Bursting at the seams

And the key question facing experts as the world's population continues to grow at an alarming rate is how many mouths can the Earth feed?

Although the global population has grown at a slightly faster rate than food production per person since the mid-80s, optimists claim technology - namely bio-technology - will solve the problem. Dr Alisdair Rogers, of Oxford University's School of Geography, says producing genetically-modified crops could be the only way to feed some of the population in the Third World over the next generation.

But he admits: "That, of course, means major ethical issues are at stake. And Oxford will be at the heart of that decision-making process. Research being carried out in Oxfordshire could dictate the methods of feeding the Third World in years to come.

"A large number of trials of GM crops are taking place in Oxfordshire, and it is one part of the country where protest against GM foods is at its strongest." Earlier this year, protesters were responsible for destroying GM crops at Model Farm, Shirburn, near Watlington. But the concerns are not only local: farmers in India recently tried to burn fields of GM crops.

If the world population carries on growing at the same rate, it will hit an incredible ten billion by the year 2050.

According to the United Nations Population Foundation, population growth has been on an upward trend since the early 19th century, when just one billion people inhabited the Earth. Spokesman Lise Behata says it is the issue of ageing populations which is giving economists most cause for concern.

"Generally speaking, the world is divided into two - the wealthy, Western world, which is ageing, and the poorer, developing nations, where population is still rising.

"In the Western world, the ageing population will result in pressure on health and care resources, while in developing nations, disease, famine and drought will bring about human suffering on a scale not seen before in our history." According to the UN, food production can rise enough in the next 20 years to meet the needs, but the main problem is distribution. Although food can be produced, it cannot necessarily be produced in the countries where it is most needed.

And the real problem is water, with some population experts estimating severe and continuous droughts in parts of Africa and central Asia by the middle of the next century.

Wendy Thomas, chief executive of the British charity Population Concern, believes environmental problems will be the main result of the population explosion. "As the world puts increasing pressure on the natural environment, so it will react, leading to famine and catastrophe," she says.

"The continued rise in global warming will see huge areas of the Earth become uninhabitable, leading to widespread economic migration. Of course, as the climate and natural landscape changes, so the food and water supply will shrink. Mankind will destroy itself if it is not careful."

An international agreement reached five years ago in Cairo pledges all nations to co-operate in trying to limit population growth by providing family planning services throughout the developing world. But the message is still not getting through.

Ms Thomas says: "In order to be able to effectively halt rapid population growth, we need to reduce the average world birth rate from its current level of 2.7 births per woman to 1.5.

"This is not going to happen by accident. It needs education programmes and it needs inter-governmental planning." But not everyone believes the current population explosion is bad news. Stephen Moore, of Washington's Cato Institute, argues that technological innovation will always progress fast enough to support humankind.

"This is an incredible thing that we have six billion people. It's a real tribute to human ingenuity and our ability to innovate."

Story date: Tuesday 12 October

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