What Caused the Problem?

To put all the blame simply on overpopulation would be misleading. The matter is really much more complex. The scientific journal Bild der Wissenschaft comments: “The determining factor does not seem to be the rate of population growth in itself but the failure of governments to pursue an adequate agricultural program.”

Also not to be overlooked are so-called natural causes, like drought and flooding, which in 1981 were responsible for reducing an estimated 14 million Chinese to emergency rations. Political upheaval and labor unrest can also cause food lines, as they in fact did in some eastern European nations that same year.

Another cause is best exemplified in Africa. About the world’s hungriest continent, where 23 of the 29 countries currently classified by FAO as having “abnormal food shortages” are located, the magazine New African writes:

“Before the impact of colonialism, Africa was self-sufficient in food. There were surpluses which were traded within the continent. But as European powers divided up Africa, they also forced cash-crop production onto African societies.

“This shift has accelerated since the end of World War II. Africa has been ‘developed’ as a producer of cash crops for the Western world. . . . Luxury crops such as flowers, tea, coffee and cocoa, and industrial crops such as rubber, cotton and sisal.”

These and many other factors have contributed toward making food shortages a global problem.

Man’s success in preventing the causes of food shortages​—droughts, wars, political upheavals, disease or pests, natural disasters—​is limited at best.