Question

6) Will the world’s agricultural production be able to feed everyone in the future? On what factors will this outcome depend? How is politics likely to influence policy solutions to these questions? Note what the special report from the Economist has to say about some these issues.

Answer 1

the world’s agricultural production will not be able to feed everyone in the future and this outcome will depend on the following factors : population growth, food production rate, ratio of population and food production, income distribution and spending power of people etc. explained below :

• Increase in the population: with the increase in the population every year there will be food shortage in the future.
• Decreasing agricultural production every year as compare to the increase in population which will create deficit of food.
• Increase in unequal distribution of income due to which some people can afford high priced food while some people can’t afford it at all.
• Increase in income of people which increases their spending power due to which they use excessive food products leading to wastage of it.

Politics plays an important role in influencing the policy solution to solve the problems as to maintain balance between population and food production government needs to make effective policies which we help in controlling the causes of the problems. Government can take steps to control population, improve income distribution and control the excess supply of money in the economy etc.

  The special report from the Economist has highlighted the problem and has explained the problems world economics are going to face due to food shortage. According to economists this problem will affect the social welfare and economic growth adversely as the food shortage leads to starvation, it increases the gap between rich and poor and will severely affect the poor and lower income groups. The excess burden on agricultural factors for production will create negative impact on agricultural productivity.