Those may be problems for the rest of the world. Not so much for the USA.
I don't think a lot of people really grasp how EMPTY North America is. We have ample space, fresh water, and other natural resources. Sure, portions of the desert southwest probably shouldn't be inhabited at all 🙂 but the USA can comfortably support a hell of a lot more than 330 million people.
Even water-short places like Phoenix are going to be just fine. If the water gets too short there, they'll just grow less alfalfa and other water-intensive exportable cash crops in the desert. Lake Mead isn't low because people are drinking it dry. It's low because the level is deemed acceptable by the people who manage it and water-wasteful agriculture is still profitable.
Viet Nam has 100 million people in 128,000 sq miles (781 people per square mile).
California has 40 million people in 164,000 sq miles (244 people per square mile).
Nebraska has 2 million people in 77,000 sq miles (26 people per square mile).
That's simply untrue.
Even if you take the current worst case example on earth, India, it's demonstrably untrue. 1.4 billion people are currently living there. They're mostly vegetarian and living subsistence lives, but they're "supported" right now. How that country will do as climate change impacts their agriculture is uncertain.
But this notion that the earth is at its human population breaking point is untrue.
Why we comparing population density among different nations? The concern raised was that some point the plan might not support a given population. How many people? 10 billion? 15 billion? No one knows for sure. America's size? Yes many parts of it are very empty... The content was of the discussion was globally.
And I'm not sure India is a good case study. They have the worlds second biggest agricultural product yet over 200 million are malnourished.
India ranks amongst countries where hunger is widespread even with high agricultural yield. Ubaid Sidique outlines how despite several government and private welfare initiatives, chronic structural flaws alongside corruption and the impact of global events is hindering India’s aim of achieving zero hunger for her people.
India, home to more than 1.39 billion people is one of the top food-producing nations in the world. The production of food grains has been increasing continuously from the ‘Green Revolution’ of the 1960s, and today India is one of the leading producers of rice, wheat, pulses and cotton. She ranks first in the production of milk, and second in production of fruits and vegetables.
But despite agricultural self-sufficiency, a steadily increasing GDP, and increased per capita consumption, India finds itself engulfed in a serious hunger crisis. This is discernible by the continuous downslide on the Global Hunger Index (GHI), published jointly by Concern Worldwide and Welthungerhilfe. India ranked 107th out of 121 countries in 2022. With a score of 29.1, India lags behind its neighbours Sri Lanka (64), Nepal (81), Bangladesh (84) and Pakistan (99) in addressing hunger.
Hunger in India
Despite India’s rising per capita income, millions of children and women suffer from ‘hidden hunger’. According to the UN’s Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO) ‘The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World, 2022 Report’, 224.3 million people, or 16 per cent of India’s population, are undernourished with 53 per cent of reproductive-age women also being anemic. More than 17.3 per cent of children suffer from child-wasting, and more than 30.9 per cent are stunted, exposing them to common childhood diseases like malaria, pneumonia, diarrhoea, etc., which are leading causes of child mortality in India. Even though India’s child mortality rate fell from 2.5 million per year in 2000 to 1.2 million per year in 2015, it still remains the world’s highest number for mortality for children under 5 years.
Poverty is the leading cause of rising hunger in India. While poverty has fallen from 21.9 per cent in 2011 to 10.4 per cent in 2017–18, even then, more than 150 million people live below US$1.90 per day on PPP (Purchasing Power Parity). National Statistics Office (NSO) survey data shows that rural consumer spending (a proxy for income in India) fell by 10 per cent each year, and by 4 per cent in urban areas. This affects food quality and quantity for a vulnerable population.
With 65 per cent of the population rural and 54.6 per cent of the workforce in agriculture and allied activities, poverty and hunger in India are significantly reliant on agriculture. Reduced land ownership, reliance on monsoons, limited irrigation infrastructure, low agricultural financing, and minimal government initiatives are serious and chronic problems in agriculture. The situation is worrisome, affecting the availability of healthy food for all. In their book Poor Economics: A Radical Rethinking of the Way to Fight Global Poverty (2012), economists and Nobel Laureates Abhijit Banerjee and Esther Duflo discussed the question of hunger in India, blaming the fall in non-market food sources and luxury expenditures.
Other reasons that directly or indirectly exacerbate India’s hunger problem include joblessness, social and gender inequities, lack of awareness about health and hygiene, etc. Climate Change and wars with global impact also affect India’s food security, as does low investments in the social sector. It makes the poor vulnerable to market volatility in non-food essentials like healthcare, education, etc., which squeezes food budgets and worsens famine in India. Seasonal movement of temporary labourers in pursuit of livelihoods exposes them to unhygienic situations which affect their health, particularly that of the women and children accompanying them. All this is in addition to the already present large numbers of hungry and malnourished people, due to a lack of purchasing power and distributive fairness.
The principal issue is not a shortage of food production but a dysfunctional food delivery and distribution system that is driving millions to starvation in a world with sufficient food for everyone. According to Department of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare (Government of India), since independence in 1947, food grain production in India has risen from 51 million to 272 million tonnes. FAO estimates that about 40 per cent of India’s food is wasted: 30 per cent of vegetables and fruits expire owing to lack of cold storage, and hundreds of tonnes of food grains rot in unsafe warehouses. According to an Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) assessment on post-harvest losses, India loses ₹92,651 crore per year due to inadequate agricultural logistics, which primarily includes poor storage infrastructure and transit facilities. This inefficient supply chain management wastes an enormous volume of foodgrains in a nation which has 28 per cent of the world’s impoverished population. These shards of data show that the world and India are far behind in attaining the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG-2) which aims to end global hunger by 2030.
