Food production

Vaclav Smil

Humans acquire relied during the beforehand of their change on a basal of aural bureau to dedicated their aliment supply. In abounding places in the tropics the oldest strategies (foraging and animate agriculture) had coexisted accessory by accessory with afterwards bureau of aliment pro-vision (pastoralism, board farming) for complete connected periods of time (Headland and Reid, 1989). In others, China achievement a complete example, the age-old bureau of board agronomics were gradually acclimatized into abounding added advantageous bureau of growing crops. Foraging (food accretion and hunting) bedeviled all abominable and best of abominable achievement and some of its key comestible attributes will be acclaimed in the ancient breadth of this associate alms a brusque history of aliment production. In this breadth I will additionally calendar a basal of adequate agronomical practices, as they are still complete abounding in affirmation throughout the developing world. My assay of the accustomed all-around aliment bearings will focus primarily on accumulation and afire gaps amidst developed and developing countries (I accept to assuming them artlessly flush and poor).


While adorable avant-garde I will abjure any quantitative point forecasts, as these tend to become accidental about as afresh as they are published; instead, I will assay the basic factors that will be alive changes in aliment address during the abutting 50 years. Increased address for abominable foods will be a key accretion of this change and appropriately I will admeasure a absent breadth to apologue its adequate beforehand and its after-effects for the all-around address for feeds. I will abutting by affirmation the allegation for two analytic kinds of beforehand in agriculture: in the aliment of irreplaceable Eco systemic structures and casework afterwards which no agronomics can succeed, and in abiogenetic engineering whose advances will admonition to abate malnutrition akin as the citizenry of developing countries keeps expanding.

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A brief history of food production & Foraging societies

A brief history of food production

Every new find of hominid remains in East Africa reignites the controversy about the origin of our species, but at least one conclusion remains unchanged: we have come from a long lineage of opportunistic foragers, and for millions of years both the natural diet and the foraging strategies of hominids resembled those of their primate ancestor (Whiten and Widdowson, 1992). Larger brains improved the odds of their survival but to secure food, hominids relied only on their muscles and on simple stratagems as scavengers, gatherers, hunters, and fishers helped by stone implements, bows and arrows and by fibrous or leather lines and nets. Controlled use of fire needed to prepare cooked food may have come first nearly half a million years ago, but a more certain time is about 250000 years ago (Goudsblom, 1992).

Childe’s (1951) idea of Neolithic Revolution has been one of the most unfortunate caricatures of human evolution: there was no sudden shift from foraging to sedentary farming. Diminishing returns in gathering and hunting led to a gradual extension of incipient cultivation present in many foraging societies, and foraging and agriculture commonly coexisted for very long periods of time (Smil, 1994). Similarly, there were no abrupt changes in the way most traditional agricultures produced food; some places experienced prolonged stagnation, or even declines, in overall food output, others have undergone gradual intensification of crop cultivation that has resulted in higher yields and more secure food supplies. Even then, traditional farming was able to produce only monotonous diets and it remained highly vulnerable to environmental stresses. Only modern agriculture, highly intensive and fossil fuel-based, has been able to produce enormous surpluses of food in all af uent nations and to raise most of the world’s populous developing countries at least close to, and for most of the Chinese even well above, subsistence minima.

Foraging societies

The great diversity of the preserved archaeological record makes it impossible to offer any simple generalizations concerning prehistoric diets. Modern studies of foraging societies that have survived in extreme environments (tropical rain forest, semideserts) into the 20th century have provided very limited insight into the lives of prehistoric foragers in more equable climates and more fertile areas. Moreover, these societies have often been affected by contacts with pastoralism, farmers or overseas migrants. Given the unimpressive physical endowment of early humans and the absence of effective weapons, it is most likely that our ancestors were initially much better scavengers than hunters (Blumenschine and Cavallo, 1992). Large predators often left behind partially eaten carcasses and this meat, or at least the nutritious bone marrow, could be reached by enterprising early humans before it was devoured by vultures and hyenas.

 Fishing, collecting of shellfish, and near-shore hunting of sea mammals provided diet unusually rich in proteins and made it possible to live in semi permanent, and even permanent, settlements (Price, 1991). In contrast, both gathering and hunting were surprisingly unrewarding in species-rich tropical forests where energy-rich seeds are a very small portion of total plant mass and are mostly inaccessible in high canopies, as are most animals, which are also relatively small and highly mobile. Grasslands and open woodlands offered much better opportunities for both collecting and hunting. Many highly nutritious seeds and nuts were easy to reach, and patches of large starchy roots and tubers provided particularly high energy returns. So did the hunting of many grasslands herbivores which were often killed without any weapons, by driving the  herds over precipices. This hunting was intensive enough to explain the disappearance of most large herbivores from preagricultural landscapes (Alroy, 2001).

There is no doubt that all pre agricultural societies were omnivorous and that although they collected and killed a large variety of plant and animal species only a few principal foodstuffs usually dominated their diets. Preference for seeds and nuts among gatherers was inevitable; they are easy to collect, and they combine high energy con-tent (13–26 MJ/kg) with relatively high protein shares (commonly above 10%). Wild grass seeds have as much food energy as cultivated grains (15MJ/kg), and nuts have energy densities up to 75% higher. All wild meat is an excellent source of protein ( 20%) but the esh of small and agile animals (e.g., hares or monkeys) contains very little fat ( 10%) and hence has very low energy density (5–6 MJ/kg). Consequently, there has been a widespread hunting preference for such large and relatively fatty species, such as mammoths and bison's (containing 10–12MJ/kg). Even so, except for maritime hunters of fatty fish (salmon) and mammals (whales, seals), lipids usually supplied no more than 20% of food energy in preagricultural societies.

The extremes of daily intakes of animal protein among the remaining foraging populations studied after 1950 range from more than 300 g/capita among Inuit feeding on whales, seals, fish, and caribou to less than 20 g a day for foragers in arid African environments subsisting mainly on nuts and tubers (Smil, 1994). Eaton and Konner (1997) used nutrient analyses of wild plant and animal foods eaten by recent gatherers and hunters in order to estimate the dominant composition of prevailing preagri-cultural diets. They concluded that compared to the typical recent US intakes they were more than twice as rich in fiber, potassium, and calcium, but contained less than one-third of today’s sodium consumption.

Prehistoric survival modes and diets were extremely diverse but this fact has not prevented some anthropologists making inadmissible generalizations. Undoubtedly, for some groups the total foraging effort was low, only a few hours a day, and this fact, confirmed by some modern field surveys, led to the portrayal of foragers as “the original af uent society” (Sahlins, 1972). This conclusion, based on very limited and highly debatable evidence, ignored the reality of much of the hard, and often dangerous, work in foraging and the frequency with which environmental stresses repeatedly affected most foraging societies. Seasonal food shortages in  actuating climates necessitated the eating of unpalatable plant tissues and led to weight loss, low fertility, high infant mortality, infanticide and often to devastating famines (Smil, 1994).

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Traditional agriculture's

In comparison to foraging, traditional farming nearly always required higher inputs of human energy (and later also of animal labor), but it could support higher population densities and provide a more reliable food supply. Whereas foraging (except for maritime hunting) could support no more than a few people per 100 hectares (ha) of territory used for gathering and hunting, early traditional agricultures managed to support at least one person/ha of arable land (Fig. 3.1). By the end of the 19th century China’s nationwide mean was above five people/ha, and double cropping of rice and wheat in the most fertile areas could yield enough to feed 12–15 people/ha (Smil, 1994).

                                                                    Modern farming

                                                   Traditional farming

                                    Shifting farming

                           Pastoralism

                                                            Foraging

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Figure 3.1

Comparison of carrying capacities of the principal modes of human food production showing that farming can support 10–10 more people than foraging (based on Smil, 2000). 

The need for higher energy inputs explains why so many foraging societies kept delaying adoption of permanent cultivation and why shifting farming – a less intensive method of cultivation alternating short (1–3 years) cropping periods with much longer (a decade or more) fallow spells – was practiced so extensively. In spite of many regional and local differences there were many fundamental similarities that persisted across the millennia of traditional farming. Above all, these agricultures were entirely renewable; photosynthetic conversion of solar radiation produced food for people, feed for animals, recyclable wastes for the replenishment of soil fertility, as well as wood (often turned into charcoal) for smelting metals needed to make simple farm tools. But the renewability of traditional farming was no guarantee of its sustainability. In many regions poor agronomic practices gradually depleted soil fertility or caused excessive soil erosion or desertification. These changes brought lower yields or even the abandonment of cultivation. But in most regions traditional farming progressed from extensive to relatively, or even highly, intensive modes of cultivation.

 Except for small-scale cultivation of tubers (above all cassava) in the tropics and the Inca’s reliance on potatoes, all of the Old World’s traditional agricultures, as well as plowless Mesoamerican societies, shared their dependence on cereal grains. Cereal cultivation was supplemented by legumes, tubers and oil, fiber and, in some agricultures, also feed crops. After the domestication of draft animals the traditional crop cycles always started with plowing. Primitive wooden implements were used for millennia before the introduction of metal moldboard plows, 2000 years ago in China, but only some 17 centuries later in Europe. Plowing was followed by harrowing and by manual seeding. Harvesting also remained manual (sickles, scythes) until the introduction of grain reapers before the middle of the 19th century. Wheat cultivars had diffused worldwide from the Near East, rice from Southeast Asia, corn from Mesoamerica and millets from China.

Continuous primacy of grains in crop cultivation is due to the combination of their relatively high yields (two or three times higher than legume harvests), good nutritional value (high in filling, easily digestible carbohydrates, moderately rich in proteins), relatively high energy density at maturity (at 13–15 MJ/kg roughly five times higher than for tubers), and low moisture content ( 14%) suitable for long-term storage. Dominance of a particular species has been largely a matter of environmental conditions and taste preferences. Without understanding the nutritional rationale for their actions all traditional agricultures combined the cultivation of cereal and legume grains thus assuring complete amino acid supply in largely vegetarian diets. The Chinese planted soybeans, beans, peas, and peanuts to supplement millets, wheat and rice. In India protein from lentils, peas, and chickpeas enriched wheat and rice. In Europe the preferred combinations included peas and beans with wheats, barley, oats, and rye, in West Africa peanuts and cowpeas with millets, and in the New World corn and beans.

The principal means of agricultural intensification included more widespread and more efficient use of draft animals, increasing fertilization and regular crop rotations, more frequent irrigation in arid regions, and multicropping in the places where cli-mate could support more than a single crop per year. The use of draft animals (horses, mules, oxen, water buffaloes, camels, donkeys) eliminated the most exhaustive field work and it also sped up considerably many farmyard tasks (threshing, oil pressing), improved the quality of plowing (and later also of seeding), allowed for drawing of water from deeper wells for irrigation. The introduction of collar harness, invented in China about two millennia ago, iron horseshoes, and heavier animal breeds made field work more efficient (Smil, 1994). Feeding larger numbers of these animals eventually required further intensification to produce requisite feed crops.

Irrigation and fertilization moderated, if not altogether removed, the two key constraints on crop productivity, shortages of water and nutrients. Unaided gravity irrigation could not work on plains and in river valleys with minimal stream gradients; the invention and introduction of a variety of simple mechanical, animal- and people-driven water-lifting devices (mostly in the Middle East and China) solved this challenge (Molenaar, 1956). Fertilization involved recycling of crop residues and increasingly intensive applications of animal and human wastes. Extensive practices used no manure, whereas peak manuring rates in the 19th century Netherlands and in the most productive provinces in China surpassed 20 t/ha. Green manuring, cultivation of leguminous cover crops (clovers, vetches) which were then plowed under, was widely used in Europe ever since ancient Greece and Rome, and it has also been widely employed in east Asia (Smil, 2001). Even so, nutrient deficiencies commonly limited traditional crop productivity.

Growing of a greater variety of crops lowered the risk of total harvest failure, discouraged the establishment of persistent pests, reduced erosion, and maintained better soil properties. Crop rotations were chosen to fit climatic and soil conditions and dietary preferences. In poor societies they could substantially improve food self-sufficiency and food security at the local level. Traditional varieties of crops and their rotation schemes were enormous. For example, Buck’s (1937) survey of Chinese farming counted nearly 550 different cropping systems in 168 localities. The adoption of new crops – most notably the post-1500 introductions of such New World staple as corn and potatoes and such versatile vegetables as tomatoes and peppers – had an enormous impact on food production throughout the world. In spite of these innovations preindustrial agricultures brought only very limited improvements in average harvests. For example, European wheat yields, except in the Netherlands and the UK, did not begin to rise decisively before the last decade of the 19th century (Smil, 1994).

Traditional farming also provided no more than basic subsistence diets for most of the people. Even during fairly prosperous times typical peasant diets, although more than adequate in terms of total food energy, were highly monotonous and not very palatable. In large parts of Europe bread (mostly dark, and in northern regions with little or no wheat  our), coarse grains (oats, barley, buckwheat), turnips, cabbage, and later potatoes, were the everyday staples. Typical rural Asian diets were, if anything, even more dominated by rice or coarse grain (millet, buckwheat). In many cases traditional peasant diets also contained less animal protein than did the earlier intakes with higher consumption of wild animals, birds, and aquatic species. This qualitative decline was not offset by a more equitable availability of basic foodstuffs: major consumption inequalities, both regional and socioeconomic, persisted until the 19th century. The majority of people in all traditional farming society had to live on food supplies that were below the level required for a healthy and vigorous life and different kinds of malnutrition were common.

Documentary and anthropometric evidence does not demonstrate any consistent upward trend in per capita food supply across the millennia of traditional farming. Regardless of the historical period, environmental setting and prevailing mode of cropping and intensification, no traditional agriculture could consistently produce enough food to eliminate extensive malnutrition. More importantly, no preindustrial agriculture could prevent recurrent famines. Droughts and  oods were the most common natural triggers, and as a recent study demonstrates these natural disasters often represented the worst imaginable climatic teleconnections arising from the El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) whose effects are felt far beyond the Pacific realm (Davis, 2001). The combined (and never to be accurately quantified) toll of large-scale famines that repeatedly swept late 19th century India and China, and that also severely affected parts of Africa and Brazil, amounted to tens of millions of casualties.

In China in the 1920s peasants recalled an average of three crop failures brought by such disasters within their lifetime that were serious enough to cause famines (Buck, 1937). Some famines were so devastating that they remained in collective memory for generations and led to major social, economic and agronomic changes: the famous collapse of Phytophthora-infested Irish potato crops between 1845 and 1852, or the great Indian drought-induced famine of 1876–79. The world’s most devastating famine, in China between 1958 and 1961, was only secondarily a matter of drought; the primary causes lie in the delusionary Maoist policies (Smil, 1999a).

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Modern farming

New energy sources and three intertwined strands of innovation explain most of the success of modern farming. In contrast to traditional agriculture's, nonrenewable fossil fuels and electricity are essential inputs in modern farming. They are needed to build and operate agriculture machinery whose nearly universal adoption mechanized virtually all field and crop-processing tasks. The second key innovation is the use of fossil energies and electricity to extract and synthesize fertilizers and pesticides. The third key advance was to develop and diffuse new crop varieties responsive to higher inputs of water and nutrients. These innovations brought higher and more reliable yields, they displaced draft animals in all rich countries and greatly reduced their importance in the poor ones. The replacement of muscles by internal combustion engines and electric motors and the substitution of organic recycling by inorganic fertilizers have drastically cut labor needs in agriculture and led to huge declines in rural populations and to the worldwide rise of urbanization. For example, in the US rural labor fell from more than 60% of the total workforce in 1850 to less than 40% in 1900, 15% in 1950, and a mere 2% since 1975 (US Bureau of the Census, 1975).

 Fertilizers made the earliest, and also the greatest, difference. The use of chemically treated phosphates became common after the discoveries of new rock deposits in Florida in 1888, and in Morocco in 1913. After 1850 nitrogen from Chilean nitrates, supplemented later by the recovery of ammonium sulfate from coking ovens, provided the first inorganic alternative to organic recycling. The nitrogen barrier was finally bro-ken by the invention of ammonia synthesis from its elements by Fritz Haber and the sub-sequent rapid commercialization of the process by Carl Bosch (Smil, 2001).

This invention allowed, for the first time in history, to optimize nitrogen inputs on large scale. Modern civilization is now critically dependent on the Haber–Bosch synthesis of ammonia. Recent global applications of nitrogen fertilizers to field crops – and also to permanent grasslands and tree (orchard, palm) and shrub (coffee, tea) plantations – have been in excess of 80 million tonnes (Mt) N/year, mostly in the form of urea (IFA, 2001; Fig. 3.2). The process currently provides the means of survival for about 40% of the world’s population. Only half as many people as are alive today could be supplied.

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Figure 3.2

Post-1950 growth of nitrogen fertilizer production.

By traditional cultivation lacking any synthetic fertilizers and producing very basic, and overwhelmingly vegetarian, diets; and prefertilizer farming could provide today’s average diets to only about 40% of the existing population (Smil, 2001). Western nations, using most of their crop production for feed, could easily reduce their dependence on synthetic nitrogen by lowering their high meat consumption. Populous poor countries, where all but a small share of grain is eaten directly, do not have that option. Most notably, synthetic nitrogen provides about 75% of all inputs in China. With some 75% of the country’s protein supplied by crops, more than half of all nitrogen in China’s food comes from synthetic fertilizers.

In addition to nitrogen the world’s crops now receive also close to 15 Mt of phosphorus, and about 18 Mt of potassium a year (IFA, 2001). This massive use of fertilizers has been accompanied by the expanding use of herbicides used to control weeds, and pesticides to lessen insect and fungal infestations. Pesticide use has often been much maligned and many of these chemicals, especially following improper applications, undoubtedly leave undesirable residues in harvested products, but their use has helped to reduce the still excessively large preharvest losses.

Farming mechanization was first accomplished in the US and Canada. Its most obvious consequence was the precipitous decline in agricultural labor requirements. For example, in 1850 an average hectare of the US wheat needed about 100 hours of labor; by 1900 the rate was less than 40 hours/ha, and 50 years later it sank below 2 hours/ha (US Bureau of the Census, 1975). Until the 1950s agricultural mechanization proceeded much more slowly in Europe, and in the populous countries of Asia and Latin America it really started only during the 1960s. Today’s agriculture operates with more than 26 million tractors of which about 7 million are in developing countries (FAO, 2001). Mechanization also completely transformed crop processing tasks (threshing, oil pressing, etc.) and fuel and electric pumps greatly extended field irrigation. The global extent of crop irrigation more than quintupled between 1900 and 2000, from less than 50 to more than 270 million hectares, or from less than 5% to about 19% of the world’s harvested cropland (FAO, 2001). Half of this area is irrigated with pumped water, and about 70% is in Asia.

The key attribute common to all new high-yielding varieties (HYV) is their higher harvest index, that is the redistribution of photosynthate from stalks and stems to harvested grain or roots. Straw:grain ratio of wheat or rice was commonly above 2:1 in traditional cultivars, whereas today’s typical ratio is just 1:1 (Smil, 1999b). HYVs receiving adequate fertilization, irrigation, and protection against pests did responded with much increased yields. This combination of new agronomic practices, introduced during the 1960s, became widely known as the Green Revolution and the term is not a misnomer as the gains rose very rapidly after the introduction of these rewarding, but energy-intensive, measures. Higher reliance on intensively cultivated grain monocultures, narrowing of the genetic base in cropping and environmental impacts of agricultural chemicals have been the most discussed worrisome consequence of this innovation, but all of these concerns can be addressed by better agronomic practices (Smil, 2000).

Aggregate achievements of modern farming have been impressive. Between 1900 and 2000 the world’s cultivated area expanded by about one-third, but the global crop

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Figure 3.3

Post-1950 growth of average cereal grain yields epitomizing the rising productivity of modern

farming (plotted from data in FAO, 2001) 

Harvest rose nearly six fold. This was because of a more than fourfold increase of ave-rage crop yields made possible by a more than 80-fold increase of energy inputs to field farming (Smil, 2000). But even though the global mean harvest of all cereals more than doubled between 1950 and 2000 (Fig. 3.3), there are still large gaps between average yields and best (not record) harvests (FAO, 2001). Global corn harvest aver-ages just over 4 t/ha but farmers in Iowa are bringing in close to 10 t/ha. Average wheat yield (spring and winter varieties) is 2.7 t/ha but even national averages in the UK, the Netherlands or Denmark Western are more than 8 t/ha today. Extensive diffusion of HYV of rice raised the global mean yield to almost 4t/ha, whereas Japan or China’s Jiangsu average in excess of 6t/ha.

Higher cereal and tuber yields freed more agricultural land for no staple species, above all for oil and sugar crops. Higher cereal yields have also allowed for more and more efficient animal feeding in rich countries where the abundance of meat and dairy products has made high-protein diets much more affordable. HYVs also raised the food output of many developing countries above subsistence minima. However, a substantial gap still divides the typical agricultural performances of rich and poor countries, and, given the far greater social inequalities in the latter group, this production disparity translates readily into continuing large-scale presence of malnutrition in scores of African, Asian, and Latin American countries.

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Current food production and supply & Global food production

Current food production and supply

A word of caution first: only a minority of food production and consumption figures readily accessible in FAO databases and widely used in assessments of global food availability and needs is derived from the best available national statistics which may themselves contain many inaccuracies even when prepared by the most advanced statistical services of developed countries. Although some of the developing countries (notably China and India) have massive statistical bureaucracies and issue a great number of regular reports many of their numbers are known to be highly inaccurate.

For example, for many years Chinese official statistics listed less than 100 million hectares (Mha) as the total of the country’s cultivated land (about 95 Mha until 2000) although many people in Beijing bureaucracy and some foreign experts knew that total was vastly undervalued. China now admits to having 130 Mha of cultivated land (National Bureau of Statistics, 2000) and the best remote sensing studies based on classified US information indicate 140, or even 150Mha (Smil, 1999c). This change means, of course, that every official yield figure for the past 20 years is inaccurate. And, obviously, countries with protracted civil wars (several in Africa, Colombia) or with a disintegrating central government (Indonesia) are in no position to collect and publish any reliable agricultural statistics. Given these realities it is not surprising that most of the numbers for most of the developing nations that appear in FAO databases are just the best expert estimates made in the organization’s Rome headquarters (FAO, 2001).

These realities mean that both exaggerations and underestimates are common and that often the resulting numbers may not be accurate re ections of the actual situation but are best used in order to derive fair approximations of the current state of agricultural affairs. It should also be noted that according to the FAO developed countries numbered 1.3 billion people in the year 2000, the developing ones 4.7 billion, a division slightly different from that used by the UN’s population experts (UN, 2001). These realities should be kept in mind when considering the following brief review of current food output and availability.

Global food production

Today’s food producers fall mostly into four uneven categories. Several thousand large agribusiness companies, most of them in North America and Europe, control extensive areas of food and feed crops and highly concentrated meat production in giant feedlots. Their production goes directly to large-scale food processors or is destined for export. Several million highly mechanized family-owned farms in af uent countries rely on intensive practices to achieve high crop and animal productivity. Tens of millions of the most successful farmers in the most productive agricultural regions of many developing countries (e.g., China’s Jiangsu and Guangdong or India’s Punjab) use generally high levels of the best locally available inputs in order to pro-duce food beyond their family’s and region’s need. And hundreds of millions of subsistence peasants, either landless or cultivating small amounts of often inferior land, use inadequate inputs, or no modern means of production at all, to grow barely enough food for their own families.

Cereal grains continue to dominate the global crop harvest. Their annual output is now just above 2 billion tonnes. Developing countries produce nearly 60% of all grain, with twice as much rice as wheat (about 570 vs. 270 Mt in 2000), but in per capita terms their output (about 260 kg/year) is only about 40% of the developed countries mean (660 kg/year). Most of the poor world’s grain (more than 85%) is eaten directly, whereas most of the rich world’s grain (more than 60% during the late 1990s) is fed to animals. Consequently, actual per capita supply of processed food cereals is still about 25% higher in developing countries (165 vs. 130 kg/year), re ecting simpler diets dominated by grain staples. Not surprisingly, rich countries enjoy even higher per capita disparities in production of nonstaple crops, with the differences being particularly large for sugar (30 vs. 15 kg/year) and meat (almost 80 vs. 25 kg).

Per capita consumption of legumes has been declining for several generations in every country where pulses previously played a critical nutritional role. Only India’s annual per capita consumption of legumes remains above 10 kg/year (FAO, 2001). In contrast, no other crop diffusion in agricultural history has been as rapid and as economically far-reaching as the cultivation of soybeans for feed. US soybean plant-ings rose from a few thousand hectares in the early 1930s to more than 20 Mha since the early 1970s, and they now produce more than 50Mt/year. Brazilian soybean production rose even faster, from a negligible total in the early 1960s to more than 20Mt by the early 1990s. These two countries now produce two-thirds of the global soybean harvest, virtually all of it for animal feed.

Rising af uence combined with concerns about healthy diets has resulted in a steady growth of fruit production. Global fruit output has tripled since 1950, but this does not convey the unprecedented variety of fruits, including many tropical imports as well as winter shipments of subtropical and temperate species from the southern hemisphere, that are now available virtually year-round in all rich countries. The trend of rising fruit production recently has been most obvious in rapidly modernizing China where fruit harvests (now also increasingly for export) rose more than 10-fold (from less than 7 to more than 70 Mt) between 1980 and 2000 (National Bureau of Statistics, 2000).

With global annual output of nearly 500Mt cow’s milk is the most important animal  food. Annual output of all kinds of milk amounts to about 570 Mt. Per capita avail-abilities of dairy products are large in North America and Western Europe (in excess of 250kg/year) and negligible in traditionally nonmilking societies of East Asia. Pork, with about 80 Mt/year and rising, is by far the most important meat worldwide, with China and the US slaughtering the largest number of animals. Total meat output, including poultry, is now over 200 Mt a year, prorating to almost 80 kg/capita in rich countries and to about 25 kg/capita in the poor world. Poultry production (near 60 Mt/year) is now ahead of the combined beef and veal output and it will continue to rise. Consumption of hen eggs is now at more than 40Mt a year, and recent rapid growth of aquaculture (its combined freshwater and marine output is now close to 30Mt a year, equal to nearly a quarter of ocean catch) has put cultured fish, crustaceans, and mollusks ahead of mutton.

After a period of decline and stagnation the global marine catch began rising once more during the mid-1990s and is now close to 100 Mt/year but major increases are highly unlikely. A conservative assessment of the global marine potential concluded that by 1996 the world ocean was being fully fished, with about 60% of some 200 major marine fish resources being either overexploited or at the peak of their sustainable harvest (FAO, 1997). Consequently, if long-term marine catches were to be kept at around 100 Mt a year then 50 years from now the population growth would cut per capita fish supply by more than half compared to the late 1990s level. The importance of this harvest is due to its nutritional quality. During the late 1990s the world’s aver-age per capita supply of some 14 kg of marine species contained only a few percent of all available food energy, but it supplied about one-sixth of all animal protein. More importantly, aquatic species provide more than a third of animal protein to at least 200 million people, mostly in east and southeast Asia (FAO, 2001).

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