are too expensive. If soil losses can be stopped completely within a century, there might be 2.8 billion hectares of potentially arable land, short of the required 3.1 billion needed. Even with efforts to protect and preserve the arable land, pessimists say that there will not be enough land to feed the human population. Increases in food must come from increased output, not from increases in arable land. Of greater environmental concern, is in an attempt to double the area or arable land would require massive clearing of forests and destruction of wildlife habitat. Every day humans destroy 46,000 hectares of forest, dumps 2 million tons of carbon into the air by means of various transportation methods, and causes the extinction of approximately 50 species of plants and animals. The U.S., whom is the fastest growing industrialized country, consumes 30% of the world's resources and produces almost 20% of its waste. The U.S. diet requires great quantities of grain because much of it is fed to animals to produce meat and dairy products. With agricultural research, new technologies can be implemented that can increase crop output. Lester Brown of the Worldwatch Institute believes that technology will boost the earth's annual grain harvest to two billion tons. That would be enough to feed 10 billion people at India's current nutritional level. But this yield would feed less than half the world's current population at the present U.S. nutritional level, and 5.7 billion at Italy's nutritional level. Farmers will need to be able to employ a full range of pest-control strategies. A study by the National Agricultural Chemical Association, showed that eliminating farm chemicals would cut the production of food in the world by one-third due to losses from insects, rodents, disease and weeds. It is estimated that we lose 45% of potential food production worldwide, 30% due to weeds and insects, and a further 15% after harvest. Resea...
