Who Will Feed China?: Wake-Up Call for a Small Planet

By Lester R. Brown

Book Overview

To feed its 1.2 billion people, China may soon have to import so much grain that this action could trigger unprecedented rises in world food prices. In Who Will Feed China: Wake-up Call for a Small Planet, Lester Brown shows that even as water becomes more scarce in a land where 80 percent of the grain crop is irrigated, as per-acre yield gains are erased by the loss of cropland to industrialization, and as food production stagnates, China still increases its population by the equivalent of a new Beijing each year. When Japan, a nation of just 125 million, began to import food, world grain markets rejoiced. But when China, a market ten times bigger, starts importing, there may not be enough grain in the world to meet that need - and food prices will rise steeply for everyone. Analysts foresaw that the recent four-year doubling of income for China's 1.2 billion consumers would increase food demand, especially for meat, eggs, and beer. But these analysts assumed that food production would rise to meet those demands. Brown shows that cropland losses are heavy in countries that are densely populated before industrialization, and that these countries quickly become net grain importers. We can see that process now in newspaper accounts from China as the government struggles with this problem.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 039331409X
• ISBN13: 9780393314090
• Release Date: September 1995
• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
• Length: 168 Pages
• Weight: 0.45 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.5" x 5.4" x 8.0"

Customer Reviews

Uncanny view of our future.

Looking at today's newspaper headlines we can now see how the rising demand for food in the emerging nations of China and India has rocked the world food markets. This is a situation that will only increase in intensity until an equitable solution is found. Please read this special report by the Guardian newspaper to see how the world will forever be changed by China's increasing demands for food. [...]

30 million starved to death in1959-61;what does the future hold for China?

I don't tend to read too much of this sort of thing,but this short book left me flabbergasted.The signs for a massive problem seem to be getting in place.This book was published in 1995,and probably the data was even somewhat out-of-date at that time.10 years has gone by and the population and fantastic economic development has continued to explode and no signs of any attempts to confront the impending pressures.In all the years that I have read books that attempted to forsee developing conditions and then to predict future events;I can't think of any prediction that was on the mark.That is not to say, that the problems aren't very severe;something will come about,but it will be completely different than the senario predicted. The book quotes a lot of facts and trends,suggests that it will result in very high prices for food,particularly grain in the future.I doubt it will be that simple,the extreme demand will be there and all the price increases in the world for the limited supply will not produce a solution.The book reminds me of the kind of thing one can expect from government and other bureaucrats;simply a definition of the problem ,but totally devoid of any solutions. Since it is not a subject I have read much about;I have not seen any data to show what the numbers are now,10 years later.I suspect the trends have continued unabated.One must consider that people are very resilient and can adjust to about any amount of deprivation until some event becomes the straw that breaks the camels back--then LOOK-OUT major calamity will occur;history has shown that to be the case time and time again. The author quite correctly reminds us that "Socialist ideology makes it easy to dismiss problems"."He also quotes Michael Teitelbaum, a demographer;"For Marx,the fact that people were producers as well as consumers meant that the resource limits emphasized by the classical economists could arise under capitalism,but not under socialism."The folly of that thinking has been proven disasterous in the past,and it is likely to be repeated as long as China embrases socialism. The authors main point is that as a country develops,its people will want the best lifestyle possible.It is easy for the Chinese to see what is possible,as it is already realized in many countries around the world.The problem is that China does not have the resources,nor are there such resources in the rest of the world--and therein lies the problem. These numbers tell the story: Annual Per Capita Consumption in 100 kilos Country Grain Beef Pork Poultry Mutton Milk Eggs USA 800 42 28 44 1 271 16 Italy 400 16 20 19 1 182 12 China 300 1 21 3 1 4 7 India 200 - 0.4 0.4 0.2 31 13 Kinda scary,ain't it

Are food prices going to double or triple in the next decade

A disturbing analysis of the effect in the near future of China's population on world food requirements. Eminently readable. My only regret is that the writer did not even hint at possible solutions.