Food versus Feed and the Dynamics of the World Food Situation: Discussion

Abstract

A comprehensive picture of the world food situation must account specifically for the three strategic claimants of the world's food supplies: the less developed countries (LDCs), the USSR, and the People's Republic of China. The three papers, respectively by Mellor, Desai, and Tang, do a creditable job in putting the three components in place. Do they also manage jointly to provide an accurate picture of the dynamics of the world food situation? Past experience with similar global projections is sombering. This paper postcasts the record of the recent years, by using the methodology implicit in the authors' projections, for the purpose of seeking explanations for the frailty of global food forecasts. The starting point of projections makes the time derivative of food a function of the time