OCR Output

174 GÁBOR PIRISI

would not be too mistaken to say that the rate of those living in extreme poverty
halved between 1990 and 2020. Food production could also keep pace with
population growth: FAO data reveal that from 1960 to 2020, the available calories
per capita per day rose from 2200 kcal to 3000 kcal, and even the poorest countries
registered an increase of about 1590. In the broadening of food production,
extensive agriculture has played an important role, which means the increase of
arable land to the detriment of natural ecosystems. Food increase also has intensive
components: between 1960 and 2020, the global average yield of wheat per hectare
increased 3.4-fold, that of maize 2.8-fold, that of rice 2.3-fold, that of soybeans
2.5-fold (World Bank). In principle, this growth is far from over: it will still take
a long time to spread the technologies that most effectively utilize the environmental
resources worldwide, thus further giving a considerable boost to food production.
All things considered, there is no reason to presume that we would not be able to
produce enough food for nine or ten billion people on the Earth (Seekell et al.
2017).

Famine and malnutrition repeatedly appear on a regional scale, always in
countries that are poor and incapable of acquiring locally absent foodstuffs from
the global market. In 2022, when this paper is being written, the extreme droughts
affecting the northern hemisphere and the Russian-Ukrainian war devastating the
croplands of Eastern Europe are putting the food system of the world to the test.
The soaring of food prices is only an annoyance and inconvenience to the majority
of the population in developed countries, forcing them to economize at most.
However, it may have grave consequences for the least developed countries, which
are reduced to food imports. This also confirms that the question of subsistence
should be interpreted in economic terms: at what price can sufficient food be
produced for ten billion people?

There are some more menacing contradictions which loom large on the horizon
in the near future. The best antidote to population growth, as we have seen, is
economic growth and modernization. This, however, entails an increase in per
capita consumption, meaning growing demand for food. It is true that economic
growth will also enable people to buy food at higher prices. At the same time,
growing welfare generates demand for other goods as well: durable commodities
such as transport vehicles, their fuel, and the costs of growing mobility will all tax
the Earth's limited resources.

Nowadays, we are already familiar with the concept of the ecological footprint,
which compares the resource needs of human consumption with the area required
for their production. At present, this index shows 1.7-fold overconsumption
globally. A similar indicator is the Earth Overshoot Day, which in 2022 was reached
on 29 July, from which day not the yield but the capital is consumed for the
remainder of the year. This has led us to the heart of the problem: can we satisfy
the consumption needs of ten billion people without the collapse of the climate
of our planet? or, to put it more sharply: despite all the destruction we have wrought
on the biosphere, and despite all the damage that human-induced climate change
causes to our agricultural systems, will we be able to satisfy these needs (Ray et al.
2019; Rockström et al. 2009; Schneider et al. 2011)? This is the issue that will
determine global development in the next decades. If we cannot find a good
solution, the struggle for the redistribution of resources may become all too real.
In our common future, demographic questions play a key role, but the issue of