MODULE 5: HUMAN

POPULATION & RESOURCES –

THE DEBATE
Slides by
Prof. R. Chanda
 THE MALTHUSIAN PRINCIPLE AND FOOD
SUPPLY
 The Malthusian principle or hypothesis was
developed or proposed by an Anglican clergyman by
the name of Robert Thomas Malthus in his
publication of 1798 entitled Essay on the Principle of
Population.
 Malthus was among the earliest scholars to address
the question of whether agriculture production
would always meet the demand for food of a
growing human population.
 His principle is founded on what he believed to be
axioms or self-evident truths:
 1. That human population always tended to increase
geometrically (as in 1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64….).
 2. That food production on the other hand tended to
grow arithmetically (as in 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9…..)
 OUTCOME OF THE AXIOMS
 Assuming that one unit of food
production (supply) would support one
unit of population (demand), it becomes
obvious from the above axioms that
within a short period of time, population
(demand) would exceed available food
supply (within three decades in Figure
1below).
 Figure 1
Time period DECADE 1 DECADE 2 DECADE 3 DECADE 4
Population 1 2 4 8
growth (pop
units)
Food 1 2 3 4
production
(food units)

Pop
growrh&
Food Carrying capacity (cc)
supply

1 2 3 4
Decades
 The carrying capacity (cc) of the hypothetical food
production system in Figure 1 would be reached in the
second decade.
 According to Malthus, the excess population after the
second decade would be eliminated through the
operation of positive checks.
 Positive checks were factors that would emerge after the
population exceeded the carrying capacity (cc) to bring the
size down to the cc or below the cc through deaths:
 War over food
 Famine due to severe food shortages
 Diseases due to under-nutrition and malnutrition
 Later, Malthus identified a number of
behavioral factors that could (if prevalent)
reduce the rate of population growth in a
society. He called these preventive checks.
 Preventive checks were practices that would
tend to slow down population growth.
 Malthus identified two categories of
preventive checks: Moral restraint and Vice
(immoral acts):
Moral restraint (morally encouraged celibacy):
 Avoidance of pre-marital sex to avoid children born
out of wedlock.
 Postponement of marriage until couples (particularly
the men) are able to provide subsistence (food) to
their families.
 Both the avoidance of pre-marital sex and deferment
of marriage reduced the number of children born by
reducing the childbearing period. This is particularly
true for women whose reproductive period is
limited.
b) Vice (immoral sexual acts):
 Promiscuity: promiscuous people are not interested
in child-bearing but in the pleasure or material
benefits of sex.
 Contraception: By definition contraceptives are
designed to prevent pregnancies or conception.
 Adultery: Like promiscuous people, adulterers are
more interested in the pleasure of sex than in
producing children.
 Homosexuality: Lovers of the same sex cannot expect
children from their relations.
Thus, in the Malthusian hypothesis food supply
was the independent variable, with cc the
dependent factor
 CRITIQUES OF THE MALTHUSIAN
HYPOTHESIS
 The hypothesis seems to be valid for many Less Developed
Countries (LDCs), especially those in Sub-Saharan Africa. However,
there have several criticisms of the perspective, including the
following:
 1. Advancement in the technology of food production and
biotechnology has markedly increased the rate at which food
could be produced (e.g. as illustrated in Figure 2 below for the
period 1970-1994 with respect to changes in productivity for
maize, rice and wheat as a result of the Green Revolution).
 2. There has probably been a lot food to meet the needs of
everyone at any one point in time in human history, including
at the time the hypothesis was developed. The main problem
has been inequitable distribution and affordability. READ:
12 Myths About Hunger article!! It is online (simply google
the title).
 Figure 2

+95%

+70%

+50%
 NEO-MALTHUSIANS
 These are modern-day Malthusians. They believe in
the basic Malthusian principle but also see cc being
influenced by other factors (in addition to food
supply):
 Space: If the human population continues to expand
exponentially, habitable space may run out as it is constant
or non-expandable.
 Environmental quality: If pollution of the environment is
not controlled, it may cause environmental health problems
which may lead to various diseases and increased human
mortality (deaths).
 Human-induced climate change: may adversely affect food
production and environmental health which may lead to
increased morbidity (sickness) and mortality (deaths).
 Neo-Malthusian prescriptions to mitigate or prevent or
limit future human-resource problems include:
 - Control of population growth
 - Improving technological efficiency so that less
pollution is produced per unit of food and other goods
produced to support the human population
 - Limiting affluence but instead focusing on meeting
the basic needs of the human population.
 - Combating human-induced climate change for a
sustainable biosphere.

 These measures would jointly reduce negative human

impact on the environment as depicted in the formula
on the next slide.
 THE IPAT FORMULA
 Pessimists (Neo-Malthusians) have often presented
the impact of human activities on the environment
using a formula popularly known as IPAT:
 I = P.A.T, where:
 I = Environmental impact of a nation
 P = Human population or numbers of a nation
 A = Affluence or per capita consumption of resources,
measured as output per head
 T = Technological efficiency, measured as the number of units
of environmental impact needed to produce one unit of
human welfare, or simply output per capita