Page 18 - PR COMMUNICATION AGE FEBRUARY 2016

Rising energy prices are another threat to crop production. on the edge of famine. Yet its population is projected to
Energy is essential for cultivation, harvesting, transporta- more than triple in size to 58 million by 2050. Without
tion, refrigeration, packaging, and distribution. Even some massive food aid countries like Niger will face a Malthusian
of fertilizers and pesticides are hydrocarbon-based. Plus future.
crops formerly meant for our dinner tables are now wind-
ing up as biofuels. Unintended excessive childbearing results in poor health for
women and children, slow economic growth and en-
Cultivating more land, investing in agricultural infrastruc- trenched poverty, overcrowded schools and clinics and an
ture and technology, and subsidizing farming inputs such as overburdened infrastructure, as well as civil strife caused
fertilizer, pesticides, and water can help raise food produc- by high unemployment and inequality are rapidly growing
tion, but these approaches come with high environmental among young populations.
costs, including deforestation, exhaustion of fresh water re-
sources, soil erosion, and water, soil, and air pollution. Food Investing in voluntary family planning programs and improv-
consumption is expected to increase by 50% over the next ing education, especially of girls, is essential. Interest and
two decades because of population growth and higher in- international support for these initiatives has declined since
comes. In developing countries diets have become more the mid-1990s.The belief that fertility declines were
calorie and protein-rich, and consumption of animal prod- already underway; the failure of earlier apocalyptic
ucts is growing. predictions such as worldwide famine, to materialize; op-
position from conservative governments and institutions;
Population growth will occur in the poorest regions of the funding competition from the global AIDS epidemic; and
world where prospects are grimmest. Most of the ex- negative reactions to coercive birth control measure in
tremely rapid population growth is in sub-Saharan Africa, China have lead to decreased funding.
where more than an estimated billion will be added to its
current population. Voluntary family planning programmes are highly valued by
women. Each year 75 million unintended pregnancies oc-
In Niger, the small amount of arable land remaining is cur in the developing world (out of 186 million all total).
threatened by desertification. The current population lives Most of these end in abortions and/or have detrimental
health and economic effects for women and their families.

Over one hundred million women have an unmet need for
contraception. (They don't want to get pregnant but are
not using contraception.) They are constrained by their lack
of knowledge about family planning, limited access to sup-
plies and services, the cost of contraception, fear of side
effects, and opposition from spouses and other family mem-
bers. However good family planning programs are effective
in reducing these obstacles, thus reducing unintended preg-
nancies and birth rates.

Is the world overpopulated? Are we heading toward a glo-
bal population "crash"? In the late 1960s and early 1970s
some environmentalists began making sensational claims
that the world's ever increasing population would soon
outstrip the planet's limited resources leading to an envi-
ronmental cataclysm of horrific proportions. In these sce-

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18 PR COMMUNICATION AGE February 2016

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