Overpopulation and Food Sustainability

A growing source of concern for our current population is food availability. Most countries today rely heavily on importing foods, and very few countries export food. The growing number of importers and the shrinking number of those able to export threatens the sustainability of our lifestyle. Today, world hunger is at the highest level it has ever been. Over 1 billion people go hungry every day, and remain undernourished. A major cause of this is the rapid industrialization of a heavily populated country. As a population begins to industrialize more land that was once used for agriculture becomes allocated to creating buildings and roads. This means that the country must import an increasingly large amount of food to compensate.

If we were to live in “island civilizations” the area for industrialization would be much smaller, and so would the number of mouths to feed.  A smaller amount of people would be much less draining on the environment, making the population much more sustainable. Reduced industrialization also means fewer roads and buildings need to be built, and as a result the environment is not destroyed.

Outgrowing the Earth: The Food Security Challenge in an Age of Falling Water Tables and Rising Temperatures