Strategies to Increase Food Production in Developing Countries

Abstract

The present world population of approximately 4.4 billion will increase to more than 6 billion by the year 2000. The increase over the next 20 years will be approximately equivalent to the total world population of 1950. Population growth will occur mainly in developing countries where many people are already suffering from hunger and malnutrition.

Various estimates suggest that during the last decade the number of people not receiving sufficient food increased from 300 million to 1 billion. Most of the undernourished people live in rural areas of the developing countries. Approximately 250 million women in developing countries are suffering from anaemia, resulting in lower survival chances for newborn babies and other health hazards.

Food supplies have become especially precarious in Subsaharan countries of the African continent where 193 million people, or 60% of the total population, were suffering from serious calorie deficits in 1975.