NATIONAL SECURITY COUNCIL

                      WASHINGTON, D.C. 20506

                                                      April 24, 1974

National Security Study Memorandum 200

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TO:      The Secretary of Defense

         The Secretary of Agriculture

         The Director of Central Intelligence

         The Deputy Secretary of State

         Administrator, Agency for International Development

SUBJECT: Implications of Worldwide Population Growth for U.S.

         Security and Overseas Interests

The President has directed a study of the impact of world population

growth on U.S. security and overseas interests.  The study should look

forward at least until the year 2000, and use several alternative

reasonable projections of population growth.

In terms of each projection, the study should assess:

  - the corresponding pace of development, especially in poorer

    countries;

  - the demand for US exports, especially of food, and the trade

    problems the US may face arising from competition for re-

    sources;  and

  - the likelihood that population growth or imbalances will

    produce disruptive foreign policies and international

    instability.

The study should focus on the international political and economic

implications of population growth rather than its ecological, socio-

logical or other aspects.

The study would then offer possible courses of action for the United

States in dealing with population matters abroad, particularly in

developing countries, with special attention to these questions:

  - What, if any, new initiatives by the United States are needed

    to focus international attention on the population problem?

  - Can technological innovations or development reduce

    growth or ameliorate its effects?

  - Could the United States improve its assistance in the population

    field and if so, in what form and through which agencies --

    bilateral, multilateral, private?

The study should take into account the President's concern that

population policy is a human concern intimately related to the

dignity of the individual and the objective of the United States is to

work closely with others, rather than seek to impose our views on

others.

The President has directed that the study be accomplished by the

NSC Under Secretaries Committee.  The Chairman, Under Secretaries

Committee, is requested to forward the study together with the

Committee's action recommendations no later than May 29,

1974 for consideration by the President.

                                        HENRY A. KISSINGER

cc:  Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff

                             NSSM 200:

            IMPLICATIONS OF WORLDWIDE POPULATION GROWTH

              FOR U.S. SECURITY AND OVERSEAS INTERESTS

                         December 10, 1974

                 CLASSIFIED BY Harry C. Blaney, III

          SUBJECT TO GENERAL DECLASSIFICATION SCHEDULE OF

             EXECUTIVE ORDER 11652 AUTOMATICALLY DOWN-

           GRADED AT TWO YEAR INTERVALS AND DECLASSIFIED

                       ON DECEMBER 31, 1980.

This document can only be declassified by the White House.

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                 Declassified/Released on    7/3/89

                                          -----------

                   under provisions of E.O. 12356

             by F. Graboske, National Security Council

CHAPTER I - WORLD DEMOGRAPHIC TRENDS

Introduction

     The present world population growth is unique. Rates of increase are much higher than in earlier centuries, they are more widespread, and have a greater effect on economic life, social justice, and -- quite likely -- on public order and political stability. The significance of population growth is enhanced because it comes at a time when the absolute size and rate of increase of the global economy, need for agricultural land, demand for and consumption of resources including water, production of wastes and pollution have also escalated to historically unique levels. Factors that only a short time ago were considered separately now have interlocking relationships, inter-dependence in a literal sense. The changes are not only quantitatively greater than in the past but qualitatively different. The growing burden is not only on resources but on administrative and social institutions as well.

     Population growth is, of course, only one of the important factors in this new, highly integrated tangle of relationships. However, it differs from the others because it is a determinant of the demand sector while others relate to output and supply. (Population growth also contributes to supply through provision of manpower; in most developing countries, however, the problem is not a lack of but a surfeit of hands.) It is, therefore, most pervasive, affecting what needs to be done in regard to other factors. Whether other problems can be solved depends, in varying degrees, on the extent to which rapid population growth and other population variables can be brought under control. Highlights of Current Demographic Trends      Since 1950, world population has been undergoing unprecedented growth. This growth has four prominent features:

     1. It is unique, far more rapid than ever in history.

     2. It is much more rapid in less developed than in developed regions.

     3. Concentration in towns and cities is increasing much more rapidly than overall population growth and is far more rapid in LDCs than in developed countries.      4. It has a tremendous built-in momentum that will inexorably double populations of most less developed countries by 2000 and will treble or quadruple their populations before leveling off -- unless far greater efforts at fertility control are made than are being made.

     Therefore, if a country wants to influence its total numbers through population policy, it must act in the immediate future in order to make a substantial difference in the long run.

     For most of man's history, world population grew very slowly. At the rate of growth estimated for the first 18 centuries A.D., it required more than 1,000 years for world population to double in size. With the beginnings of the industrial revolution and of modern medicine and sanitation over two hundred years ago, population growth rates began to accelerate. At the current growth rate (1.9 percent) world population will double in 37 years.

• By about 1830, world population reached 1 billion. The second billion was added in about 100 years by 1930. The third billion in 30 years by 1960. The fourth will be reached in 1975.

• Between 1750-1800 less than 4 million were being added, on the average, to the earth's population each year. Between 1850-1900, it was close to 8 million. By 1950 it had grown to 40 million. By 1975 it will be about 80 million.

     In the developed countries of Europe, growth rates in the last century rarely exceeded 1.0-1.2 percent per year, almost never 1.5 percent. Death rates were much higher than in most LDCs today. In North America where growth rates were higher, immigration made a significant contribution. In nearly every country of Europe, growth rates are now below 1 percent, in many below 0.5 percent. The natural growth rate (births minus deaths) in the United States is less than 0.6 percent. Including immigration (the world's highest) it is less than 0.7 percent.

     In less developed countries growth rates average about 2.4 percent. For the People's Republic of China, with a massive, enforced birth control program, the growth rate is estimated at under 2 percent. India's is variously estimated from 2.2 percent, Brazil at 2.8 percent, Mexico at 3.4 percent, and Latin America at about 2.9 percent. African countries, with high birth as well as high death rates, average 2.6 percent; this growth rate will increase as death rates go down.

     The world's population is now about 3.9 billion; 1.1 billion in the developed countries (30 percent) and 2.8 billion in the less developed countries (70 percent).

     In 1950, only 28 percent of the world's population or 692 million, lived in urban localities. Between 1950 and 1970, urban population expanded at a rate twice as rapid as the rate of growth of total population. In 1970, urban population increased to 36 percent of world total and numbered 1.3 billion. By 2000, according to the UN's medium variant projection, 3.2 billion (about half of the total) of world inhabitants will live in cities and towns.

     In developed countries, the urban population varies from 45 to 85 percent; in LDCs, it varies from close to zero in some African states to nearly 100 percent in Hong Kong and Singapore.

     In LDCs, urban population is projected to more than triple in the remainder of this century, from 622 million in 1970 to 2,087 in 2000. Its proportion in total LDC population will thus increase from 25 percent in 1970 to 41 percent in 2000. This implies that by the end of this century LDCs will reach half the level of urbanization projected for DCs (82 percent) (See Table I).

     The enormous built-in momentum of population growth in the less developed countries (and to a degree in the developed countries) is, if possible, even more important and ominous than current population size and rates of growth. Unlike a conventional explosion, population growth provides a continuing chain reaction. This momentum springs from (1) high fertility levels of LDC populations and (2) the very high percentage of maturing young people in populations. The typical developed country, Sweden for example, may have 25% of the population under 15 years of age. The typical developing country has 41% to 45% or its population under 15. This means that a tremendous number of future parents, compared to existing parents, are already born. Even if they have fewer children per family than their parents, the increase in population will be very great.

     Three projections (not predictions), based on three different assumptions concerning fertility, will illustrate the generative effect of this building momentum.

     a. Present fertility continued: If present fertility rates were to remain constant, the 1974 population 3.9 billion would increase to 7.8 billion by the hear 2000 and rise to a theoretical 103 billion by 2075.

     b. U.N. "Medium Variant": If present birth rates in the developing countries, averaging about 38/1000 were further reduced to 29/1000 by 2000, the world's population in 2000 would be 6.4 billion, with over 100 million being added each year. At the time stability (non-growth) is reached in about 2100, world population would exceed 12.0 billion.

     c. Replacement Fertility by 2000: If replacement levels of fertility were reached by 2000, the world's population in 2000 would be 5.9 billion and at the time of stability, about 2075, would be 8.4 billion. ("Replacement level" of fertility is not zero population growth. It is the level of fertility when couples are limiting their families to an average of about two children. For most countries, where there are high percentages of young people, even the attainment of replacement levels of fertility means that the population will continue to grow for additional 50-60 years to much higher numbers before leveling off.)

     It is reasonable to assume that projection (a) is unreal since significant efforts are already being made to slow population growth and because even the most extreme pro-natalists do not argue that the earth could or should support 103 billion people. Famine, pestilence, war, or birth control will stop population growth far short of this figure.

The U.N. medium variant (projection (b) has been described in a publication of the U.N. Population Division as "a synthesis of the results of efforts by demographers of the various countries and the U.N. Secretariat to formulate realistic assumptions with regard to future trends, in view of information about present conditions and past experiences." Although by no means infallible, these projections provide plausible working numbers and are used by U.N. agencies (e.g., FAO, ILO) for their specialized analyses. One major shortcoming of most projections, however, is that "information about present conditions" quoted above is not quite up-to-date. Even in the United States, refined fertility and mortality rates become available only after a delay of several years.

     Thus, it is possible that the rate of world population growth has actually fallen below (or for that matter increased from) that assumed under the U.N. medium variant. A number of less developed countries with rising living levels (particularly with increasing equality of income) and efficient family planning programs have experienced marked declines in fertility. Where access to family planning services has been restricted, fertility levels can be expected to show little change.

     It is certain that fertility rates have already fallen significantly in Hong King, Singapore, Taiwan, Fiji, South Korea, Barbados, Chile, Costa Rica, Trinidad and Tobago, and Mauritius (See Table 1). Moderate declines have also been registered in West Malaysia, Sri Lanka, and Egypt. Steady increases in the number of acceptors at family planning facilities indicate a likelihood of some fertility reduction in Thailand, Indonesia, the Philippines, Colombia, and other countries which have family planning programs. On the other hand, there is little concrete evidence of significant fertility reduction in the populous countries of India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, etc.1

     Projection (c) is attainable if countries recognize the gravity of their population situation and make a serious effort to do something about it.

     The differences in the size of total population projected under the three variants become substantial in a relatively short time.

     By 1985, the medium variant projects some 342 million fewer people than the constant fertility variant and the replacement variant is 75 million lower than the medium variant.

     By the year 2000 the difference between constant and medium fertility variants rises to 1.4 billion and between the medium and replacement variants, close to 500 million. By the year 2000, the span between the high and low series -- some 1.9 billion -- would amount to almost half the present world population.

     Most importantly, perhaps, by 2075 the constant variant would have swamped the earth and the difference between the medium and replacement variants would amount to 3.7 billion. (Table 2.) The significance of the alternative variants is that they reflect the difference between a manageable situation and potential chaos with widespread starvation, disease, and disintegration for many countries.

     Furthermore, after replacement level fertility is reached, family size need not remain at an average of two children per family. Once this level is attained, it is possible that fertility will continue to decline below replacement level. This would hasten the time when a stationary population is reached and would increase the difference between the projection variants. The great momentum of population growth can be seen even more clearly in the case of a single country -- for example, Mexico. Its 1970 population was 50 million. If its 1965-1970 fertility were to continue, Mexico's population in 2070 would theoretically number 2.2 billion. If its present average of 6.1 children per family could be reduced to an average of about 2 (replacement level fertility) by 1980-85, its population would continue to grow for about sixty years to 110 million. If the two-child average could be reached by 1990-95, the population would stabilize in sixty more years at about 22 percent higher -- 134 million. If the two-child average cannot be reached for 30 years (by 2000-05), the population at stabilization would grow by an additional 24 percent to 167 million.

     Similar illustrations for other countries are given below.

     As Table 3. indicates, alternative rates of fertility decline would have significant impact on the size of a country's population by 2000. They would make enormous differences in the sizes of the stabilized populations, attained some 60 to 70 years after replacement level fertility is reached. Therefore, it is of the utmost urgency that governments now recognize the facts and implications of population growth determining the ultimate population sizes that make sense for their countries and start vigorous programs at once to achieve their desired goals.

FUTURE GROWTH IN MAJOR REGIONS AND COUNTRIES

     Throughout the projected period 1970 to 2000, less developed regions will grow more rapidly than developed regions. The rate of growth in LDCs will primarily depend upon the rapidity with which family planning practices are adopted.

     Differences in the growth rates of DCs and LDCs will further aggravate the striking demographic imbalances between developed and less developed countries. Under the U.N. medium projection variant, by the year 2000 the population of less developed countries would double, rising from 2.5 billion in 1970 to 5.0 billion (Table 4). In contrast, the overall growth of the population of the developed world during the same period would amount to about 26 percent, increasing from 1.08 to 1.37 billion. Thus, by the year 2000 almost 80 percent of world population would reside in regions now considered less developed and over 90 percent of the annual increment to world population would occur there.

     The paucity of reliable information on all Asian communist countries and the highly optimistic assumptions concerning China's fertility trends implicit in U.N. medium projections2 argue for disaggregating the less developed countries into centrally planned economies and countries with market economies. Such disaggregation reflects more accurately the burden of rapidly growing populations in most LDCs.

     As Table 4. shows, the population of countries with centrally planned economies, comprising about 1/3 of the 1970 LDC total, is projected to grow between 1970 and 2000 at a rate well below the LDC average of 2.3 percent. Over the entire thirty-year period, their growth rate averages 1.4 percent, in comparison with 2.7 percent for other LDCs. Between 1970 and 1985, the annual rate of growth in Asian communist LDCs is expected to average 1.6 percent and subsequently to decline to an average of 1.2 percent between 1985 and 2000. The growth rate of LDCs with market economies, on the other hand, remains practically the same, at 2.7 and 2.6 percent, respectively. Thus, barring both large-scale birth control efforts (greater than implied by the medium variant) or economic or political upheavals, the next twenty-five years offer non-communist LDCs little respite from the burdens of rapidly increasing humanity. Of course, some LDCs will be able to accommodate this increase with less difficulty than others.

     Moreover, short of Draconian measures there is no possibility that any LDC can stabilize its population at less than double its present size. For many, stabilization will not be short of three times their present size.

     NATO and Eastern Europe. In the west, only France and Greece have a policy of increasing population growth -- which the people are successfully disregarding. (In a recent and significant change from traditional positions, however, the French Assembly overwhelmingly endorsed a law not only authorizing general availability of contraceptives but also providing that their cost be borne by the social security system.) Other western NATO members have no policies.3 Most provide some or substantial family planning services. All appear headed toward lower growth rates. In two NATO member countries (West Germany and Luxembourg), annual numbers of deaths already exceed births, yielding a negative natural growth rate.

     Romania, Hungary, Bulgaria, and Czechoslovakia have active policies to increase their population growth rates -- despite the reluctance of their people to have larger families. Within the USSR, fertility rates in RSFSR and the republics of Ukraine, Latvia, and Estonia are below replacement level. This situation has prevailed at least since 1969-1970 and, if continued, will eventually lead to negative population growth in these republics. In the United States, average fertility also fell below replacement level in the past two years (1972 and 1973). There is a striking difference, however, in the attitudes toward this demographic development in the two countries. While in the United States the possibility of a stabilized (non-growing) population is generally viewed with favor, in the USSR there is perceptible concern over the low fertility of Slavs and Balts (mostly by Slavs and Balts). The Soviet government, by all indications, is studying the feasibility of increasing their sagging birth rates. The entire matter of fertility-bolstering policies is circumscribed by the relatively high costs of increasing fertility (mainly through increased outlays for consumption goods and services) and the need to avoid the appearance of ethnic discrimination between rapidly and slowly growing nationalities.

     U.N. medium projections to the year 2000 show no significant changes in the relative demographic position of the western alliance countries as against eastern Europe and the USSR. The population of the Warsaw Pact countries will remain at 65 percent of the populations of NATO member states. If Turkey is excluded, the Warsaw Pact proportion rises somewhat from 70 percent in 1970 to 73 percent by 2000. This change is not of an order of magnitude that in itself will have important implications for east-west power relations. (Future growth of manpower in NATO and Warsaw Pact nations has not been examined in this Memorandum.)

     Of greater potential political and strategic significance are prospective changes in the populations of less developed regions both among themselves and in relation to developed countries.

     Africa. Assessment of future demographic trends in Africa is severely impeded by lack of reliable base data on the size, composition, fertility and mortality, and migration of much of the continent's population. With this important limitation in mind, the population of Africa is projected to increase from 352 million in 1970 to 834 million in 2000, an increase of almost 2.5 times. In most African countries, population growth rates are likely to increase appreciably before they begin to decline. Rapid population expansion may be particularly burdensome to the "least developed" among Africa's LDCs including -- according to the U.N. classification -- Ethiopia, Sudan, Tanzania, Uganda, Upper Volta, Mali, Malawi, Niger, Burundi, Guinea, Chad, Rwanda, Somalia, Dahomey, Lesotho, and Botswana. As a group, they numbered 104 million in 1970 and are projected to grow at an average rate of 3.0 percent a year, to some 250 million in 2000. This rate of growth is based on the assumption of significant reductions in mortality. It is questionable, however, whether economic and social conditions in the foreseeable future will permit reductions in mortality required to produce a 3 percent growth rate. Consequently, the population of the "least developed" of Africa's LDCs may fall short of the 250 million figure in 2000.

     African countries endowed with rich oil and other natural resources may be in a better economic position to cope with population expansion. Nigeria falls into this category. Already the most populous country on the continent, with an estimated 55 million people in 1970 (see footnote to Table 4), Nigeria's population by the end of this century is projected to number 135 million. This suggests a growing political and strategic role for Nigeria, at least in Africa south of the Sahara.

     In North Africa, Egypt's population of 33 million in 1970 is projected to double by 2000. The large and increasing size of Egypt's population is, and will remain for many years, an important consideration in the formulation of many foreign and domestic policies not only of Egypt but also of neighboring countries.

     Latin America. Rapid population growth is projected for tropical South American which includes Brazil, Colombia, Peru, Venezuela, Ecuador and Bolivia. Brazil, with a current population of over 100 million, clearly dominates the continent demographically; by the end of this century, its population is projected to reach the 1974 U.S. level of about 212 million people. Rapid economic growth prospects -- if they are not diminished by demographic overgrowth -- portend a growing power status for Brazil in Latin America and on the world scene over the next 25 years.

     The Caribbean which includes a number of countries with promising family planning programs (Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago, Cuba, Barbados and also Puerto Rico) is projected to grow at 2.2 percent a year between 1970 and 2000, a rate below the Latin American average of 2.8 percent.

     Perhaps the most significant population trend from the viewpoint of the United States is the prospect that Mexico's population will increase from 50 million in 1970 to over 130 million by the year 2000. Even under most optimistic conditions, in which the country's average fertility falls to replacement level by 2000, Mexico's population is likely to exceed 100 million by the end of this century.

     South Asia. Somewhat slower rates are expected for Eastern and Middle South Asia whose combined population of 1.03 billion in 1970 is projected to more than double by 2000 to 2.20 billion. In the face of continued rapid population growth (2.5 percent), the prospects for the populous Indian subregion, which already faces staggering economic problems, are particularly bleak. South and Southeast Asia's population will substantially increase relative to mainland China; it appears doubtful, however, that this will do much to enhance their relative power position and political influence in Asia. On the contrary, preoccupation with the growing internal economic and social problems resulting from huge population increases may progressively reduce the ability of the region, especially India, to play an effective regional and world power role.

     Western South Asia, demographically dominated by Turkey and seven oil-rich states (including Saudi Arabia, Iraq, and Kuwait) is projected to be one of the fastest growing LDC regions, with an annual average growth rate of 2.9 percent between 1970 and 2000. Part of this growth will be due to immigration, as for example, into Kuwait.

     The relatively low growth rate of 1.8 percent projected for East Asian LDCs with market economics reflects highly successful family planning programs in Taiwan, South Korea, and Hong Kong.

     The People's Republic of China (PRC). The People's Republic of China has by far the world's largest population and, potentially, severe problems of population pressure, given its low standard of living and quite intensive utilization of available farm land resources. Its last census in 1953 recorded a population of 583 million, and PRC officials have cited a figure as high as 830 million for 1970. The Commerce Department's Bureau of Economic Analysis projects a slightly higher population, reaching 920 million by 1974. The present population growth rate is about two percent.      Conclusion      Rapid population growth in less developed countries has been mounting in a social milieu of poverty, unemployment and underemployment, low educational attainment, widespread malnutrition, and increasing costs of food production. These countries have accumulated a formidable "backlog" of unfinished tasks. They include economic assimilation of some 40 percent of their people who are pressing at, but largely remain outside the periphery of the developing economy; the amelioration of generally low levels of living; and in addition, accommodation of annually larger increments to the population. The accomplishment of these tasks could be intolerably slow if the average annual growth rate in the remainder of this century does not slow down to well below the 2.7 percent projected, under the medium variant, for LDCs with market economics. How rapid population growth impedes social and economic progress is discussed in subsequent chapters.

CHAPTER II. POPULATION AND WORLD FOOD SUPPLIES

     Rapid population growth and lagging food production in developing countries, together with the sharp deterioration in the global food situation in 1972 and 1973, have raised serious concerns about the ability of the world to feed itself adequately over the next quarter century and beyond.

     As a result of population growth, and to some extent also of increasing affluence, world food demand has been growing at unprecedented rates. In 1900, the annual increase in world demand for cereals was about 4 million tons. By 1950, it had risen to about 12 million tons per year. By 1970, the annual increase in demand was 30 million tons (on a base of over 1,200 million tons). This is roughly equivalent to the annual wheat crop of Canada, Australia, and Argentina combined. This annual increase in food demand is made up of a 2% annual increase in population and a 0.5% increased demand per capita. Part of the rising per capita demand reflects improvement in diets of some of the peoples of the developing countries. In the less developed countries about 400 pounds of grain is available per person per year and is mostly eaten as cereal. The average North American, however, uses nearly a ton of grain a year, only 200 pounds directly and the rest in the form of meat, milk, and eggs for which several pounds of cereal are required to produce one pound of the animal product (e.g., five pounds of grain to produce one pound of beef).

     During the past two decades, LDCs have been able to keep food production ahead of population, notwithstanding the unprecedentedly high rates of population growth. The basic figures are summarized in the following table: [calculated from data in USDA, The World Agricultural Situation, March 1974]:     

         INDICES OF WORLD POPULATION AND FOOD PRODUCTION

              (excluding Peoples Republic of China)

                            1954=100

       +--------------------+--------------------+------------------------+

       |        WORLD       | DEVELOPED COUNTRIES|LESS DEVELOPED COUNTRIES|

       |        Food        |        Food        |          Food          |

       |     production     |     production     |       production       |

       |                    |                    |                        |

       | Popu-        Per   | Popu-        Per   | Popu-        Per       |

       |lation Total  Capita|lation Total  Capita|lation Total  Capita    |

+------+--------------------+--------------------+------------------------+

| 1954 |  100    100    100 |  100    100    100 |  100   100    100      |

| 1973 |  144    170    119 |  124    170    138 |  159   171    107      |

|      |                                                                  |

| Compound Annual Increase (%):                                           |

|      |  1.9    2.8    0.9 |  1.1    2.8    1.7 |  2.5   2.9    0.4      |

+------+--------------------+--------------------+------------------------+

     It will be noted that the relative gain in LDC total food production was just as great as for advanced countries, but was far less on a per capita basis because of the sharp difference in population growth rates. Moreover, within the LDC group were 24 countries (including Indonesia, Nigeria, the Philippines, Zaire, Algeria, Guyana, Iraq, and Chile) in which the rate of increase of population growth exceeded the rate of increase in food production; and a much more populous group (including India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh) in which the rate of increase in production barely exceeded population growth but did not keep up with the increase in domestic demand. [World Food Conference, Preliminary Assessment, 8 May 1974; U.N. Document E/CONF. 65/ PREP/6, p. 33.]

     General requirements have been projected for the years 1985 and 2000, based on the UN Medium Variant population estimates and allowing for a very small improvement in diets in the LDCs.

     A recent projection made by the Department of Agriculture indicates a potential productive capacity more than adequate to meet world cereal requirements (the staple food of the world) of a population of 6.4 billion in the year 2000 (medium fertility variant) at roughly current relative prices.

     This overall picture offers little cause for complacency when broken down by geographic regions. To support only a very modest improvement in current cereal consumption levels (from 177 kilograms per capita in 1970 to 200-206 kilograms in 2000) the projections show an alarming increase in LDC dependency on imports. Such imports are projected to rise from 21.4 million tons in 1970 to 102-122 million tons by the end of the century. Cereal imports would increase to 13-15 percent of total developing country consumption as against 8 percent in 1970. As a group, the advanced countries cannot only meet their own needs but will also generate a substantial surplus. For the LDCs, analyses of food production capacity foresee the physical possibility of meeting their needs, provided that (a) weather conditions are normal, (b) yields per unit of area continue to improve at the rates of the last decade, bringing the average by 1985 close to present yields in the advanced countries, and (c) a substantially larger annual transfer of grains can be arranged from the surplus countries (mainly North America), either through commercial sales or through continuous and growing food aid. The estimates of production capacity do not rely on major new technical breakthroughs in food production methods, but they do require the availability and application of greatly increased quantities of fertilizers, pesticides, irrigation water, and other inputs to modernized agriculture, together with continued technological advances at past rates and the institutional and administrative reforms (including vastly expanded research and extension services) essential to the successful application of these inputs. They also assume normal weather conditions. Substantial political will is required in the LDCs to give the necessary priority to food production.

     There is great uncertainty whether the conditions for achieving food balance in the LDCs can in fact be realized. Climatic changes are poorly understood, but a persistent atmospheric cooling trend since 1940 has been established. One respectable body of scientific opinion believes that this portends a period of much wider annual frosts, and possibly a long-term lowering of rainfall in the monsoon areas of Asia and Africa. Nitrogen fertilizer will be in world short supply into the late 1970s, at least; because of higher energy prices, it may also be more costly in real terms than in the 1960s. Capital investments for irrigation and infrastructure and the organizational requirements for securing continuous improvements in agricultural yields may well be beyond the financial and administrative capacity of many LDCs. For some of the areas under heaviest population pressure, there is little or no prospect for foreign exchange earnings to cover constantly increasing imports of food.

     While it is always unwise to project the recent past into the long-term future, the experience of 1972-73 is very sobering. The coincidence of adverse weather in many regions in 1972 brought per capita production in the LDCs back to the level of the early 1960s. At the same time, world food reserves (mainly American) were almost exhausted, and they were not rebuilt during the high production year of 1973. A repetition under these conditions of 1972 weather patterns would result in large-scale famine of a kind not experienced for several decades -- a kind the world thought had been permanently banished.

     Even if massive famine can be averted, the most optimistic forecasts of food production potential in the more populous LDCs show little improvement in the presently inadequate levels and quality of nutrition. As long as annual population growth continues at 2 to 3 percent or more, LDCs must make expanded food production the top development priority, even though it may absorb a large fraction of available capital and foreign exchange.

     Moderation of population growth rates in the LDCs could make some difference to food requirements by 1985, a substantial difference by 2000, and a vast difference in the early part of the next century. From the viewpoint of U.S. interests, such reductions in LDC food needs would be clearly advantageous. They would not reduce American commercial markets for food since the reduction in LDC food requirements that would result from slowing population growth would affect only requests for concessional or grant food assistance, not commercial sales. They would improve the prospects for maintaining adequate world food reserves against climatic emergencies. They would reduce the likelihood of periodic famines in region after region, accompanied by food riots and chronic social and political instability. They would improve the possibilities for long-term development and integration into a peaceful world order.

     Even taking the most optimistic view of the theoretical possibilities of producing enough foods in the developed countries to meet the requirements of the developing countries, the problem of increased costs to the LDCs is already extremely serious and in its future may be insurmountable. At current prices the anticipated import requirements of 102-122 million tons by 2000 would raise the cost of developing countries' imports of cereals to $16-204 billion by that year compared with $2.5 billion in 1970. Large as they may seem even these estimates of import requirements could be on the low side if the developing countries are unable to achieve the Department of Agriculture's assumed increase in the rate of growth of production.

     The FAO in its recent "Preliminary Assessment of the World Food Situation Present and Future" has reached a similar conclusion:

     What is certain is the enormity of the food import bill which might face the developing countries . . . In addition [to cereals] the developing countries . . . would be importing substantial amounts of other foodstuffs. clearly the financing of international food trade on this scale would raise very grave problems.

     At least three-quarters of the projected increase in cereal imports of developing countries would fall in the poorer countries of South Asia and North and Central Africa. The situation in Latin America which is projected to shift from a modest surplus to a modest deficit area is quite different. Most of this deficit will be in Mexico and Central America, with relatively high income and easily exploitable transportation links to the U.S.

     The problem in Latin America, therefore, appears relatively more manageable.

     It seems highly unlikely, however, that the poorer countries of Asia and Africa will be able to finance nearly like the level of import requirements projected by the USDA. Few of them have dynamic export-oriented industrial sectors like Taiwan or South Korea or rich raw material resources that will generate export earnings fast enough to keep pace with food import needs. Accordingly, those countries where large-scale hunger and malnutrition are already present face the bleak prospect of little, if any, improvement in the food intake in the years ahead barring a major foreign financial food aid program, more rapid expansion of domestic food production, reduced population growth or some combination of all three. Worse yet, a series of crop disasters could transform some of them into classic Malthusian cases with famines involving millions of people.

     While foreign assistance probably will continue to be forthcoming to meet short-term emergency situations like the threat of mass starvation, it is more questionable whether aid donor countries will be prepared to provide the sort of massive food aid called for by the import projections on a long-term continuing basis.

     Reduced population growth rates clearly could bring significant relief over the longer term. Some analysts maintain that for the post-1985 period a rapid decline in fertility will be crucial to adequate diets worldwide. If, as noted before, fertility in the developing countries could be made to decline to the replacement level by the year 2000, the world's population in that year would be 5.9 billion or 500 million below the level that would be attained if the UN medium projection were followed. Nearly all of the decline would be in the LDCs. With such a reduction the projected import gap of 102-122 million tons per year could be eliminated while still permitting a modest improvement in per capita consumption. While such a rapid reduction in fertility rates in the next 30 years is an optimistic target, it is thought by some experts that it could be obtained by intensified efforts if its necessity were understood by world and national leaders. Even more modest reductions could have significant implications by 2000 and even more over time.

     Intensive programs to increase food production in developing countries beyond the levels assumed in the U.S.D.A. projections probably offer the best prospect for some reasonably early relief, although this poses major technical and organizational difficulties and will involve substantial costs. It must be realized, however, that this will be difficult in all countries and probably impossible in some -- or many. Even with the introduction of new inputs and techniques it has not been possible to increase agricultural output by as much as 3 percent per annum in many of the poorer developing countries. Population growth in a number of these countries exceeds that rate.

     Such a program of increased food production would require the widespread use of improved seed varieties, increased applications of chemical fertilizers and pesticides over vast areas and better farm management along with bringing new land under cultivation. It has been estimated, for example, that with better varieties, pest control, and the application of fertilizer on the Japanese scale, Indian rice yields could theoretically at least, be raised two and one-half times current levels. Here again very substantial foreign assistance for imported materials may be required for at least the early years before the program begins to take hold.

     The problem is clear. The solutions, or at least the directions we must travel to reach them are also generally agreed. What will be required is a genuine commitment to a set of policies that will lead the international community, both developed and developing countries, to the achievement of the objectives spelled out above.

CHAPTER III - MINERALS AND FUEL

     Population growth per se is not likely to impose serious constraints on the global physical availability of fuel and non-fuel minerals to the end of the century and beyond.

     This favorable outlook on reserves does not rule out shortage situations for specific minerals at particular times and places. Careful planning with continued scientific and technological progress (including the development of substitutes) should keep the problems of physical availability within manageable proportions.

     The major factor influencing the demand for non-agricultural raw materials is the level of industrial activity, regional and global. For example, the U.S., with 6% of the world's population, consumes about a third of its resources. The demand for raw materials, unlike food, is not a direct function of population growth. The current scarcities and high prices for most such materials result mainly from the boom conditions in all industrialized regions in the years 1972-73.

     The important potential linkage between rapid population growth and minerals availability is indirect rather than direct. It flows from the negative effects of excessive population growth in economic development and social progress, and therefore on internal stability, in overcrowded under-developed countries. The United States has become increasingly dependent on mineral imports from developing countries in recent decades, and this trend is likely to continue. The location of known reserves of higher-grade ores of most minerals favors increasing dependence of all industrialized regions on imports from less developed countries. The real problems of mineral supplies lie, not in basic physical sufficiency, but in the politico-economic issues of access, terms for exploration and exploitation, and division of the benefits among producers, consumers, and host country governments.

     In the extreme cases where population pressures lead to endemic famine, food riots, and breakdown of social order, those conditions are scarcely conducive to systematic exploration for mineral deposits or the long-term investments required for their exploitation. Short of famine, unless some minimum of popular aspirations for material improvement can be satisfied, and unless the terms of access and exploitation persuade governments and peoples that this aspect of the international economic order has "something in it for them," concessions to foreign companies are likely to be expropriated or subjected to arbitrary intervention. Whether through government action, labor conflicts, sabotage, or civil disturbance, the smooth flow of needed materials will be jeopardized. Although population pressure is obviously not the only factor involved, these types of frustrations are much less likely under conditions of slow or zero population growth.

     Reserves.

     Projections made by the Department of Interior through the year 2000 for those fuel and non-fuel minerals on which the U.S. depends heavily for imports5 support these conclusions on physical resources (see Annex). Proven reserves of many of these minerals appear to be more than adequate to meet the estimated accumulated world demand at 1972 relative prices at least to the end of the century. While petroleum (including natural gas), copper, zinc, and tin are probable exceptions, the extension of economically exploitable reserves as a result of higher prices, as well as substitution and secondary recovery for metals, should avoid long-term supply restrictions. In many cases, the price increases that have taken place since 1972 should be more than sufficient to bring about the necessary extension of reserves.

     These conclusions are consistent with a much more extensive study made in 1972 for the Commission on Population Growth and the American Future.6

     As regards fossil fuels, that study foresees adequate world reserves for at least the next quarter to half century even without major technological breakthroughs. U.S. reserves of coal and oil shale are adequate well into the next century, although their full exploitation may be limited by environmental and water supply factors. Estimates of the U.S. Geological Survey suggest recoverable oil and gas reserves (assuming sufficiently high prices) to meet domestic demand for another two or three decades, but there is also respectable expert opinion supporting much lower estimates; present oil production is below the peak of 1970 and meets only 70 percent of current demands.7 Nevertheless, the U.S. is in a relatively strong position on fossil fuels compared with the rest of the industrialized world, provided that it takes the time and makes the heavy investments needed to develop domestic alternatives to foreign sources.

     In the case of the 19 non-fuel minerals studied by the Commission it was concluded there were sufficient proven reserves of nine to meet cumulative world needs at current relative prices through the year 2020.8 For the ten others9 world proven reserves were considered inadequate. However, it was judged that moderate price increases, recycling and substitution could bridge the estimated gap between supply and requirements.

     The above projections probably understate the estimates of global resources. "Proved Reserves," that is known supplies that will be available at present or slightly higher relative costs 10 to 25 years from now, rarely exceed 25 years' cumulative requirements, because industry generally is reluctant to undertake costly exploration to meet demands which may or may not materialize in the more distant future. Experience has shown that additional reserves are discovered as required, at least in the case of non-fuel minerals, and "proved reserves" have generally remained constant in relation to consumption.

     The adequacy of reserves does not of course assure that supplies will be forthcoming in a steady stream as required. Intermediate problems may develop as a result of business miscalculations regarding the timing of expansion to meet requirements. With the considerable lead time required for expandin