Abstract
After a half-century of global surpluses of wheat, rice, corn, and other grains, it is easy to be complacent about the food prospect for the twenty-first century. We have come to take for granted the supply of grain that provides half of humanity’s food energy when consumed directly and a good portion of the remainder when consumed indirectly in the form of livestock products.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
Similar content being viewed by others
Sleeted references
Grain data from U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), Production, Supply, and Distribution, electronic database, Washington DC, updated February 1997; USDA, Foreign Agricultural Service (FAS), Grain: World Agricultural Production (Washington, DC: April 1997); 1950–59 grain data from USDA, “World Grain Database,” unpublished printout, Washington, DC, 1991.
Kazakstan data from FAO, The State of Food and Agriculture 1995, FAO Agricultural Series No. 28 (Rome 1995).
Brazil’s grain data from USDA, FAS, Grain: World Markets and Trade, (Washington, DC: April 1997).
U. S. Bureau of the Census, International Data Base, Suitland, MD, 15 May 1996.
800 million figure from World Bank, Food Security for the World, statement prepared for the World Food Summit by the World Bank, 12 November 1996.
Oceanic fish catch from U. N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), Yearbook of Fishiery Statistics: Catches and Landings (Rome: 1967–91).
Lester R. Brown, Increasing World Food Output: Problems and Prospects, Foreign Agriculture Economic Report No. 25 (Washington, DC: USDA, ERS, April 1965).
Lester R. Brown, Seeds of Change (New York: Praeger Publishers, 1970).
Mary Cabrera, International Rice Research Institute (IRRI), Philippines letter to Worldwatch, 26 February 1997.
Donald O. Mitchell and Merlinda D. Ingco, International Economics Department, The World Food Outlook (Washington, DC: World Bank, 1993).
Fredrick W. Crook and Hunter Colby, The Future of China’s Grain Market, USDA, ERS, Agriculture Information bulletin Number 730, October 1996.
Gurdev S. Khush, “Modern Varieties-Their Real Contribution to Food Supply and Equity” Geo Journal, March 1995.
Information on idled cropland from K. F. Isherwood and K. G. Soh, “Short Term Prospects for World Agriculture and Fertilizer Use,” presented at 21st Enlarged Council Meetong, International Fertilizer Industry Association, Paris, 15–17 November 1995, and from USDA, FAS, World Agricultural Production (Washington, DC: October 1995).
Thomas R. Sinclair, “Limits to Crop Yield?” in Physiology and Determination of Crop Yield, American Society of Agronomy, Crop Science Society of America and Soil Science Society of America, Madison, Wisconsin, 1994.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 1997 Kluwer Academic Publishers
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Brown, L.R. (1997). Facing the challenge of food scarcity: Can we raise grain yields fast enough?. In: Ando, T., Fujita, K., Mae, T., Matsumoto, H., Mori, S., Sekiya, J. (eds) Plant Nutrition for Sustainable Food Production and Environment. Developments in Plant and Soil Sciences, vol 78. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-0047-9_2
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-0047-9_2
Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht
Print ISBN: 978-94-010-6510-8
Online ISBN: 978-94-009-0047-9
eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive