Population Growth 5 Problem and solution essay. Have you ever thought what will happen with us in our nearest future? Is there will be better life than today? When I first saw headlines such as “Better life is coming” or “Future without problems, it’s true”, I was tempted to answer, “Yes”. However, these facts aren’t so widely reported in the newspaper and television.
But the nearest future, in fact, is not as fluffy as it seems to be. Moreover, there will more global problems than we have. The population of the world keeps growing. Every 15 seconds, approximately 100 babies are born.Experts predict that by the end of the next century, the population could reach 10 billion people.
One of the major problems of population growth is world’s disability to support people by food, and society has responsibility to find some ways to solve that problem. “Rampant population growth and its effect on global food supplies and nutrition are among the most significant challenges for the next century. For instance, of the world nearly 5,800,000,000 people, it is estimated that approximately 800,000,000 are chronically undernourished” (Robert, R. , 1999).Furthermore, the Population Institute maintains a position that approximately 74 countries have tendency to increase their population for 100 percent in nearest future and global famine and starvation will take place in our life.
Food shortage is caused firstly, by population explosion in addition to political unsteadiness, economic growth and disorganization. These comprise declining natural resources, degradation, land erosion and urbanization. One of the possible methods of solving the problem of hunger and famine caused by rapid population growth is using fertilizers in agriculture.There are some advantages of using fertilizers. First of all fertilizers are compounds given to plants to promote growth.
So the main goal can be achieved, food output increases significantly. Nowadays, mostly Asian countries are using fertilizers for increasing food outputs and yields. For instance, while fertilizers were in use “total global food production increased by about 30 percent in that time, China by 76 percent, India by 60 percent, Pakistan by 76 percent, Indonesia by 87 Population Growth 6 percent and Malaysia by over 100 percent”(Carl, V. , 1995).
Also it is very versatile and highly productive.So fertilizers can be used everywhere starting from barren and poor lands ending mountain steppe. Therefore, it is used in Africa and in poor countries helping people with malnutrition and expanding planted areas to improve economic sustainability of countries. But, unfortunately, there exists large amount of disadvantages. And the most unpleasant is that it is very harmful for environment. Toxic inputs, such as chemical components of fertilizers and pesticides which are used in complex, pollute water causing death or illness of marine life and spoiling of drinking water causing unavailability of drinking it.
The second disadvantage is that fertilizers are not pest-resistant. That mean that they are vulnerable to pests and to avoid from pests they have to use in complex with pesticides. Furthermore, for generating fertilizers there is need production of nutrients, nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium and pesticides. That leads to another disadvantage - high cost is taking place there. There is no doubt that there are more negative factors than positive.
Despite the using of fertilizers and having global environmental problems there is better to find another alternative solution.The best second solution is adoption of genetic engineering in the food industry. As Robert B. Horsch, Monsanto Company’s advocate, supports the idea of using biotechnology in food industry by mentioning that biotech crops provide lots of significant economic, environmental and grower benefits. He is also reported that “Biotechnology is a great tool that will allow us to produce more food on less land and with less depletion or damage to water resources and biodiversity.
I am convinced that biotechnology is not just relevant but imperative for helping us meet the rapidly growing demand for food and other agricultural products. And consequently the main benefit of biotechnology is increased food output on less area. Bioengineered crops are specially designed to increase and improve yields. The second advantage is that genetically modified crop is pest-resistant so there is no need of pesticides.And “benefits have been well documented, and measurable risks have not been found” (Robert, H.
, 2006). Finally, there is seen a great preponderance of positive effect than negative. It seems to be that all problems and challenges connected with genetic engineering will be considered and updated with positive results for using without risks and hazard for people health and ecosystem. Even though, genetically modified food and fertilizers are not without risks, costs, or arguments, the second solution is the best because it has the advantages of the other alternatives without major disadvantages.
Therefore I recommend that each of us should seriously consider implementing this solution. We know the problem and we know the solution but I am pessimistic about the solution being applied. In the meantime, I also suggest considering to reduce birth rate in the nearest future for avoiding that knotty problem. But it is very hard to see how a democracy could come up with enforced birth control without being voted out of power. Total: 994
