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Countries with Rapid Population Growth and Resource Constraints: Issues of Food, Agriculture, and Development NIKOS ALEXANDRATOS

This is an electronic version of an article published in Population and Development Review. Complete citation information for the final version of the paper, as published in the print edition of Population and Development Review, is available on the Blackwell Synergy online delivery service, accessible via the journal’s website at http://www.blackwellpublishing.com/pdr or http://www.blackwell-synergy.com.

The contents of this article draw largely on the work of the author commissioned by the Global Perspective Studies Unit of the Food and Agriculture Organization for the updating and extending to 2050 of the FAO study World Agriculture: Towards 2015/2030, An FAO Perspective (Bruinsma, J. (ed.), 2003). http://www.fao.org/es/ESD/gstudies.htm The views expressed are the author’s and do not necessarily reflect those of, and should not be attributed to, FAO. Useful comments by J. Bruinsma and J. Schmidhuber are gratefully acknowledged.

Countries with Rapid Population Growth and Resource Constraints: Issues of Food, Agriculture, and Development NIKOS ALEXANDRATOS

THE LATEST UNITED NATIONS population projections to 2050 (UN 2005) indicate that the deceleration of world population growth may be even faster than thought only a few years earlier. The medium variant projection puts world population for 2050 at 9.1 billion. By that time, the annual additions to global population will be 34 million persons—down from the current 76 million annually—and the growth rate will have fallen to 0.38 percent per annum, one-third of its present level. Longer-term projections to 2300 (UN 2004) suggest that the peak of world population may be reached in 2075, at 9.2 billion, to be followed by a slight decline and then by slow growth again to reach just under 9 billion by 2300 (medium variant projection).1 The authors of the probabilistic projections to 2100 of the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA) state that “there is around an 85 percent chance that the world’s population will stop growing before the end of the century” (Lutz et al. 2001: 543). The median of their projections reaches a peak of 9.0 billion around 2070, followed by a slow decrease leading to a population of 8.4 billion in 2100. Their latest book on the subject is suggestively titled The End of World Population Growth in the 21st Century (Lutz et al. 2004a). The realization that the world is probably on a fairly smooth path of transition toward a near-stationary population in the not-too-distant future influences the debate on the interrelationships between population, development, and sustainability. The notion that the trend toward an evergrowing population, the so-called population explosion, threatens our welfare and the sustainability of our existence (or, at least, the prospect that all people can achieve “acceptable” living standards) seems to be losing currency among the public. The focus of the debate has become the implicaPOPULATION AND DEVELOPMENT REVIEW 31(2): 237–258 (JUNE 2005)

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tions of demographic trends toward below-replacement fertility and population implosion. These implications are perceived as major emerging problems in, mainly, the developed countries, some developing countries (including China), and eventually also everywhere (The Economist 2003; Longman 2004). Naturally, the demographic slowdown and the eventual peak of 9 billion will not be of great comfort to those who hold that the current world population is already unsustainably large, being grossly above the level of 2 to 3 billion considered to be in conformity with the requirements for long-term sustainability (Pimentel et al. 1999). Leaving this larger theme aside, we may ask whether these global demographic prospects mean that the “population explosion”–related issues pertaining to food and agriculture are losing much of their relevance. In particular, will the global demographic slowdown and the eventual attainment of zero world population growth imply that the classical Malthusian concern (that population growth will outstrip the potential of agriculture to increase food production, and its corollary—that food insecurity is caused predominantly by production constraints) will no longer be relevant? The short answer is that these issues retain their full relevance, and this for a number of reasons. Of particular importance is the prospect that several countries, many of them with inadequate food consumption levels, will continue for some time to have rapidly growing populations.2 A number of these countries face the prospect that their present problems of low food consumption levels and significant incidence of undernourishment may persist for a long time. For example, Niger, a country with scant agricultural resources barely sufficient to support its year 2000 population of 12 million, but with high dependence on agriculture for its food supplies, employment, and income, is projected to grow to 50 million in 2050.3 In like manner, Ethiopia’s population is expected to grow from 69 million to 170 million, Uganda’s from 24 million to 127 million, Yemen’s from 18 million to 59 million, and so on for a number of other countries. From the standpoint of global welfare, these problems related to population growth will continue to surpass those emanating from the fertility declines to below replacement level in many developed countries. To cope with those declines is largely within the capabilities of the countries affected. And, of course, one must also consider the benefits accruing to the countries experiencing these declines and to the world as a whole—for example, in the form of reduced environmental impact and less urban congestion (Sachs 2004). It follows that in the debate on world food issues, the traditional productionist paradigm (how to promote further growth in production and the associated focus on agricultural research and technology) will continue to reign supreme in a significant part of the world, even in the context of the decelerating rate of growth in the global demand for food projected in


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several studies (Alexandratos 1999; Bruinsma 2003). This conclusion stands in contrast to the shift in paradigm in recent years that emphasizes food quality, food safety, health and environmental impacts of food production, consumption, and trade (Lang 2003), while downplaying the traditional emphasis on agricultural research and policies aimed at increasing productivity and production. Perhaps a more apt shift in paradigm would be from the global to the local, a point not sufficiently emphasized in the literature on the population–food–environment nexus, albeit with notable exceptions (e.g., Daily et al. 1998). Several of the countries still experiencing rapid demographic growth have poor agricultural resources or have resources that are difficult to exploit, whether because of remoteness from population centers, lack of infrastructure, high incidence of disease, or other circumstances. Their economies are also highly dependent on agriculture, high percentages of their gross domestic product and exports come from agriculture, and high proportions of their population depend on agriculture for a living. This combination could condemn such countries to persistent poverty if future populations were to become as large as projected and urbanization or emigration to other countries were to provide outlets no larger than foreseen in the demographic projections. Gallup and Sachs (2000) consider that countries in the tropical zones have limited potential for productively absorbing more labor in agriculture. There is a possibility, therefore, that in some of these countries the Malthusian specter could endure at the local level, no matter that for the world as a whole population growth may fall to zero and surplus food production potential may exist in other parts of the world. These countries have few alternatives but to continue to depend on further exploitation of agricultural resources for their food security and survival as well as for their overall development.4 There are 19 countries with “high” projected population growth rates in the period 2000–2050. “High” is defined here as a growth rate of 1.8 percent per annum or higher, that is, at least twice that of the developing-country average for the same 50-year period. Their main demographic variables are shown in Table 1, and those pertaining to food security and other socioeconomic characteristics are shown in Table 2. With the possible exception of Mauritania, they all have serious problems of food insecurity, as evidenced by their low per capita apparent food consumption and high prevalence of undernourishment.5 Their rapid demographic growth can represent a serious obstacle to improvements in food security. The historical experience of the past four decades shows that 13 out of the 19 “high population growth” countries never achieved a national average of apparent food consumption exceeding 2,500 kcal/person/day, a level totally inadequate as a national average.6 Eight of them never exceeded 2,200 kcal (see Table 2). In some of these countries the paucity of agricultural resources does not augur well for the


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21,391 6,222 11,905 6,267 7,861 48,571 65,590 15,970 11,904 10,742 8,720 23,487

2000

43,131 10,643 10,539 57,932 9,821 7,497 84,385

69,517 15,602 42,373 19,459 25,359 151,644 170,987 46,292 45,998 53,037 39,669 103,248

2050

2.50 2.25 2.09 1.83 2.41 2.08 3.09

2.36 1.84 2.54 2.27 2.34 2.28 1.92 2.13 2.70 3.19 3.03 2.96 63,227 14,590 12,927 68,365 13,523 9,754 147,217

90,433 18,785 66,221 27,836 34,619 203,341 222,326 61,689 70,823 103,241 67,690 170,014 2105 2105 2095 2090 2100 2100 2115

2095 2095 2115 2110 2105 2100 2105 2105 2110 2120 2115 2115 17,003 3,621 9,630 5,787 6,010 35,521 53,146 11,261 7,924 8,604 6,365 20,001

2000

30,369 5,138 19,762 10,783 11,062 67,566 87,624 17,425 13,291 18,408 13,366 44,190

2030

3,818 8,642 15,153 558 1,045 1,603 1,073 2,973 4,974 3,347 7,453 11,232 717 1,605 3,364 805 1,126 1,181 4,066 13,815 33,925

7,679 1,944 3,808 2,406 2,555 9,857 17,586 3,900 3,221 2,379 1,976 5,050

1950

Rural population (000)

70 30 80 32 55 43 77

79 58 81 92 76 73 81 71 67 80 73 85 1.87 1.43 1.72 1.37 2.47 0.16 2.99

1.93 1.17 2.40 2.07 2.03 2.14 1.67 1.46 1.72 2.54 2.47 2.64

Annual growth rate Percent (%) rural 2000– 2000 30

–0.03 –0.02 0.00 –0.11 0.00 0.00 –0.25

4,148 13,838 808 3,439 1,140 3,557 5,340 25,069 824 3,066 825 2,644 4,316 17,936

43,501 13,721 11,229 63,693 10,653 7,497 59,454

–0.06 8,151 23,739 97,324 –0.20 2,005 7,198 22,123 –0.32 3,861 11,289 39,093 –0.21 2,456 6,487 25,812 0.00 2,658 8,217 31,497 –0.10 12,184 50,056 177,271 –0.04 18,434 68,538 170,190 0.00 4,230 16,191 43,508 –0.66 3,449 11,647 41,976 0.00 2,612 11,781 50,156 –0.13 2,264 7,011 21,329 –0.02 5,054 24,311 126,950

Net migration Population (000) rateb from the 2004 Revision 2045– 50 1950 2000 2050

2.29 2.77 2.30 1.86 2.49 2.08 2.40

2.82 2.25 2.48 2.76 2.69 2.53 1.82 1.98 2.56 2.90 2.23 3.31

Annual growth rate (%) 2000– 50

aCountries

NOTE: “High” is defined here as a growth rate of 1.8 percent per annum or higher, that is, at least twice that of the developing-country average for the same 50-year period. are listed in two blocks. The first 12 countries have a large share (over 30 percent) of GDP originating in agriculture. The remaining 7 countries have less than 30 percent of their GDP from agriculture (see text). bPersons per thousand/year. SOURCES: Cols. 1–4, 12 (UN 2003a); Cols. 5–6 (UN 2004); Cols. 7–11 (UN 2003b); Cols. 13–16 (UN 2005).

4,131 12,386 808 3,447 1,140 3,712 5,158 23,224 824 2,943 825 2,645 4,316 18,017

8,151 2,046 3,960 2,456 2,658 12,184 18,434 4,230 3,520 2,500 2,264 5,210

Afghanistan Benin Burkina Faso Burundi Chad Congo DR Ethiopia Madagascar Mali Niger Somalia Uganda

Angola Congo Eritrea Iraq Liberia Mauritania Yemen

1950

Countrya

Population (000)

Annual growth Peak rate population (%) 2000– Year of 50 (000) peak

TABLE 1 Demographic characteristics of countries with high population growth rates in 2000–50


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7 7 19 na na 22 16

Angola Congo Eritrea Iraq Liberia Mauritania Yemen

1,726 1,782 1,483 1,838 1,900 1,770 1,745

1,623 1,717 1,528 1,629 1,568 1,599 1,510 1,988 1,628 1,659 1,489 2,061 2,163 2,162 1,585 3,513 2,600 2,775 2,210

2,678 2,548 2,462 2,181 2,338 2,277 1,917 2,513 2,293 2,182 2,010 2,435 2,040 2,090 1,520 2,150 1,990 2,780 2,040

1,630 2,520 2,410 1,640 2,150 1,630 1,840 2,060 2,200 2,130 1,600 2,360 40 37 73 27 46 10 36

70 15 19 68 34 71 46 37 29 34 71 19 52 17 na 42 61 22 63

98 81 94 88 87 68 na 88 90 108 53 94 49 8 na 41 48 31 32

93 74 87 91 86 80 na 95 98 93 68 96 50 3 40 27 35 28 21

67 89 89 84 90 75 85 87 93 90 59 94

UnderCereals nutritiond self-sufficiencye (%) (% of pop.) 2000/02 79/81 89/91 99/01

S S L S S S L

S S S S S S S S M S S M 0.381 0.494 0.439 na na 0.465 0.482

na 0.421 0.302 0.339 0.379 0.365 0.359 0.469 0.326 0.292 na 0.493 166 144 156 na na 152 149

na 161 175 173 167 168 170 150 174 176 na 146

HDI 2002g External debtf Value Rank

C R

yes yes yes

yes

R R C

C L L L L L C L L C L

Develop. potentiali

yes

yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes

LDCh

na = not available. NOTE: “High” is defined here as a growth rate of 1.8 percent per annum or higher, that is, at least twice that of the developing-country average for the same 50-year period. aCountries are listed in two blocks. The first 12 countries have a large share (over 30 percent) of GDP originating in agriculture. The remaining 7 countries have less than 30 percent of their GDP from agriculture (see text). bAgricultural GDP as % of total GDP, average 1999–2001. Source: World Bank (2003b). cSource: FAO, FAOSTAT (http://apps.fao.org) Updated 27 August 2004. Eritrea, period 1993–02, Ethiopia=Ethiopia+Eritrea for period before 1993. Data for Afghanistan, Somalia, Iraq: period 1961–2000 and average 1998–2000 from earlier FAOSTAT data. dSource: FAO (2004). Afghanistan, Somalia, Iraq data (undernourishment and calorie averages) are for 1998–2000 from FAO (2002). eThe percentage of total consumption covered by domestic production. fS = severely indebted, M = moderately indebted, L = less indebted. Source: World Bank (2003c). gHuman Development Index (HDI) from UNDP (2004)—Classification of 177 countries ranging from best (HDI=0.956—Norway) to worst (HDI=0.273—Sierra Leone). hLeast Developed Country, Source: UNCTAD (2004). iUNIDO (2004, Tab. 1.1) classification of African countries by dominant characteristic in terms of potential opportunities in the medium term. R = resource-rich (countries receiving large rents from export of ores, minerals, and fuels; agricultural resources not considered), C = coastal, L = landlocked.

na 37 40 51 39 56 52 30 42 40 na 37

Afghanistan Benin Burkina Faso Burundi Chad Congo, DR Ethiopia Madagascar Mali Niger Somalia Uganda

Countrya

Food consumption 1961–2002 Agric. (kcal/person/day)c share in GDPb Avg. (%) Lowest Highest 2000/02

TABLE 2 Socioeconomic characteristics of countries with high population growth rates in 2000–50

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prospect that agriculture can play the role expected of it and that even the present inadequate levels of nutrition can be maintained. For example, in a study of Ethiopia with projections to 2030, Lutz et al. (2004b: 208) conclude that, even under their optimistic assumptions, the food security situation is bound to deteriorate further, and “it seems that the population–environment– agriculture nexus in Ethiopia has fallen below the threshold of sustainability.” One may be justified in doubting whether the very large population increases and ever-growing rural populations projected for these countries can be sustained. This suggests that the assumptions underlying the population projections (rates of change in fertility, mortality, and, particularly, migration—both rural-to-urban and external) may have to be revisited.7 There is a clear need for integrating the analytical assumptions underlying the demographic projections with further variables reflecting the constraints faced by many of these countries in supporting populations that are multiples of their present population size. As a first step in this direction, I single out the countries with high population growth rates and examine their agricultural resources and other socioeconomic characteristics. The focus is on signaling prima facie incompatibilities between the demographic projections and agricultural resource potentials, where the latter are considered to be of paramount importance for development.

Characteristics of agriculture-dependent countries with high rates of population growth The populations of the 19 countries in Table 1 are projected to increase by a factor of at least 2.5 (Ethiopia, Iraq) and up to just over fivefold (Uganda) in the five decades to 2050. Naturally, not all of them face the prospect of having to depend predominantly on their own agriculture for development and improving food security. Scarcity of agricultural resources does not by itself prejudge a country’s potential to make progress. Examples abound of countries with limited agricultural resources and satisfactory food consumption and nutrition levels—notably Japan,8 but also many developing countries with mineral wealth. The latter include several countries in the Near East and North Africa, where oil has provided the basis for much of the growth in incomes that stimulated the demand for food while also providing the means for financing quantum jumps in food imports to meet that demand. Yemen, another country with scarce agricultural resources and population growth rates among the highest in the world, relied in good measure on emigrant remittances (16.1 percent of GDP in 2001: World Bank 2003c) to finance massive increases of food imports. For the 12 of these 19 countries shown in the upper part of Table 1, however, a prima facie case can be made that, at this stage in their development, they have few options but to continue depending predominantly on


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their own agriculture for increasing incomes and food supplies and creating a basis for their wider economic development. The criterion for separating them from the rest is that their economic dependence on agriculture exceeds 30 percent of GDP. The other seven countries have much lower dependence on agriculture, in most cases because they are rich in other natural resources. These 12 countries exhibit the following characteristics: 1. They have low or very low food consumption per capita and high incidence of undernourishment. 2. They depend predominantly on domestic production to satisfy their food consumption,9 and this is likely to continue as most of them have high external debt burdens and high dependence on foreign aid for financing their imports. These factors would seem to preclude easy access to commercially imported food in the foreseeable future. 3. They all rank low on the Human Development Index (HDI) classification, a composite index combining levels of income, life expectancy, and literacy. 4. They do not derive significant rents from nonagricultural natural resources such as ores, minerals, and fuels.10 5. Most of them are landlocked—an important handicap when assessing development prospects and potentials (UNIDO 2004). 6. All of them are in the Least Developed Country category as defined by the United Nations. 7. They have shares of agriculture in gross domestic product in the range from 30 to 56 percent. 8. High proportions of their population (58–91 percent) are classified as rural. Moreover, their rural populations are projected to continue growing, more than doubling in several countries between 2000 and 2030 (rural–urban projections beyond 2030 not available).11 These two last factors suggest that, barring unforeseen developments (e.g., discovery of valuable mineral resources and/or successful exploitation of existing ones), the countries’ overall development and poverty reduction will depend predominantly on their rural—mainly agricultural—development. Therefore I next address the question whether their agricultural resources are sufficient to underpin production growth rates that would be consonant with improvements in food security in the light of projected rapid population growth.

Agriculture-related constraints to attaining food security A first glimpse can be obtained by examining the countries’ land and water resources that have potential for producing crops, including under both


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rainfed and irrigated conditions. The estimates of such resources come from the Agroecological Zones study of FAO and IIASA (Fischer et al. 2002) and, for the irrigation potentials, from FAO (Bruinsma 2003: chapter 4). The relevant data for these 12 countries are given in Table 3. Most of the countries are far from having reached their agricultural frontiers, at least when these are viewed at the national level. It is, however, important to note that national-level estimates indicating no significant resource scarcities can coexist with severe scarcities at the local level that act as effective constraints to development. Such local scarcities are not easily overcome by the availability of resources in other parts of the country. Among the countries with plentiful land resources in relation to their present and projected populations are Chad and the Democratic Republic of Congo (Congo DR). The latter country has some 190 million ha (or 81 percent of its land area) classified as suitable in varying degrees for growing rainfed crops, although a good part of this area is under forest (closed forests cover 50 percent of the country’s total land area12). But even if we excluded land under closed forest as well as land located in protected areas, the country still has some 58 million ha of land suitable for rainfed cereals—mainly rice and maize—at intermediate technology and even more for roots and tubers.13 Of this land apparently only some 6 million ha is presently used in crop production, of which some 2 million ha is used for cassava and other roots, some 1.5 million ha for maize, and some 0.5 million ha each for rice and groundnuts. These findings suggest that the solution to Congo DR’s severe food security problems is not likely to be limited by agricultural resource constraints, even as its population more than triples to 177 million by 2050. In time-honored fashion, population growth, if persistently accompanied by poor opportunities for alternative avenues of development, will result in agricultural expansion where the opportunity for doing so exists. Needless to say, the country’s considerable mineral resources offer alternative development opportunities that would lessen overwhelming dependence on agriculture.14 Chad is in a similar class from the standpoint of its land/inhabitant ratio,15 while its oil resources offer significant alternative development opportunities (Republic of Chad 2003). The outlook is different for other countries with high population growth rates and high dependence on agriculture. Burundi ranks lowest in terms of the land/inhabitant ratio. Niger also has very low potential for agricultural expansion, a situation that will rapidly deteriorate if the projected increase of its population by 2050 were to materialize and alternative outlets to lessening demographic pressure on agriculture (e.g., emigration) were not found. The country has a land area suitable for rainfed farming of only some 12 million ha (10 percent of its total land area), of which some 40 percent is classified as marginally suitable.16 The statistics on Niger’s land in crop production indicate that nearly all of this area is currently farmed— indeed overexploited, with consequent increased risk of degradation.


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3,602 9,918 20,621 1,217 35,890 187,934 40,487 33,702 27,328 11,557 3,991 13,935

Afghanistan Benin Burkina Faso Burundi Chad Congo DR Ethiopia Madagascar Mali Niger Somalia Uganda 26 5,607 8,339 217 19,583 68,335 11,814 12,008 9,624 893 16 5,290

Very suitable

213 3,536 7,188 251 6,895 58,847 12,490 9,824 8,442 2,329 296 4,590

Suitable

979 650 3,744 271 5,466 45,403 10,431 7,555 4,843 3,981 1,078 2,795

Medium suitable

2,384 125 1,350 478 3,946 15,349 5,752 4,315 4,419 4,354 2,601 1,260 3,300 300 164 185 835 4,000 3,637 1,500 560 270 240 202

Marginally suitable Total

3,000 0 0 0 0 0 19 0 0 40 30 0 2,386 12 25 74 20 11 190 1,090 250 66 200 9

6,602 9,918 20,621 1,217 35,890 187,934 40,506 33,702 27,328 11,597 4,021 13,935

Of which Presently in desert irrigated 000 ha

Land with irrigation potentiald

0.28 1.38 1.83 0.19 4.37 3.75 0.59 2.08 2.35 0.98 0.57 0.57

2000

0.07 0.45 0.53 0.05 1.14 1.06 0.24 0.77 0.65 0.23 0.19 0.11

2050

Ha/inhabitante

Total rainfed plus irrigation

aCountries

NOTE: “High” is defined here as a growth rate of 1.8 percent per annum or higher, that is, at least twice that of the developing-country average for the same 50-year period. listed have a large share (over 30 percent) of GDP originating in agriculture (see text). bPotential area suitable for any crop, including land under closed forest and/or in protected areas. cSource: Fischer et al. (2002), detailed tables. dSource: Bruinsma (2003), detailed worksheets. eComputed using population from UN (2005). fData for 1997/99; data for later years not available.

Total

Countrya

Rainfedc

Area with crop production potential (000 ha)b

TABLE 3 Land/water resources in 12 agriculture-dependent countries with high population growth rates in 2000–50

3,062f 2,255 3,707 1,092 3,050 6,098 9,483 2,778 3,622 11,106 703f 6,294

Present use (harvested area), all crops, average 1999/2001 (000 ha)

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Niger’s scarce and dwindling agricultural resources and harsh agroecological environment suggest that it will be extremely difficult for local agriculture to provide food, employment, and incomes for such a large population and also stimulate overall development. Yet alternative development options that would significantly reduce dependence on agriculture are not easily available, a situation aptly recognized in the country’s poverty-reduction strategy.17 Niger’s uranium-producing sector played a role in raising the pace of development in the 1970s, but then export prices collapsed and, with agriculture shocked by recurrent droughts, development went into reverse.18 Niger is classified by the World Bank in the category of “LowIncome, Severely Indebted” countries (World Bank 2003d: 298). It is among the ten poorest countries in the world in terms of per capita income in purchasing power parity dollars (World Bank 2003b), and it is classified nextto-last out of 177 countries included in the Human Development Index (UNDP 2004). The country’s dependence on foreign aid is high: such aid accounts for 13 percent of its gross national income and finances some 50 percent of its imports (World Bank 2003b). The indicator of agricultural land per inhabitant in Table 3 is far from a satisfactory measure of agricultural potential and can distort country rankings. This is because land (accompanied by climatic attributes) is a heterogeneous resource: a hectare of land in one country is not the same as a hectare in another country in terms of production potential. This holds even for lands classified under the same denomination used in Table 3 as concerns suitability for growing rainfed crops. For example, what is suitable land for rainfed maize in Ethiopia (4.5 million ha at a potential yield of 4.7 tons/ha under intermediate technology) is not as productive as the suitable maize land in Mali (7 million ha, potential yield 5.6 tons/ha under the same technology). This is the case for two reasons: (a) the FAO/IIASA study evaluates land suitability in any given country in relation to that country’s climatic characteristics, with the consequence that identical land qualities (soil, terrain) can have widely differing production potentials depending on climatic conditions (thermal regimes, daylight length, rainfall); and (b) consolidation of the results of the land suitability evaluations into four suitability classes is too coarse to permit comparability even among countries having identical climates. A more apt indicator is needed if we are to use agricultural resource potentials as a proximate yardstick for assessing the compatibility between the demographic projections for the countries in question and the production potential of their agricultural resources. The closest we can come to such an estimate is to express the land and water endowments of each country as potential production of the major food crops at some future date. The cereals group (wheat, coarse grains, and rice in milled form), comprising fairly homogeneous food crops (grains), lends itself to this role of yardstick.


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Cereals are by far the most important source of food in most of these countries (e.g., Afghanistan, Ethiopia, Mali, Niger, Burkina Faso), though by no means in all (e.g., in Benin, Burundi, and Uganda the group roots/tubers/ plantains/bananas predominates). Table 4 shows the resulting estimates of potential cereals production in 2050 (total and per capita) on two assumptions: (a) the proportion of total land suitable for crop production (Table 4, col. 1) that is devoted to cereals will be the same as currently, and (b) average yields in 2050 will be double those of today. To ascertain how credible these assumptions may be, Table 4 also shows the evolution of these three variables (cereals area, yield, per capita production) over the last four decades (ten-year averages are used to smooth the wide annual fluctuations typical in countries with predominantly rainfed farming and high rainfall variability). In the ten countries with data, yields nearly doubled in only two of them (Benin, Burkina Faso), while they grew little or stagnated in seven others and declined in Niger. Therefore, an assumed doubling over the next 50 years is a fairly optimistic assumption, although well within the realm of technical feasibility on the basis of presently known technology (see below). With respect to land that could be used for cereal production, the theoretical potential appears to be large in some countries (Congo DR, Mali, Madagascar, and Chad), fairly substantial in others (Benin, Burkina Faso, and Ethiopia), and virtually nonexistent in others (Niger and Burundi). The end result is that even under the optimistic assumptions used here, four countries would be unable to maintain in 2050 the per capita production they achieve today (Afghanistan, Burundi, Niger, and Uganda). For Afghanistan and Niger this inability represents a serious threat to food security given the prominence of cereals in their diets (70–75 percent of calories). It could be of less importance in Burundi and Uganda, where cereals account for only 20–25 percent of calories, with much of the rest coming from cassava, sweet potatoes, plantains, and bananas. In contrast, the other eight countries have potential for increased per capita production, which in some cases (Chad, Burkina Faso, Mali, and Madagascar) is well above any conceivable per capita consumption they may have in 2050. The significant production potential presumably existing in countries with endemic food insecurity and with largely semi-arid agriculture subject to the vagaries of weather (e.g., Ethiopia) comes as a surprise. This outcome justifies a closer look at the data and assumptions being used to evaluate production potentials. Concerning yields, the “optimistic” levels we assume for 2050 are well within the realm of those “achievable” with presently known technologies and crop varieties. The achievable yields are those generated by the crop production models used to evaluate the land suitability potentials in the FAO/IIASA study, taking into account all the agroecological parameters and


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alternative input and land management practices. For example, the study’s achievable rainfed cereal yields in Chad range from 2.2 t/ha on 24 million ha (low technology variant) to 7.6 t/ha on 30 million ha (high technology variant). These figures are well above my “optimistic” assumptions in Table 4 (yield of 1.2 t/ha on 21 million ha). For Ethiopia, the range is from 1.7 t/ ha on 32 million ha to 5.6 t/ha on 24 million ha. In this case the figure of 2.3 t/ha on 31 million ha I use in Table 4 is within the range. Naturally, the fact that several countries have failed in the past to raise land productivity does not imply that they cannot do so in the future. Yield growth has been the mainstay of agricultural progress, resulting in improved food security in most countries that have made such progress, particularly in those that operated under significant land constraints (e.g., India). However, supportive policies, particularly those that promoted the generation and diffusion of improved technologies (e.g., modern varieties) and policies or other conditions (e.g., well-functioning markets) that provided economic incentives for their adoption seem to have been at the root of such achievements. And, of course, a key prerequisite was the prevalence of agroecological conditions (e.g., potential for expanding irrigation) that permitted the exploitation of the genetic potential of improved varieties resulting from agricultural research. In the absence of strong proactive policies and agroecological potentials, it is uncertain whether some form of spontaneous or endogenous “Boserup effect” of sustainable intensification19 would play a major role in raising land productivity at rates commensurate with the challenge posed by fast-growing populations. The evidence, particularly from the literature concerned with resource degradation effects and loss of soil fertility associated with growing population pressure in rural areas, is mixed. Empirical research suggests more often than not that a host of other factors—including infrastructure development, market access conditions, and supportive policies—are instrumental in determining the extent to which growing population pressure will be associated with progress or failure in the quest for sustainable increases in land productivity (Pender 1999; Zaal and Oostendorp 2002). Johnson (2000) spoke of a “political Boserup effect” that provides a bridge between the notions of endogenous intensification and policy-supported intensification. He suggested that increases in population densities induce governments to give higher priority to agricultural research, the results of which then lead to improved agricultural productivity. Evenson (2004) has attempted to test this hypothesis and found generally positive correlations between rural population densities and investments in plant breeding in national agricultural research systems. His reported findings for sub-Saharan Africa refer to the region as a whole, however. It is difficult, therefore, to surmise whether they would apply equally, or at all, to the agroecological conditions of most countries examined here, given the considerable obstacles faced in generating yield-raising genetic improvements


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6,596 8,136 20,346 1,217 33,677 116,831 39,130 32,530 26,125 10,698 3,842 13,829

Afghanistan Benin Burkina Faso Burundi Chad Congo DR Ethiopia Madagascar Mali Niger Somalia Uganda

0.88 0.39 0.79 0.18 0.62 0.34 0.80 0.51 0.77 0.68 0.73 0.22

[2]

Yielde kg/ha Million tons

4,868 3,153 16,158 225 20,979 39,755 31,112 16,487 20,038 7,290 2,808 3,012 2,614 2,062 1,737 2,500 1,211 1,453 2,288 2,693 1,733 677 936 2,966 12.7 6.5 28.1 0.6 25.4 57.8 71.2 44.4 34.7 4.9 2.6 8.9 131 294 718 22 807 326 418 1,021 827 98 123 70 275 116 194 46 215 27 166 200 200 329 65 139

[7] 260 104 167 48 137 29 135 180 158 265 47 133

[8]

70– 80

190 113 193 51 105 33 124 151 192 262 74 84

[9]

80– 90 93– 02

169 140 226 41 140 32 128 125 197 249 38 90

[10]

Cereal production per capita (kg)

[12]

70– 80 [13]

80– 90 [14]

93– 02

[15]

61– 70

[16]

70– 80

[18]

93– 02

2,686 795 2,894 203 1,690 2,051 7,011 1,381 2,534 7,298 513 901 1,336 603 2,416 217 921 1,454 4,875 1,305 1,820 4,703

[17]

80– 90

Area harvested in cereals (000 ha)

1,307 542 681 766 1,031 528 472 487 509 631 869 1,973 2,027 998 1,081 1,153 1,250 148 167 637 530 585 606 1,141 1,065 657 684 741 727 744 1,018 732 933 1,149 1,144 6,262 5,102 1,201 1,194 1,226 1,347 1,036 1,212 720 727 855 867 1,404 1,385 496 413 372 338 2,438 3,133 468 1,006 1,235 1,397 1,483 1,133 1,184

[11]

61– 70

Cereal yields (kg/ha)

Historical data (ten-year averages, rice in milled form)f

Kg/ 61– head 70

[3]=[1]*[2]d [4]=2*[14] [5]=[3]*[4] [6]

Area (000 ha)

Production

Potential cereal production 2050 (rice in milled form)

NOTE: “High” is defined here as a growth rate of 1.8 percent per annum or higher, that is, at least twice that of the developing-country average for the same 50-year period. aCountries listed have a large share (over 30 percent) of GDP originating in agriculture (see text). bArea of Table 3 (Col. 9) adjusted (on the basis of data from Fischer et al. 2002) to exclude land suitable for rainfed crops that is under closed forest and in non–forest-protected areas. Adjustment affects significantly only the data for Congo DR (–38%) and Benin (–18%). cProportion of total harvested land currently devoted to cereals (aver. 2000–03), assumed to hold also in 2050. dSubject to constraint: Cereals area in 2050 £ area with potential for cereals production under intermediate technology plus irrigable desert land. Constraint binding only in Afghanistan. All the irrigable desert area is assumed to be suitable for cereals. Production/capita for 2050 computed using the projected populations from UN (2005). e2050 yield is assumed to be double the average of the decade 1993–2002 (ten-year averages used to smooth wide annual fluctuations). fFor Afghanistan and Somalia historical cereals area, yields, and % of total area in cereals are for 97/99; per capita production of cereals is for 69/71, 79/81, 89/91, 97/99.

[1]

Countrya

Total % in (adcerejusted)b alsc

Potential area (000 ha)

TABLE 4 Cereals production potential in 2050 in 12 agriculture-dependent countries with high population growth rates in 2000–50

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appropriate for dryland farming in areas of often low and erratic rainfall. No wonder that crops suitable for these areas are often termed “orphan crops” to denote the neglect they have received from agricultural research systems. This is not to deny that properly focused investments in plant breeding have the potential of underpinning significant improvements in food security even in disadvantaged areas. The experience of Nigeria and Ghana in raising food consumption levels following the diffusion of improved highyielding cassava cultivars is instructive (FAO 2000). In parallel, the potential of modern biotechnology to overcome agroecological constraints is well recognized (e.g., Lipton 1999). Concerning land, serious reservations have been expressed that the land area classified in the FAO/IIASA study as having rainfed crop production potential (even after subtracting areas under forest and human settlements) is overestimated and/or that it may not be capable of being put in cultivation in the foreseeable future. Young (1999) considers that there is systematic overestimation of land with agricultural potential but not yet under cultivation. Perhaps more serious factors are land accessibility (lack of infrastructure, etc.), incidence of disease, and socio-political factors, as the great difficulties with settlement and transmigration schemes have demonstrated in Ethiopia (The Economist 2004) and elsewhere (e.g., in Indonesia: Cohen 2000). In Ethiopia, the widespread cultivation of marginally suitable and drought-prone areas and the recurrent food shortages even in bumper crop years20 would lead one to attribute the shortage principally to severe land shortages at the national level. Yet, “In the lowlands, there are large unsettled tracts of land that can be developed.… These are regions that lack basic infrastructural facilities and pose serious health hazards” (Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia 2002). As already noted, severe land scarcities at the local level are not easily overcome by the availability of resources in other parts of the country.

Discussion Demographic projections for some of the countries examined here presage growing difficulties in combating poverty and food insecurity because of the limited development potential offered by their agricultural resource endowments. Underlying the presumed incompatibility between demographic destiny and agricultural resources is the notion that, for low-income countries with high dependence on agriculture, it is a sine qua non that agriculture be a prime mover in their overall development. How valid is this notion? I have noted that a good deal of consensus in the development literature lends broad support to it. It has been reaffirmed most recently in the United Nations report on the Millennium Development Goals: “Almost every successful development experience has been based on a Green Revo-


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lution at an early stage” (UN Millennium Project 2005: 32).21 However, the issue of the agricultural resource potentials that would underpin such a role for agriculture is not always treated as an integral part of the underlying analyses. I concluded that, at least in some countries with high demographic growth, there is a prima facie case for thinking that resource scarcities could well represent serious obstacles to agriculture’s playing such a role. We must also consider the possibility that the paradigm of the role of agriculture as a prime mover in development may not be universally applicable. Sachs (1997) considers that the paradigm applies predominantly to temperate zone countries and that agriculture-led growth is a rarity in the tropics. This seems to contradict the earlier statement of the Millennium Project quoted in the previous paragraph. Moreover, there are several examples of agricultural sectors being dynamic components of successful development in countries located partly or wholly in the tropics: for example, palm oil and rubber in Malaysia; or coffee, sugarcane, soybeans, and livestock in Brazil—or, in any case, being dynamic components of agriculture: for example, coffee in Vietnam or cotton in Mali. In a later article, Gallup and Sachs (2000: 735) elaborate on the geographical disadvantages of the tropics in relation to agriculture: soil limitations in the humid tropics, moisture limitations in the arid ones, climatic disadvantages for photosynthesis and heavy disease and pest loads in general. The authors recognize the suitability of the tropics for perennials and tree crops, but do not consider these to be food staples, with the possible exception of bananas. However, several tropical perennial oil crops are important food staples, for example oil palm and coconut palm.22 Gallup and Sachs refer to the development of lowland high-yielding varieties of rice in Asia as a major exception. I would add that some tropical root crops—for example, cassava—are certainly staples and have benefited from genetic improvements (see Nweke et al. 2002). In any case, agriculture’s role in development depends on its potential to produce incomes rather than only food staples. Some tree cash crops can fill that role. The problem with some of these tropical cash-cum-export crops is that they have limited market expansion potential: for example, coffee and cocoa are mostly consumed in the industrial countries with limited growth potential because of their nearly stagnant population and the relatively high consumption levels already attained. In contrast, palm oil has become a star performer in world markets (and in the agriculture of countries like Malaysia and Indonesia) precisely because of the rapidly growing demand in other developing countries. Roughly the same applies to the sharp growth of soybean exports from Brazil, though in this case the demand for protein-rich animal feeds (soybean meal) has also been a prime mover. But for the commodities with limited expansion potential, the developing exporting countries vie for market share, with the more efficient ones (e.g., Brazil for sugar; Brazil and Vietnam for coffee) elbowing out the less efficient and generally poorer ones.


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In the process, oversupply and catastrophic price declines in world markets often occur, aided, in the case of sugar, by heavy protectionism in the industrial countries. Location in the tropics is only one of several factors associated with adverse geographical circumstances that are increasingly cited as handicaps to development (see Sachs et al. 2004). Being landlocked is another factor recently used by UNIDO to rank African countries according to development potential (see Table 2). Another location-specific factor of particular relevance to many of the countries examined here is the expectation that “the frequency of drought is likely to continue increasing in tropical Africa’’ (UN Millennium Project 2005: 262). And some countries in sub-Saharan Africa, though not generally the ones examined here, are underpopulated in the sense that population is too thinly spread throughout rural areas to permit efficient infrastructure development. If for some of the countries identified here one sees little promise for an agriculture-led development strategy (without implying that agriculture should in any way be neglected), the natural question to ask is what one can say about their development prospects. The interested reader will find the latest thinking on development strategies in the recent reports of the UN Millennium Project (2005). Such thinking applies, of course, to all countries that have failed to embark on a sustained development path, whatever their demographic outlook and resource constraints. It is well accepted that the dominant obstacles to development are embedded in the socioeconomic, political, and policy spheres as well as in the initial conditions of abject poverty, rather than in scarcities of natural resources. Nevertheless, the few countries identified here as having high dependence on agriculture and rapidly mounting population pressure on scarce agricultural resources face additional constraints. The growing attention given to socioeconomic and related factors does not make the resource-related constraints any less important, at least not at this stage of development of the countries we examined here. It is possible that future changes in key demographic variables—fertility, life expectancy, and international migration—may deviate from the assumed paths. The least desirable outcome would be for the assumed improvements in life expectancy not to be fully realized if economic development were further impeded. Rather more certain is that pressures favoring international migration will mount, including for cross-border migration or the wider case of the temporary movement of people to supply labor services. This could justify upward revision of the net migration rates in the projections (Table 1). It is also possible that rural-to-urban migration pressures will be much stronger than visualized in the urbanization projections. Rural poverty tends to be transformed massively into urban poverty when circumstances dete-


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riorate in rural areas. This could be the case under the relentless demographic pressure that would be expected to build in the rural areas of some of the countries examined. And, as a result, the poverty and food insecurity problem would become much more visible. The need for remedial action would correspondingly grow more urgent and be moved up on the agenda in the international development effort. At the same time, the concentration of people in urban areas would make interventions more feasible compared with steps required if the populations in need were to be dispersed widely over large areas lacking infrastructure. The growing agricultural resource scarcities in a number of the countries with high population growth are only one of many factors contributing to the persistence of food insecurity. Of greater importance is the prospect that a continued slow pace of development and/or occasional reverses will continue to affect countries with high rates of poverty. Suffice it to note the very low growth rate in per capita income (1.6 percent per annum) foreseen at least through 2015 in sub-Saharan Africa as a whole (World Bank 2005: Table 1.3). Although this growth rate would be an improvement over the dismal record of falling incomes in the past, it would still be far from sufficient to substantially reduce rates of poverty. Even when national income growth is fairly high, there is no guarantee that it will translate, at least not in the short to medium term, into improved food consumption for the poor. The failure thus far of rapid economic growth in India (home to a quarter of the world’s undernourished) to be associated with any significant improvements in per capita food consumption is instructive in this regard (Shariff and Malik 1999; Meenakshi and Vishwanathan 2003). The possible adverse prospects for development and food security, associated with the massive increases projected for the populations of some of the countries examined here, will probably continue to unfold in the context of an ever-improving global food security situation. Rising proportions of the world’s population will have incomes sufficient to fully satisfy their nutritional needs (with consequent growing prevalence of diet-related health problems, e.g. those related to obesity). The classic food insecurity problem will become smaller (including, eventually, slowly falling absolute numbers undernourished) and sharply more local—hence, in principle, also easier to address.


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Notes The contents of this article draw largely on the work of the author commissioned by the Global Perspective Studies Unit of the Food and Agriculture Organization for the updating and extending to 2050 of the FAO study World Agriculture: Towards 2015/30, an FAO Perspective (Bruinsma 2003). The views expressed are the author’s and do not necessarily reflect those of, and should not be attributed to, FAO. Useful comments by J. Bruinsma and J. Schmidhuber are gratefully acknowledged. Food and agriculture data used are from FAO’s Faostat «http://apps.fao.org/», except when otherwise indicated. 1 World population data for 2000 and 2050 and derived growth rates used in this article are from the just-released (in summary form) 2004 Revision of the United Nations Population Prospects (UN 2005). They are shown in the last four columns of Table 1. However, the projections to 2300 are an extension of the 2050 projections from the 2002 Revision of the UN Population Prospects (UN 2003a). Therefore, the peak population values shown in Table 1 (Col. 5) are compatible with those for 2050 of the 2002 Revision (Col. 3) but may or may not be compatible with the latest ones of the 2004 Revision shown in Col. 15. Other possible incompatibilities between the latest summary population projections and other variables used in this article are signaled in subsequent endnotes. 2 Other reasons include the likely continuation of shifts in the structure of consumption toward more livestock products following growth in incomes and urbanization. Such structural change will continue to influence the total volume of demand, even if per capita calorie intakes from all foods remain more or less constant. For example, substituting in food consumption any given amount of calories derived from the direct consumption of grain by an equal amount of calories from chicken meat would reduce direct food grain consumption by one unit and increase indirect—feed—consumption of grain by 4 to 6 units. Several lowincome countries are far from having begun this process of structural change. However, several formerly low-income countries have done so, foremost among them China, and their de-


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mand for meat, coarse grains, and protein feeds (e.g., soybeans) is becoming a major driving force of world agriculture (Bruinsma 2003: chapter 3; Alexandratos et al. 2000). 3 It would be interesting to know what the growth rates of the different countries would be at the time world population is expected to peak around 2075. However, the demographic projections to 2300 (UN 2004) show country-level populations beyond 2050 only for 2100, 2150, 2200, 2250, and 2300. 4 See ILO (2004: chapter 3) for the primary role of agriculture in the development of such countries. According to the World Bank, “In poor developing countries with large agricultural sectors, growth led by the agricultural sector has a powerful effect in pulling people out of poverty, especially when the incomes and assets of the rural sector are somewhat equal” (i.e., somewhat equally distributed—World Bank 2003a: 105). Also, “At present, the development consensus is that a strong performing agricultural sector is fundamental for overall economic growth” (Stringer and Pingali 2004: 2). 5 The historical data on food consumption per capita and undernourishment shown in Table 2 reflect, inter alia, the data from the 2002 UN Revision. The 2004 Revision changed not only the projections but also the historical population estimates in some countries (e.g., Niger’s population for 2000 was 10,742 thousand in the 2002 Revision but is 11,781 thousand in the 2004 Revision). This could imply that, ceteris paribus, Niger’s per capita food consumption was lower and the incidence of undernourishment higher than shown in Table 2. 6 I use the qualifier “apparent” to indicate that the data do not come from dietary surveys or from household budget surveys but rather from FAO’s Food Balance Sheet method for the measurement of human consumption of food commodities at the retail level: i.e., Apparent food consumption = production + imports + beginning stocks – exports – nonfood industrial uses – feed – seed – waste (postharvest to retail) – ending stocks. As such the data may overestimate food actually ingested, e.g., because they are inclusive of post-retail

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and household waste. They may also understate actual consumption when they do not account for foods not often found in national statistics (e.g., wild meat, honey, etc.). 7 In the 2004 Revision the projected 2050 populations of Yemen and Somalia are substantially below those of the 2002 Revision. However, the opposite is the case for other countries in Table 1, e.g. Afghanistan, Burundi, and Uganda. 8 Japan imports 77 percent of the cereals it consumes; it would be importing even more but for the high protection of its rice-producing sector. 9 Their cereals self-sufficiency ratios (the percentage of total consumption covered by domestic production) are in the range of 75– 94 percent, except for Afghanistan and Somalia. In contrast, the other seven countries in Table 2 (those with less than 30 percent of GDP from agriculture) rely heavily on imported cereals (cereals self-sufficiency ratios range from 3 percent to 50 percent). 10 UNIDO (2004) classification. Perhaps countries such as Congo DR and Chad should not be in that class, at least in terms of potential significant rents from nonagricultural natural resources (see below). 11 The rural population figures are compatible with the total population figures in the UN’s 2002 Revision. 12 Closed forests are forested areas that are more than 40 percent covered with trees exceeding 5 meters in height (definition from: «http://www.unep.org/geo/geo3/english/ 185.htm»). 13 The areas suitable for individual crops are, of course, overlapping—so the total area cannot be obtained by simply adding the areas suitable for different crops. The method for generating estimates for the total area is explained in Fischer et al. (2002) and Bruinsma (2003: box 4.1). 14 “The Democratic Republic of the Congo can be primarily defined by its virtually landlocked status, rather than by its potential natural-resource wealth, the justification for this being that that wealth has never been realized” (UNIDO 2004: 8). Congo DR’s plentiful land resources, a good part of which are suitable for sugarcane, could play a major developmental


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role if sugarcane were to become a major biomass feedstock for producing ethanol for home use and for export as an alternative to fossilbased liquid fuels for automobiles. This is already being done in Brazil, where ethanol production from sugarcane tends to become economically remunerative for oil prices exceeding US$35– $40/barrel (Lebre la Rovere 2004). Environmental considerations also favor this option, as credits for reducing greenhouse gas emissions under the Kyoto Protocol may eventually translate to monetary incentives for sugarcane-based biofuel production. 15 “Almost one third (30 percent) of Chad, 39 million ha, could be used to grow crops. However, each year, only approximately 2.2 million ha (5.6 percent) are used for that purpose. Some 5.6 million ha could be irrigated but today only 7,000 ha are. In other words, the country’s farmland resources are hugely underexploited” (Republic of Chad 2003: chapter 3). 16 Niger’s national data give potential arable land as 15 million ha (Government of Niger 2002: 77). “As a result of drastic climatic constraints, intense population pressures, reduced soil fertility, and difficult access to inputs and farming equipment, today the acreage under cultivation has doubled, farming has shifted toward ‘marginal’ lands in the North, and pasturelands have shrunk. Degradation of natural resources such as water, farmland, pastureland and forests has also gone a long way toward making populations more vulnerable. All these factors have led to the near-pervasive impoverishment of land capital, the dwindling or disappearance of fallow land, overexploitation of wood resources and overgrazing, which have accelerated the process of desertification” (Government of Niger 2002: 36). 17 “The high concentration of the population of Niger in the rural areas (85 percent of the population lives in the rural areas, and at least 80 percent of that number is involved in agriculture) shows clearly that the rural sector must constitute the main growth engine in the short and medium term. Indeed, the agricultural sector alone accounts for 40 percent of the GDP of Niger. Agriculture must therefore serve as a springboard for economic growth in the rural areas” (Government of Niger 2002: 60).

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18 “The well-being of the people of Niger is dependent upon several external factors— the world uranium market, rainfall, Nigeria’s economy, and donor financing.… There are strong economic links—especially in the rural sector—with Nigeria, whose 100 million people are a vital market for Niger’s products. Much of Niger’s male rural population migrates each year to Nigeria to complement income from cropping and livestock activities” (World Bank 1996: 20). 19 Boserup (1965) held that increasing demographic pressure on land is a prime factor driving agricultural intensification, e.g., by reducing fallow periods in shifting agriculture. In a sense, in this view technological change is endogenous, triggered by increasing population/resource ratios (Turner and Shajaat Ali 1996).

ment Mission to Ethiopia estimates emergency food aid will be required in 2005 for 2.2 million “acutely food-insecure people” despite a bumper crop of cereals and pulses (the highest ever) estimated for 2004/05 (FAO 2005). 21 The primacy of agriculture is increasingly recognized in the development strategies of several low-income countries. For example, Ethiopia’s most recent Sustainable Development and Poverty Reduction Program submitted to the IMF makes “agricultural development led industrialization” a cornerstone of its strategy (Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia 2002). 22 Vegetable oils are a prime factor in the improvement of per capita food (kcal) consumption in the developing countries (Bruinsma 2003: chapter 3).

20 The latest (December 2004) FAO/ World Food Programme Food Supply Assess-

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