exports a variety of fruits and vegetables to many other countries. The United States leads other counties in exports of wheat and corn. While wheat is exported primarily for human consumption, corn is exported to feed livestock to Japan, Taiwan, Mexico, and Korea.

The food supply in the United States is enough to provide 128 percent of required daily calories for every person in the country. However, these calories are not distributed evenly. According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), about 11 percent of the 109 million households in the United States could not afford enough nutritionally balanced food in 2002. In about 3.8 million of these households, at least one adult was chronically hungry. In about 265,000 households, children as well as adults suffered from hunger. As in other industrialized countries, food insecurity in the United States is tied to poverty rather than low food production.

B

Africa

A variety of historical and contemporary forces prevent many African countries from attaining food security. The slave trade, for example, which lasted from the 15th century to the early 19th century, profoundly disrupted many African societies. Also, the political, economic, and social domination, or colonization, by other countries significantly altered traditional agricultural systems throughout Africa. Colonialists replaced the most fertile peasant farms with plantations designed to provide sugar, coffee, cocoa, tea, peanuts, rubber, cotton, and other commodities for export to their own countries. The rich farmlands of Ghana, for example, once the site of abundant yam production, were transformed into cocoa plantations.

Africa still has European-owned plantations and farms, where a variety of products are grown for export. When plantations were established, many peasant farmers were displaced to farmlands where poor soil or steep terrain made survival by traditional farming methods difficult to achieve. African leaders who replaced the colonial administrations did not always institute necessary reforms, further hobbling the ability of their countries to achieve food security.

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Today, these forces, combined with inefficient agricultural techniques, droughts, and civil wars, make food supply very precarious in Africa, the only continent where food production has not kept pace with population. The number of chronically undernourished people in sub-Saharan Africa more than doubled between 1970 and 1990. By the beginning of the 21st century, 25 African countries, including Eritrea, Ethiopia, Democratic Republic of Congo, and Zimbabwe, had acute food shortages requiring emergency assistance.

C

Former Soviet Republics and Central Europe

Wars, political disruption, and environmental damage from agriculture and industrial pollution have reduced food production during the past decade in Central Europe. Although grain was exported before the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) broke up in 1991, it is now imported, and many countries in this region—Bosnia-Herzegovina, Armenia, and Tajikistan, for example—need more emergency food aid than is available. These countries require an almost 40 percent increase in grain production to regain their former productivity.

D

China

Steady economic growth and progressive agricultural policies have reduced undernourishment in China from 45 percent, or about 500 million people, in 1970 to 11 percent, or about 135 million people, at the beginning of the 21st century. Many newly prosperous Chinese prefer pork, beef, eggs, and cheese instead of traditional meals of rice and vegetables. To meet demand for animal products, the number of livestock is increasing, as is the percentage of grain grown to feed livestock. As a result, China’s grain needs—also increasing because of population growth—are expected to rise by 43 percent in coming years, but its capacity to produce grain will grow by only 31 percent. By 2020, China may import great quantities of grain, increasing the demand for limited global supplies. The increased demand from China may result in soaring prices, preventing poorer countries from importing the grain they need.

E

Other Asian Countries

In the past 20 years, civil wars, natural disasters, and the perpetuation of terrible poverty have caused serious food supply problems in Afghanistan, where 70 percent of the population is undernourished, and Mongolia, where 38 percent are undernourished. Of all the countries in this region, however, India has the highest number of undernourished individuals—214 million people, or 21 percent of the population. This is a significant reduction from 1970, however, when the figure was 36 percent. Increased grain production, largely the result of green revolution technology, has improved food security. India is in the middle of an economic reform that promises to help meet future food needs by increasing personal income, although agricultural production is growing very slowly. The legacy of colonialism in India, Sri Lanka, Vietnam, Cambodia, Myanmar (formerly Burma), Laos, Malaysia, and Indonesia interferes with food security to different degrees in each country.

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