population explosion scare implodes

[Paul Cherubini]

Ryan wrote:

 > Before you go on, I apologize but this is not related to leps

> Yet fertility rates have now fallen below replacement
> levels in 83 countries. When the higher mortality rates
> of developing countries are factored in, fertility rates are
> at or below replacement rates levels in as many as 97
> countries.

I also apologize to the list for responding to an off-leps
topic post, but it is interesting that Dr. Paul & Anne Ehrlich 
continue to sound the alarm bells due a growing world 
population:

Anne Ehrlich wrote on ecolog-l April 8, 2002:

"And the US has had no significant agricultural "surpluses"
for decades, although we are the world's leading exporter of
foodstuffs.  On a  worldwide basis, the food production system
is increasingly in trouble while the population is still growing,
although not as rapidly as it was in the 1960s.  The green
revolution saved us the first time, but no encore is in sight
that can match it for boosting production."

However, crop yield for even the most intensely farmed land
in the USA (the Midwest) continue to increase:

SOYBEANS YIELD    CORN FOR GRAIN YIELD
IN IOWA                         IN IOWA
BUSCHEL / ACRE      BUSCHEL / ACRE

1950     22.0                48.5
1951     20.5                43.5

1960     25.5                 63.5
1961     28.5                75.5

1970     32.5                 86.0
1971     32.5               102.0
 
1980      38.5               110.0
1981      40.0               125.0

1990      41.5               126.0
1991      40.5               117.0

2000     43.5                144.0
2001     44.0                146.0

Paul Cherubini

 
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