"The battle to feed all of humanity is over. In the 1970s hundreds of millions of people will starve to death in spite of any crash programs embarked upon now. At this late date nothing can prevent a substantial increase in the world death rate"
Paul Erlich The Population Bomb -- 1968
When Erlich published these words, he was correct. At that time the statistical trends for agricultural production against the accelerating population growth of the post-WWII period were clear and grim. There was no flaw in the data nor his analysis. He was unquestionably right.
And two years later, he was unquestionably wrong.
Twenty years earlier, the government of Mexico created initiatives to become agriculturally self-sufficient. Mexican farmers and agronomists collaborated with government support to explore increasing crop yields. A private foundation weighed in with funding and connections to the international community of agricultural science. At the project's center was research to increase the yield of indigenous maize and imported wheat. By 1964, crop yields in Mexico were six times the amount only twenty years before.
On the other side of the world, India was teetering on the edge of widespread and systemic starvation. Agronomist Mankombu Sambasivan Swaminathan led a similar government supported initiative to increase food production. Swaminathan was in communication with American agronomist Norman Borlaug who was at work in Mexico on creating higher yield hybrids of wheat and maize. Swaminathan brought high-yield seeds to India, and began work on rice hybrids.
Meanwhile, in the Philippines, a similar government initiative with support by the Rockefeller Foundation which had provided assistance to the efforts in Mexico, expanded Swaminathan's work on rice hybridization.
All these efforts came quietly together in the mid-60s and by the early 70s. The threat of population growing faster than food production vanished.
Too many people still suffer from starvation, hunger, and inadequate nutrition. There's work left for us to do. This takes us back to the Honourable Mia Motley, "How do we create the inter-generational responsibilities that allow us to know that it is not one generation, or one man, or one group of people, to run the race and to leave it as if that is the end of the race?"
Nonetheless, global population has approximately doubled since the mid 1960's while global food production has multiplied four times.
Statistics and Probability
Statistics can give us reliable information about what has happened and what is happening. Probability tries to inform us as to what will happen.
Probability offers reliable information on what will happen, if nothing changes.
Weather forecasts rely on probability. With globally integrated weather data collection and observations, meteorologists can tell us what they see coming. At the same time, there's a turbulence in both global and local weather that makes hard-to-predict changes. Hence a remark I heard, "I just shoveled six inches of partly cloudy out of my driveway."
Our brains don't like this uncertainty. When a change happens, we can blame the statistics. The prediction of the collapse of our ability to feed a growing population was wrong.
In fact, it was correct, until something changed.
The statistics tracking global warming are correct. Unless something changes.
The contradiction, it's true until it's not true, is challenging cognitively. It disrupts our brains' compulsion for certainty.
As a result, what's sadly probable based on historical data, is that increases in uncertainty generate a rise in the false prophets of certainty. When our brains are presented with complex and uncertain problems, our brains demand simple answers. There's a lot of money to be made in providing them. Drink this green slime to reverse aging. These five stocks are certain to rise in 2024. I am the only one who can fix all our problems. This is the best color to paint your kitchen this year.
Look for the formula: The world needs X. Y is the solution to X. I know the secret to Y. This decision is a no brainer.
Ummmm. Consequential and complex decisions made under conditions of uncertainty need a lot of brain power.
Let's look at what's been coined the Green Revolution as a model. What happened in the places that created the framework: Mexico, India, and the Philippines, was generated by local experts. In this case those experts were called farmers, who began engaging in highly local experiments to raise local food production.
They weren't trying to solve world hunger at that point. They were trying to change the things they could change. Funding and support were supplied to the local experts. Networks of information sharing emerged naturally as people in one community sought out collaboration from people in other communities. Even the top-level experts, Mankombu Sambasivan Swaminathan, and Norman Borlaug, had grown up in farming communities.
It took about 20 years for a global hive of buzzing brains. It was a lot-of-brainer. And for 20 years, there was no global change `
Here are some things to try:
Apply your brain to something you think you can change.
Find people who are willing to think through the problem with you.
Make sure some of them disagree with you. They could be right, and even if they're wrong, they'll make you think harder.
Remember Mia Motley: "I’m reminded by the words of the Talmud, which says we are not expected to complete the task, but neither are we at liberty to resign from it."
And if there's nothing you can do, try the 3000 year old suggestion of Micah of Judah, to do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly.
REFERENCED IN THIS LETTER:
Paul Erlich: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/innovation/book-incited-worldwide-fear-overpopulation-180967499/
Initiative by Mexico: https://www.mexconnect.com/articles/3393-did-you-know-the-green-revolution-began-in-mexico/
Mankombu Sambasivan Swaminathan: https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-023-03175-3
Norman Borlaug: https://www.wfpusa.org/articles/historys-hunger-heroes-norman-borlaug/
Initiative by Philippines: https://www.irri.org/about-us/our-people
Starvation: https://ourworldindata.org/famines
Take us Back: https://www.kairoscognition.com/blog/df2b73cdacba3f55
Honourable Mia Motley: https://www.nelsonmandela.org/news/entry/speech-by-the-honourable-mia-mottley-prime-minister-of-barbados-at-the-20th-nelson-mandela-annual-lecture
Global Population: https://www.macrotrends.net/global-metrics/countries/WLD/world/population