With the price of oil breaking new records amid projections that oil could soon reach $200 a barrel, it’s not surprising that the national security community is concerned about the rising price of food and fuel and its impact on political stability. More surprising perhaps, the connection is also being drawn to population.

In the past year, riots over food and energy prices have broken out in more than a dozen countries, most recently in South Africa.  Foreign policy experts are concerned that the rising cost of food and fuel could destabilize conditions in current-day hotspots like Somalia, Afghanistan, and Pakistan, and in potential hotspots like Egypt, Jordan, and the Philippines.

In the short-term, emergency food shipments by the U.N.’s World Food Programme can help defuse the food crisis, but there is a growing concern in the foreign policy community that population growth in countries already struggling to feed themselves could lead to chronic unrest as the food crisis worsens. 

Earlier this year the U.N.’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), listed 36 nations as “Countries in Crisis Requiring External Assistance.” The population of these 36 nations, currently 1.1 billion, is expected to rise to 1.5 billion by 2025 and 2.0 billion by 2050.
 
Three weeks ago, in a speech delivered at Kansas State University, CIA Director General Michael V. Hayden warned that:

Today, there are 6.7 billion people sharing the planet. By mid-century—by mid-century, the best estimates point to a world population of more than 9 billion. That’s a 40 to 45 percent increase—striking enough—but most of that growth is almost certain to occur in countries least able to sustain it, and that will create a situation that will likely fuel instability and extremism—not just in those areas, but beyond them as well.

There are many poor, fragile states where governance is actually difficult today, where populations will grow rapidly: Afghanistan, Liberia, Niger, the Democratic Republic of the Congo. That group—the population is expected to triple by mid-century. The number of people in Ethiopia, Nigeria, and Yemen is likely to more than double. Furthermore—just beyond the raw numbers—all those countries will therefore have, as a result of this, a large concentration of young people. If their basic freedoms and basic needs—food, housing, education, employment—are not met, they could be easily attracted to violence, civil unrest, and extremism.

And through the fact of global migration, this impact of rapid population growth in Africa or Southeast Asia and elsewhere is not going to be confined to those places. It will be felt in the developed world as well. Millions of young people from fast-growing, poorly developed countries will emigrate—legally and illegally—in search of economic opportunity, security, or political freedom.

Last week, an article written by Lee Hudson Teslik at the Council on Foreign Relations also warned about the threat posed by population pressures:

"The wars of the twenty-first century will be fought over parking spaces." So writes Suketu Mehta in his recent portrait of Mumbai, a city pushing the limits of overpopulation, struggling with sewage overflows, and clawing for limited electricity, water, and gas supplies. The wars Mehta predicts in fact are well under way. Easily missed in the clamor over the spiking prices of oil, natural gas, coal, iron, aluminum, copper, and a long list of other commodities (WSJ)—not to mention shortages of wheat, rice, flour, and other basic foodstuffs—is that population pressures weigh on the availability of all these goods.

Like the CIA Director’s speech, Teslik’s article expresses concern about global population growth projections:

Currently, some 6.6 billion humans inhabit the Earth. By 2050, experts say that number will likely hit 9 billion. The rate of global population growth has abated in recent years, and some regions, mostly in the developed world, even fear population decline (Foreign Affairs). But global population growth remains a long-term dilemma for producers of food, energy, and raw materials. At current levels, there are almost two-and-a-half times as many people in the world as there were in 1950, when global population sat around 2.5 billion. The world has largely been able to make up for this growth through increased efficiency, and by finding new sources for materials. Substantial gains have been made against global hunger...though international targets for hunger reduction remain unmet….

….Projections from the International Food Policy Research Institute show the world's need for food rising significantly in the first two decades of the twenty-first century. The prominent academic Jared Diamond says demand problems could be exacerbated as consumption rates rise in the developing world, as seems likely. Improvements in agricultural efficiency may continue, but at some point they will be limited by physical factors. One acre, however efficiently it is cultivated, can only grow so much food.

Emerging security concerns about population trends are not limited to population growth.  As Gen. Hayden noted in his Kansas speech, in some areas of the world a shrinking population poses security concerns:

Another example of demographics: Russia, which faces a different kind of demographic stress. In the next four decades, we expect Russia—the population of Russia—to shrink by 32 million people. That means Russia will lose about a quarter of its population. To sustain its economy, Russia increasingly will have to look elsewhere for workers. Now some of them—some of them will be immigrant Russians coming from the former Soviet states, what the Russians call the near abroad. But there aren’t enough of them to make up that population loss. Others will be Chinese and non-Russians from the Caucasus, Central Asia and elsewhere, potentially aggravating Russia’s already uneasy racial and religious tensions.

Population trends, of course, have always played a role in world events, but as Gen. Hayden emphasized in his speech, they may take center stage in the 21st Century.

The recent calamities in Myanmar and China are stark reminders that—despite advances in the detection and mitigation of natural disasters—many people in the world still live in harm’s way.

The threats posed by tsunamis, earthquakes and other natural disasters are as old as the world, but the world is constantly changing.  Despite declining fertility rates, global population continues to rise and it’s rising fastest in some of the more disaster-prone areas of the world. 

The cyclone that devastated Myanmar may or may not be related to climate change, but climate change is expected to intensify cyclones and typhoons in South Asia.  The fourth assessment report of the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), released late last year, noted that: 

Recent studies indicate that the frequency and intensity of tropical cyclones originating in the Pacific have increased over the last few decades (Fan and Li, 2005). In contrast, cyclones originating from the Bay of Bengal and Arabian Sea have been noted to decrease since 1970 but the intensity has increased (Lal, 2001). In both cases, the damage caused by intense cyclones has risen significantly in the affected countries, particularly India, China, Philippines, Japan, Vietnam and Cambodia, Iran and Tibetan Plateau (PAGASA, 2001; ABI,2005; GCOS, 2005a, b).

The IPCC report predicted that: 

Countries in temperate and tropical Asia are likely to have increased exposure to extreme events, including forest die back and increased fire risk, typhoons and tropical storms, floods and landslides, and severe vector-borne diseases.

South Asia is not the only part of the world that is affected by rising oceans and increased storm activity. The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) released a study last December that estimated the exposure of 136 of the world’s largest port cities to coastal flooding. The study concluded that the number of people in these 136 cities (each with a population of one million or higher) that are currently exposed to a 1 in 100-year coastal flood event will more than triple by 2070.  At present, about 40 million people are at risk.  By 2070, the number will rise to about 150 million due to the “combined effects of climate change (sea-level rise and increased storminess), subsidence, population growth and urbanization.”

The OECD report also found that “asset exposure could grow even more dramatically,” reaching $35 trillion by the 2070s, “more than ten times current levels and rising to roughly 9% of projected global GDP.”The report concluded that even if cities adopt high levels of protection in the future, “the large exposure in terms of population and assets is likely to translate into regular city-scale disasters across the global scale.”  The report went on to say that, “The policy implications of this report are clear: the benefits of climate change policies – both global mitigation and local adaptation at the city-scale – are potentially great.”

Population change, particularly increasing urbanization, may also be exposing more people to the threat of earthquakes.  This year marks the first time in history that half of the world’s population lives in an urban environment. While urbanization entails some potential benefits, it also heightens certain risks. GeoHazards International, a nonprofit research group seeking to reduce suffering due to natural disasters, issued a statement (“Trends in Global Urban Earthquake Risk: A Call to the International Earth Science and Earthquake Engineering Communities”) a few years back, that warned:

Urban earthquake risk in poor countries is large and rapidly growing. Fifty years ago, the population of the world’s largest earthquake-threatened cities was equally divided between rich and poor countries. Today, there are five times as many people in poor as in rich earthquake-threatened cities. Fifty years ago, the earthquake resistance of buildings in rich countries was better than that of buildings in poor countries, and since then it has steadily improved, while that in poor countries has steadily worsened. Data of the U.S. Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance indicate that the average number of deaths resulting from fatal earthquakes in rich countries decreased by about a factor of 10 between the first half of the 20th century and the last half. This improvement in seismic safety is presumably the result of, among other things, better building and land-use codes and better enforcement of those codes. By contrast, there are indications that earthquakes in developing countries will increase their lethality in the future.

The 2004 statement went on to note:

The future does not look better. In the next 20 years, the world’s population will increase by 2 billion. Of that 2 billion, only 50 million will be added to industrialized countries, the rest to developing countries. Because of internal migration, from the countryside to cities, the urban population of developing countries will increase by itself by 2 billion people over this period. Imagine that in the next 20 years the combined population of today’s India and China will be added to such cities as Algiers, Cairo, Istanbul,Ankara, Aleppo, Teheran, Tabriz, Mashed, Kabul, Quetta, Rawalapindi, Delhi, Calcutta, Dhaka,Yangon, Manila, Jakarta, Mexico City, Guatemala City, Bogotá, Quito, and Lima. Recall that the 8th World Conference on Earthquake Engineering occurred only 20 years ago. In that same amount of time, 2 billion people will appear in some of the world’s poorest cities and will need places to live, learn, and work. Given the lack of resources and the urgency to build, the quality of construction will, unless something changes quickly, continue to decline.

As these and other statements suggest, various population trends—including population growth, urbanization, and the growing number of people living in coastal regions—pose a significant challenge to governments and international institutions seeking to mitigate the death toll resulting from large natural disasters.  That’s why understanding these demographic trends—their magnitude and their implications—becomes ever more important to policymakers around the world.

The African Development Bank (AfDB) is hosting its annual meeting this week in Maputo, Mozambique.  The Ministerial Round Table Discussions is the key event of the Annual Meetings Seminars, taking place a day before the formal opening of the Bank Group Annual Meetings. The theme of this year’s plenary session is “Fostering Shared Growth: Urbanization, Inequalities and Poverty in Africa.”   

As concerns mount about the impact of rising food prices on Africa’s poor, particularly its urban poor, AfDB reported today that: 

Strong urban economies form the base of the wealth of many nations. Yet over the last half century, Africa has experienced rapid urban growth, even as long-term economic growth has remained stagnant, and even declined in some decades. It is estimated that the continent’s cities and towns will absorb another 12-13 million people in 2008, with the urban population outpacing rural population from about 2035. While inequalities between cities and the countryside appear to be narrowing, the differences between the rich and the poor are becoming more conspicuous as unhealthy, overcrowded slums grow. More than 250 million people—or around 60% of the urban population—live precariously in these settlements, and, if present trends continue, the number of slum dwellers will grow to over 350 million by 2020.

The AfDB also reported that:

In his speech at the plenary session, AfDB President, Donald Kaberuka, highlighted the difference between urban and rural poverty, explaining that while majority of Africans living below the poverty datum were rural dwellers, the living conditions of the urban poor were dire and remained a major challenge to development and urbanization, as demonstrated by recent food riots in some African cities and beyond.

 “Our determination to fight poverty everywhere must be, and is an inclusive one. It targets all those who are part of the “bottom million” and these include the urban poor,” Mr. Kaberuka said, noting that internal migration to urban areas would increase rather than decrease.

This week's AfDB meeting comes on the heels of another conference held in Austria last week on "Forging a Uniquely African Green Revolution." In addressing the conference,   Kofi Annan, former Secretary-General of United Nations (UN) expressed concern over the impact of the ‘world food crisis’ on Africa.  He warned that the unfolding food crisis:

.....may roll-back the progress that has been achieved by African countries in the last decade.The solution to the food crisis in Africa today is to stimulate a domestic supply response to raise food production. If ever there was a time for an African Green Revolution, it is now. The time for talk is over. We must implement immediate solutions for today’s crisis, and do so in the context of a long-term concerted effort to transform smallholder agriculture, to increase productivity and sustainability, and end poverty and hunger.

As the global food crisis intensifies, so will the debate over its origins. Several factors account for the emerging international food crisis, including rising energy prices, a drought in Australia, and the conversion of cropland to biomass production. More recently, hoarding of grains and financial speculation in grain commodity prices have exacerbated the rise in food commodity prices. But policymakers should not overlook the role that population growth and other demographic trends play in increasing the world's appetite for food.

A drop in oil prices or a good harvest in Australia might offer some short-term relief from skyrocketing food prices, but demographic trends are slow to change and likely to make high food prices a concern for years and possibly decades to come.

The World Bank reports that over the last forty years demand for food in developing countries has increased more than threefold. It also estimates that global food demand will double by 2030 as world population increases by an additional two billion people. It's not possible to grasp the implications of the current food crisis without understanding the demographic factors that underlie these trends in food consumption.

The first and most obvious demographic dimension to the food crisis is global population growth, which rose by 1.2 percent last year, increasing the number of people on the planet by over 70 million people. That's more than the population of France (61.7 million). Between 2007 and 2050, global population is projected to climb from 6.6 billion to 9.3 billion, an increase of 40 percent and roughly equivalent to the current populations of India and China combined.

The second demographic dimension is the population growth rate of the countries that are most vulnerable to food inflation. Many of the fastest growing countries in the world—including Niger, Somalia and the Democratic Republic of the Congo—are severely impacted by the food crisis. The UN's Farm and Agriculture Organization (FAO) maintains a list of "countries in crisis" that require external food assistance. In February, there were 36 nations on the list. The population of those countries is presently 1.1 billion. In just 17 years (2025), their projected population will reach 1.5 billion, and by 2050 an estimated 2.0 billion.

The third demographic trend is a rapidly growing middle class. The World Bank estimates that the size of the middle class in developing nations will triple by 2030, rising from 400 million in 2007 to 1.2 billion. Homi Kharas, a Brookings Institution scholar, earlier this year projected even faster growth. According to Kharas over half of the world (52%) will be middle class by 2020, compared to 30 percent today. China, according to his projections, will have the world's largest middle class and the size of India's middle class will be 10 times larger than today's.

A growing middle class is translating into a larger appetite for food. As incomes rise, diets tend to change. People tend to eat more meat, fruits and vegetables, and fewer grains. Consumption of meat, in particular, puts added stress on global food production. That's because, it takes 7-8 pounds of grain to produce a pound of beef and about 3-4 pounds of grain to produce a pound of pork.

In recent years, meat consumption has been increasing significantly faster than global population. Between 1991 and 2005 meat consumption rose at an annual rate of 6.2 percent a year in China, and 3.1 percent in seven other Southeast Asian nations. Globally, meat production is projected to double by 2020 due to increased incomes, population growth, and rising per capita global consumption of meat.

The forth demographic dimension is growing urbanization. This year, for the first time in history, half of the world's population lives in urban areas, including smaller cities and towns. An estimated 3.3 billion people now live in urban environments and by 2030 that number is expected to climb to 5 billion. The urban population of Africa and Asia will double between 2000 and 2030 and many of these urban dwellers will be poor.

The urban poor—because they are not growing their own food—are severely impacted by the spike in food prices. The World Food Programme and other international agencies warn that rising food prices will force many people to reduce their consumption of meat and other sources of protein, and that the poorest of the poor—those living on less than a dollar a day—will be forced to reduce their total caloric intake.

Understanding these four demographic challenges is essential to averting famine and losing ground in the battle against hunger and malnutrition. Robert Zoellick, president of the World Bank, estimates that the current food crisis has already pushed 100 million people deeper into poverty. If food and energy prices continue to rise, that number could climb sharply in the years ahead.

In the weeks and months ahead, the world may see some temporary relief from rising food commodity prices as speculation eases and higher food prices encourage farmers to expand production. Wheat prices are already in decline. Rice prices may soon follow. The real challenge, however, lies ahead. Can farmers, particularly in developing countries, overcome climate change, water scarcity, and rising production costs in time to meet the demands of a growing population and a rising middle class. That's the big question.