Agricultural Production

Agricultural production is not keeping up with the world demand for food because the human population is increasing faster than agriculture’s food production capability (Pimentel et al., 1999). Uneven distribution of food, the inability of the poor to purchase food, and political unrest also threaten world food security for human society. Currently, more than 3 billion humans worldwide are malnourished; this is the largest number and proportion of hungry people ever recorded in history (WHO, 1996). For example, in India, 53% of the 60 million children 4 years old or younger aremalnourished. Based on current rates of increase, the world population is projected to double from 6 billion to more than 12 billion in approximately 50 years (PRB, 1999). As the world population continues to expand at a rate of 1.4% per year, adding more than a quarter of a million people daily, the task of providing adequate food becomes an increasingly difficult problem. The number of malnourished people could conceivably reach 5 billion in future decades. Reports from the Food andAgriculture Office (FAO) of the United Nations and the US Department of Agriculture, as well as numerous other international organizations, further confirm the serious nature of the global food supply problem (NAS, 1994). For example, the per capita availability of world cereal grains, whichmake up 80–90% of the world’s food supply, has been declining since 1983 (Figure 1) (Kendall and Pimentel, 1994). These shortages have economic consequences, especially for the nearly 3 billion people living in poverty worldwide who cannot afford to purchase either sufficient grains or other foods. Because the world population continues to expand, more pressure than ever before is being placed on the basic resources that are essential for agricultural production. Unfortunately, the human population is growing exponentially, while agricultural production is limited to linear increase. Furthermore, degradation of cropland, water, energy and biological resources that are vital to a sustainable agriculture continues unabated (Pimentel et al., 1999). Agricultural Resources