Food Supplies in Relation to Human Needs Part 1. Requirements for Health

This book is a collection of lectures on population and agricultural prospects delivered in Cambridge University, England, during 1966 and 1967 by a group of scholars with diverse backgrounds. Some of them are demographers and economists, some others are nutritionists and physiologists. Probably because of the specific nature of the population problem and food supply or perhaps because these lectures were not originally prepared with the intention of publishing them together in a book form, there appears to be a lot of repetition of ideas by the individual lecturers. The book is, however, interesting as it covers all the important aspects of the population problem and the problem of keeping up food supply.

The annual global amount of water consumed to produce food ranges from 600,000 to 2.5 million liters per capita depending on food habits and food waste generation. Humans need approximately 2–3 L of water daily to maintain health, but only 0.01% of the world’s water is drinkable. Food supplies cannot be generated without land, water, and energy use. The current use of water for production of food is most concerning and requires immediate and increased awareness. Minimal attention has been devoted to the increasing water scarcity and loss of drinking water. Food waste also contains water and therefore also adds to water scarcity that is affecting almost 4 billion people. We summarize the human need of water, its significance for life and for the production, processing, and consumption of foods. This review includes an examination of the history of water; the unique properties of water for sustaining life; water for food production including agriculture, horticulture, and mariculture; the properties of water exploited in food processing; water scarcity due to water demands exceeding availability or access; and its consequences for our world. Means to reduce water scarcity, including using water treatment and promoting change of human habits, are discussed. The future of water and the recommendations for action are proposed for decreasing water scarcity and reducing water use during food production, food processing, food preparation, and consumption.

These eight essays from Cambridge University describe clearly, without oversimplification, the fundamental factors governing food production and population growth. They emphasize that increasing cost, rather than productive capacity or distribution, limits food production throughout the world. Arable land can not be increased appreciably because the irrigation of deserts and the conversion of rain forests to rice paddies is very expensive. Increased food supplies depend, therefore, primarily upon the increased productivity of land now under cultivation, and this requires costly machines and fertilizers. Thus, food becomes progressively more expensive. Only through industrial growth, increased wealth per capita, and a sound economy can poorer countries produce, or buy, more food. The rich countries can assist, but not support, the poor ones. The United States, short of water and doubling its population within 50 years, is no longer a world granary. Increased food production, made possible by comparably increased industrial wealth, could supply

Population and Food Supply. Essays on Human Needs and Agricultural Prospects

Food Supplies in Relation to Human Needs Part 3. Signs and Symptoms of Deficiency Diseases

Book reviewed in this article: Population and Food Supply: Essays on Human Needs and Agricultural Problems. Edited by Sir Joseph Hutchinson. Cambridge University Press. Farming in Britain Today. By J. G. S. and Frances Donaldson. Allen Lane, Penguin Press, Hardmondsworth, Middlesex. 1969. Environment and Land Use in Africa. Edited by M. F. Thomsas and G. W. Whittington. Methuen, London. 1969. Problems and Approaches in Planning Agricultural Development. Proceedings of the Joint German Foundation/E.C.A./F.A.O. Seminar, Addis Ababa. 1967. Cotton and the Egyptian Economy, 1820–1914. By E. R. J. Owen. Clarendon Press: Oxford University Press. 1969. The Economy of the Private Woodland in Great Britain. By R. Llorrain‐Smith. Commonwealth Forestry Institute, Oxford. Institute Paper No. 40. 1969. Report on the Marketing of Scottish Seed Potatoes. By F. G. Hay. National Farmers' Union of Scotland. 1969. Agricultural and Food Statistics—A Guide to Official Sources. Studies in official statistics No. 14. Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food. H.M.S.O., London. 1969. Food Statistics. A Guide to the Major Official and Unofficial U.K. sources. (Compiled by A. W. Ashby). National Economic Development Office. Die landwirtschaftlichen Betriebsgrössen in der Sowjetunion in Statistik und Theorie. (The size of agricultural undertakings in the Soviet Union in statistics and theory.) By Ivan Lončarević. Otoo Harrassowitz, Wiesbaden. (No. 45, Giessen Studies of E. European agricultural and economic research.) 1969. Wörterbuch der Landwirtschaft—Ergänzungsband Russisch. By Nikolai Pas'chin. BLV Verlagsgesellschaft, Munich. 1969.

Agrarian Change and Economic Development: The Historical Problems, The Role of Agriculture in Economic Development: A Conference of the Universities—National Bureau Committee for Economic Research, Agricultural Development: Planning and Implementation (Israel Case Study), Cooperation and Integration in Agricultural Production: Concepts and Practical Application: An International Synopsis, Population and Food Supply: Essays on Human Needs and Agricultural Prospects, Starvation or Plenty?

Food is central to our existence. We are keen to know about it as we are vulnerable to its lack. Biodiversity is directly affected by the human need for food. Foley, in a lead paper in National Geographic, identifies that agriculture accelerates the loss of biodiversity and that agriculture is a major driver of wildlife extinction. In the increasing concern for the animals raised and slaughtered for human food on an industrial scale, the question of the number of species, rather than the number of individuals, hardly ever enters the debate. Yet this is a point of considerable zoological interest. The lack of diversity of food options strikes a zoologist as basis for concern about how we can manage the future of our food supplies. Zooarchaeologist Juliet Clutton-Brock adds a new dimension to the debate by looking at the arrival of animals as domesticates. In Europe, she says, the driving force of domesticating animals for agriculture may have been the increasing human population. The grim story of famine in Ethiopia will repeat across the globe as the human population rises, and food crises will become the ethical flashpoint of a larger problem of too many people for the earth to sustain. We need to face the converse of the food shortage more squarely, and that is the issue of the overabundance of people. An underlying concern for zoologists is that the subject areas of zoology, such as species survival, ecosystem management and conserving biodiversity, are poorly covered, or not even mentioned, in so many writings on food, food ethics, agriculture and economic growth, yet zoology needs to be on the table at every discussion. The zoologist has been a missing voice and now must be heard.

Food industry and engineering—Quo vadis?

Population and Food Supply. Essays on Human Needs and Agricultural Prospects, edited by J. Hutchinson, 1969, VII p. 144 p., 30/-.

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Population and food supply: HUTCHINSON, Joseph, ed. (1969): Essays on Human Needs and Agricultural Prospects. 144 pp., illus. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. US $ 4.95; 30s

David Rieff The Reproach of Hunger: Food, Justice, and Money in the Twenty-First Century New York: Simon and Schuster, 2015. xxviii + 402 p. $27.00; $18.96 (pbk).

You Are What You Eat

Population and Food Supply. Essays on Human Needs and Agricultural Prospects