Malthus Back on the Table

Reverend Thomas Malthus first wrote his paper "An Essay on the Principle of Population" in 1796. In it he postulated that "the power of population is indefinitely greater than the power in the earth to produce subsistence for man".

An Anglican clergyman, Malthus saw this situation as divinely imposed to teach virtuous behaviour.

But before I get sidetracked by 18th century questions of virtue, let me speak for a moment on Malthus' theory. He maintained, that regardless of the technological advances made in the creation of food, sooner or later the world population, if unchecked, will reach a tipping point after which famines will break out, probably accompanied by disease and war.

Today Professor John Beddington, Chief Scientific Advisor to the UK Government and Professor of Applied Population Biology at Imperial College London presented the results of a detailed analysis of the global food situation. The report was developed by a team of over 400 scientists from 35 countries. The results of the research declared that over a billion people are hungry, another billion malnourished, and that unless action is taken there will not be enough food for the planet.

The report essentially stated that the solution to this problem was genetically modified food.

Prof. Beddington's argument looks at the supply side of the equation, focusing on poor agricultural practices, issues of waste and under-investment. He plays lip service to organic farming on the fringes and the idea that farming techniques could be improved, but the solution is greater capital investment in search of a significant and sustainable intensification of agriculture. Basically, science and cash will solve the problem.

Over two hundred years ago Malthus foresaw that world population would overtake food production. He even came up with two ways to control population growth: positive checks, which raise the death rate; and preventative ones, which lower the birth rate. The positive checks include hunger, disease and war; the preventative checks, abortion, birth control, prostitution, postponement of marriage and celibacy.

Let's ignore the positive checks approach and look at the preventative ones. When Prof. Beddington was asked why he didn't consider population control as part of the solution his response was alarming.

He says that for the first time in world history we are nearing a global peak in population, so the problem is not population, but rather poverty. He explains that GM is a political problem, not a technical one. He goes on to say that stopping population growth doesn't help because lower levels of population growth only create a new set of problems.

Well since he doesn't believe the answer is in the preventative checks we can only hope that science is the answer-otherwise I think Malthus' positive checks are on the horizon.