Energy in Agriculture and World Food Production: An Analysis of the Future role of the Agricultural Cooperative Movement

Abstract

The question of Food is disturbing and presents itself forcefully; to what extent shall we be capable in the future of meeting the food needs of this planet? A large part of the world's population do not in fact have sufficient to eat, and the spectre of famine recurs regularly on the international scene, with Cambodia and Uganda as the two most recent examples of this atrocious reality. It is difficult to know how many people suffer from serious food shortages, but from a whole series of studies and commentaries on the subject, it can be estimated that a figure of 500 million wo\ild not be far from the truth. But the problem of world food is not restricted to the obvious food shortages: as has been shown by serious studies such as those of Professor Klatzmann of the Institut National Aqronomigue of Paris-Grignan (France), malnutrition affects almost one person in two in the world, i.e. more than two billion people.