Can We Feed Everybody?

It is commonly accepted thought that the more population country has the more food and supply it can provide for its people. Thus, economic growth of the country which controls its population density is growing while countries which have uncontrolled population growth would never develop economically and, therefore will not supply its citizens sufficiently.

Is it really true? The fact is developing countries do have overpopulated areas and poverty is the main problem they face. However, there are many examples which disprove this, such as the one of the Netherlands and its former colony Indonesia. Though the Netherlands has four times the population density of Indonesia, it is the latter which has a severe poverty problem and is considered overpopulated. Furthermore, contrary to what is expected, the gross national product in overpopulated developing countries is rising. This means that the economic state of countries with a large population isn't necessarily worsening, and if so- population growth is not responsible for it.

Though we have seen that population growth is not the cause of poverty, some experts blame population growth of reducing available quantities of food. Actually, it is quite the opposite that is true. The largest increases in the production of food is in the third world countries, which happen to be where there are the largest increases of population.

Given what we know, we can surely say that population growth is exempted of being responsible for the poverty in the world or the reduction in the output of food per person. Researchers should more pay their attention to other problems caused by overpopulation, such as environmental pollution and natural resources degradation.