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4 Horsemen of theApocalypse

THE BLACI( HORSE

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In the book of Revelation we find adisturbing vision of four fearsomehorsemen (Rev. 6:1-8). Each of thesehorsemen is a symbol of the fourmajor punishments to be inflictedupon a rebellious mankind - probably in the not-too-distant future!Each represents the final, end-timeculmination of the major crises withwhich the world has been confrontedfor centuries - false religion, war,famine and disease epidemics. Thisseries of booklets will make the prophecies of Revelation 6 come to life.You will learn the significance of eachsymbolic horse and rider. This message is one of the most frighteningin all of the Bible. You need to beinformed and prepared for what'sahead in Bible prophecy!

4 Horsemen of theApocalypse

THE BLACK HORSE

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Sg~~ AMBASSADOR COLLEGE PRESS. Pasadena , Cal iforn ia

This booklet is not to be sold. It is a free

educational service in t he publ ic interest,

publ ished by the Worldwide Church of God.

@ 1972. 1976 Worldwide Church of God. All Rights Reserved. Printed in the USA

Cove r - Artw ork by Allen Merager. Photo by Gary George

lableotContents

Chapter OneLiving in the Shadow ofWorldwide Famine 6

Chapter TwoThe Ever-Widening Hunger Gap 17

Chapter ThreeBalancing the Food-Popu lationEquation 31

Chapter FourFeeding the Black Horse of Fam ine 46

8

1:most of us living inWestern society, it is hard toimagine that the world we livein is not really the real world.We get our three meals a day,rarely go to bed hungry, andonly briefly and occasionallyexperience the meaning of theword "hunger ."

We seldom think about thefact that we are a decided minority among the millions ofpeople that inhabit this planet.So let's try and project ourselves into the real world of thehungry majority. Imagine for amoment what you would haveto do in order to lower yourstandard of living to that "enjoyed" by t he bulk of humanity.

First, in your mind's eye,throw out all your living roomfurnit ure: lamps, tables, te levision, couch and chairs. Next,smash your bedroom furniture,box spring, mattress, mirror,chest of drawers and clothescloset. Save only one change ofclothes, your dirtiest workclothes. Next, destroy all thebathroom facilities entirely! Asyou move to your kitchen, dis-

The Black Horse : Famine

connect and discard all those" en er gy slaves." Throw outyour refrigerator, stove and dining room set. Discard all foodon your shelves except for a fewhalf-rotten potatoes and a fewcrusts of dried-up bread. Throwout daily protein staples, suchas meat, milk, eggs and cheese.

Next, take your family safelyaway from your house and thenburn your house down! Giveaway your automobile(s) andother motor vehicles, keepingperhaps an old rickety bicyclefor personal transportation. Ifyour garage is sufficiently smalland shabby, it will be your new"house," but if it is a typicalsuburban t wo-car garage, it'stoo big. Tear it down and use afew of the boards to tack together a one-room lean -toshack in your backyard. Usecardboard liberally. Torn plastic sheets will lend a note ofauthenticity to your dwelling.

With all your possessions under your arm, move into thatshack with all your children,pets and perhaps a few chickensand a pig.

The Hungry Majority

In this typical real world setting, lack of food goes rightalong with an almost total lackof material possessions. In thisworld - our world - an estimated 500 million people suffer

Living in the Shadow of Wo rldwide Famine 9

from some form of hunger orstarvat ion . One out of four oft he ir children will die from lackof adeq uate nutrition beforereaching t he age of five. Ten totwenty million of t heir numbersannually succumb to hunger orstarvation-related diseases.

Less dramatic but more insidious are the effects of longterm malnutrition on thesemisery-laden millions. An estimated one and one half billion- or roughly one half the population of the Third World suffer from some form of malnutrition. Three hundred mil-

lion are chi ldren - most oft hem destined to remain virtualmental an d physical cripples fort he rest of their lives .

As if malnutrition and hunger weren't enough, vast segments of t he Third World'spopulace also have to contendwith a host of nutrition-relateddiseases. Typhus, dysentery,cholera and gastroenteritis arehigh on the list. A person fortunate enough to escape these

FAMINE takes its toll. Victimsseek help in this Pakistani refugee camp.

Liv ing in the Shadow of Worldwide Famine 11

may still en d up crippled fromberiberi, rickets, pellagra, orgoiter. And he also stands agood chance of going blind likeone million of his contemporaries living in India.

For peop le living in such aweakened state, an y kind ofsickness can be a life-and-deathmatter. A case of the measles oreven the common cold can easily turn out to be a killer.

The have-not peoples of theearth are also continually atthe mercy of the elements. Latein 1974, for example, one mil lion were threatened by floodsin Bangladesh. Another 800,000living in Ethiopia and CentralAfrica were fa ced with theproblem of drought. Close to300,000 people in both theseareas are estimated to have diedfrom lack of food during thepreceding mon ths. This isroughly equal to the number ofAmericans that died duringWorld War II .

A Hand-to- M out h Existen ce

Despite the Green Revolution, so-called "miracle" foods,intensive harvesting of the sea,and vastly increased use ofland, water and fertilizer, mostof the human race continues to

THE REAL WORLD. An estimated500 million people suffer fromsome form of hunger.

suffer from hunger. In viewingthe wor ld food situation, Robert McNamara, president of theWorI d Bank, was moved towrite: "One half of humanity ishungering at this very moment.There is less food per person onthe planet today than there wasthirty years ago in the midst ofa worldwide depression. Thousands of human beings will dietoday, as they die every day, ofsheer hunger" (One HundredCountries, Two Billion People ,p. 33).

Addeke H. Boerma, directorgeneral of the UN Food and Agricultural Organization, likewise voiced his concern: "T hesight of small children . . . pitifully clinging to life, surrounded by dead bodies, givesone an angry sense that we arestill too far away from thefrightening reality of hungerand malnutrition which millions of persons suffer day aft erday while diplomats . . . talk farinto the night" (UPI, December23, 1974).

Boerma's concern is certainlywell-founded. World grain reserves have plummeted from a95-day supply in 1961 to a current all -time low of 26 days. Ineffect, the wor ld is stakin geverything on eac h year's grainharvest - most of which nowcomes from the wheat and soy-

(Conti nued on page 14)

12 The Black Horse : Famine

:II i

Basil Wolverton

Famines of the Past

Historical famines are, by definit ion, " cyclical famines," meaning thatthey are caused by unusual weather conditions, plagues, animal orinsect infestation or a similar interruption of normal cycl es. These cyclical famines are far different from the " structural famines" whichthe bulk of mankind is experiencing today.

Even righteous Abraham suffered temporari ly from such cycl icalfamines (Gen. 12:10). When Canaan 's rains failed, he went to Egyptfor food. In the days of his great-grandson Joseph , the rains and rivers everywhere failed (illustration above) for seven years, " and thefamine was over all the face of the earth " (Gen. 41:56).

The historical books of the Bible speak frequently of " a famine inthe days of David," " a sore famine in Samaria," or a " great faminewas throughout the land" (II Sam. 21:1; I Kings 18:2; Luke 4:25).One very graphic incident is descr ibed in II Kings 6:25-29: " Therewas a great famine in Samaria: and. behold , they besieged it, until anass's head was sold for fourscore pieces of silver [about $50] , and

Living in the Shadow of Worldwide Famine 13

the fourth part of a cab [a pint] of dove's dung for five pieces of silver[about $3]. "Famines in the Dark Ages: Between AD. 1050 and 1350, severefamines struck all known lands, becoming especially severe in Egyptaround A.D. 1065 and 1200, England around A.D. 1314, and all ofEurope during the so-called " Black Death" of the 1350s.

Around 1065, the combined ravages of war and drought causeda famine in Egypt which must have rivaled in severity the seven-yearfamine under Joseph , approximately 2800 years previous. Duringthe famine of 1065, a single cake of bread sold for about $40 (modern equivalent), eggs $30 a dozen, and a bushel of grain for morethan $50. One woman, according to a historian of the time, gave anecklace worth thousands of dollars for a mere handful of flour.Others flung their jewels into the street.

Finally , the desperate Egyptians resorted to cannibalism. Butchers of men actually " fished" for their victims, letting down ropes attached to meat hooks in search of unwary pedestrians. After thesArieking victims were " hooked" and cooked, they were sold on theopen market to the most desperate of Egypt's hungered masses.

In the England of Edward II, a great famine struck in 1314 as akind of prelude to the upcoming " Black Death." Food was so scarcethat even the king had a hard time securing food for his table. Menate dogs, horses, cars, and tragically , human babies as well. Thievesand cannibals were arrested, but when a new criminal was throwninto jail, he was quickly seized upon by the starving inmates and literally torn to pieces for food.Famines Since 1845: In 1845, the entire potato crop in Ireland rottedfrom an unexpected blight. Ireland was as dependent on potatoes asmany Asian nations are now dependent on rice as a main staple oflife. The hunger was so severe that the death toll in Ireland was between 200,000 and 300,000. A greater number emigrated to Englandand America, while thousands of others died on board the emigrantships. Ireland, a great nation of 8.3 million people in 1845 , lost 2 million people to death and emigration in just five years. Even today Ireland has but one half of her peak population of 1845.

China is another land in which periodic famines strike unexpectedly. Severe famines in 1906 and 1911 were caused by the floodingYangtze River basin. Russia has also suffered much from famines inrecent history . The war-caused famine in Leningrad killed morepeople by starvation than the United States has lost in all its wars.

14

bean fields of the United Statesand Canada.

And from the standpoint ofrecent weather trends, thiscould turn out to be a riskyventure. Leading climatologistswarn that even the UnitedStates may be headed for toughyears if cer tain adverse weathercycles of the past are repeated.

FAMINE takes its toll . The effectsof malnutrition are most severein children and can often last alitetime.

The Black Horse: Famine

"The evidence is now abundantly clear that the climate ofthe earth is changing in a direction that is not promising interms of our ability to feed theworld," says Reid Bryson, notedUniversity of Wisconsin climatologist.

With world food supplies soprecarious , " e ve n a milddrought in the Great Plainscould be a disaster," adds a U.S.agricultural official.

According to the second report submit t ed to the Club of

Ernst Herb

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Living in the Shadow of Worldwicfe Famine 15

Rome, this means: "T he hungry majority of the world [now]lives under a veritable sword ofDamocles, that will drop andkill millions whenever t hat harvest fails" (M ank ind at theTurning Point, p. 165).

It's no wonder t hat Dr. Raymond Ewell, a leading fertilizerexpert from the State University of New York, called theworld food crisis "t he biggest,most fundamental , and mostnearly insoluble problem thathas ever faced the human race."

Dr. James Bonner of the California Institute of Technologysaid: "All responsible investigators agree t hat t he tragedy willoccur. They differ only as towhether it will take place in tenyears or less, or ten years and alittle more."

Former U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Orville L. Freemanwarned that if the world foodproblem is not solved, "T heworld of the year 2000 will be agrim, sullen, hate-filled planetteetering on the brink of selfdestruction. . .. [with] insurrection and toppling of governments, then final desperateinternational aggression." Robert Heilbroner, in his book TheHuman Prospect, spoke of possible future "wars of redistribution" or "pre-emptive seizure"reminiscent of Japan's actionsat the outset of World War II.

And Dr. Robert H. WhiteStevens echoed these sent~

ments when he stated: "Faminecan be expected to emerge ast he paramount force by 1975and continue to a point now totally

Less dramatic but moreinsidious are the effects oflong-term malnutrition onthese misery-ladenmillions. An estimatedone and one half billion- or roughly one half thepopulation of the ThirdWorld - suffer fromsome form ofmalnutrition.

unpredictable where human society could fragment into to talchaos on a global basis."

Can the human race survivewhat is perhaps to date the biggest challenge it has ever faced?Will the world be able to provide food for its future billions?Or will it descend into a newdark age as men and nationsstruggle to control what couldturn out to be a steadily diminishing per capita food supply?

Before we discuss these questions, we should first focus onone of the key factors behindcurrent world food shortages the population explosion.

18

While millions sufferfrom hunger and malnutrition,the other half of the food-population equation continues itsmonotonous, inexorable, silentexplosion . Each year, worldpopulation grows by slightlyunder two percent. This meansa total of 60 to 70 million newmouths to feed each year.

This silent population explosion operates like this: everysecond, four new babies areborn (three of them in the extremely poor nations), whileonly two persons die (one ofthem being a malnourishedchild under age five) . The netincrease is a fraction over twomore people each second. Thisseemingly small number multiplies to 200,000 new lives daily(the size of a small city), 11;2million each week (a large city),and 75 million yearly (a largenation). This means that eachyear the world adds a Bangladesh in population, or a Mexicoand Ca nada combined.

It is hard to imagine a steadytwo-percent-per-year growth asbeing an "explosion" of people,so look instead at population's

The Black Ho rse: Famin e

doublin g r ate. World po pulation, it is estimated, was pract ically stab le from the birth ofChrist un til A.D. 1650. Give ort ake a hundred million lives(during the Crusades, theBubonic Plague and other erasof high death rates), populationremained at one-half billion(500,000,000).

From 1650 to 1850, however,world population doubled toone billion. By 1930, eightyyears later, population doubledagain to two bill ion . By 1975,population doubled again tofour billion. It is obvious fromthis historical curve that thedoubling time of population israpidly shrinking. It took 200years for the first doubling,then 80 years, then only 45. De mographers (those who studypopulation) tell us that population's doubling rate is nowdown to 35 years. In otherwords, at present growth ratesthe world will double its population again to 8 billion by theyear 2010. Thereafter, doublingtimes may continue to shrinkeven further, down to a practical biological limit of about 20years.

Now you can seewhy populationis "exploding." Even ifthe doubling time remained at its presentrate of 35 years, the world wouldtheoretically have 130 trillionpeople by the year 2500, or over

The Ever-Widening Hunger Gap

3,000 people per acre! That's noteven a decent burial plot, muchless living room.

Realistically, however, thiskind of "people pollution" cannot continue until the year2000, much less the year 2500.The "explosion" must be defused, either by universal birthcontrol or by war, famine anddisease epidemics.

These dire warnings are notjust a vision out of the FourHorsemen of the Apocalypse, ora contemporary doomsdayecologist. Nearly 200 years ago,when the world was sparselypopulated with its first billionpeople, a mild-spoken Britishminister and economist,Thomas Malthus, foresaw theoverpopulation predicamentfacing world leaders of the latetwentieth century.

Malthus' "Principle ofPopu lation"

The Bible speaks of overpopulation and famine. Platoand Aristotle likewise hadwarned against overpopulation2000 years before Malthus.Even the generation immediately prior to Malthus witnessed the warning of AdamSmith, David Hume and Benjamin Franklin regarding thedangers of surplus people. Whythen the furor over Malthus?

It was not the ideas of Mal-

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Jean Marie Versteege

A T WELFARE CENTER in India.India's population is shortly projected to pass one billion .

thus as much as his pessimistic .application of those ideas thatoutraged his contemporaries.His 1798 Essay on the Principleof Population persuaded PrimeMinister William Pitt to rescind his Poor Bill Law, whichwould have allowed relief topoor Britons in proportion totheir number of children. Herewas Malthus, a minister, ar guing against financial support

The Ever-Widening Hunger Gap

of the poor. You can almosthear the congregations: "He'squit preaching and startedmeddling." He alienated therich and poor alike by his stand.

Malthus summarized hispoint mathematically: "Population when unchecked increases in a geometrical ratio.Subsistence [food] increasesonly ' in an arithmetical ratio . . . the human species wouldincrease in the ratio of 1, 2, 4, 8,16,32, 64, 128, 256, 512, etc., andsubsistence as 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8,9,10, etc. In two centuries and aquarter [at a doubling rate of 25years, at which rate youngAmerica was growing], the population would be to the meansof subsistence as 512 to 10: inthree centuries as 4096 to13.. .."

Malthus was widely criticizedas a pessimist - and the newfield of study called economicswas labeled as the "dismalscience," because Malthus foresaw that t he only possible wayto halt populat ion was by deaththrough famine, disease andwar. He saw depopulat ion bymoral restrain t , la te marriageor total sexual abstinence asunlikely if not impossible.

The critics of Mal thus offered

VISIBLE EVIDENCE of the silentexplosion. Inmany countries themedian age is 19 years.

21

three optimistic "panaceas" inan attempt to avoid the horrible future Malthus described.First, they contended, food isnot really limited to arithmetical increase. Technology wouldprovide more foods and newkinds of food as population demanded it. Fish could be"farmed," common grass andseaweed could be processed oreven "an infinite number ofmeals [could] be extracted fromthe air" (?!).

The second optimistic remedy was birth control throughtechnological devices,ratherthan through the commonlypracticed negative means ofabortion and abstinence. Advocates of mechanistic birth control pointed to France as anexample, a nation which stabilized its population and increased its standard of living for25 years (1841-1866).

The third answer was economic development, the panacea of flooding poor nationsand poor people with the necessary money and materials toovercome their re liance onsheer tribal manpower (multiple children). Strangely, afternearly two centuries of constant pr omulgation and increased practice of all t hree oft hese pan aceas - tec hnology,birth control and economic de-

(Continued on page 24)


Ernst Herb

The High Costof Feeding the Po~r" How do you feed a hungry world?" is the question posed by

many these days. According to some, the answer is simple. Let therich eat less so the poor can have more. Whatever the rich don't buycan be easily sold to the poor.

It all sounds beautifulin theory, but there is one basic problem inpractice - money. Within .the last few years most of the poorernations of the world have been priced right ciut' Of the food markeLThereasons aren't hard to find. Fuel prices in the wake of the Arab oilembargo quadrup led. The price of urea fertilizer jumped.from $90 aton in 1973 to $350 in 1974: Wheat went from under $2 a bushel toover $5. And rice prices registered similar increases.

India, for example, found combined costs for fuel,food and fertilizer imports due to price increases alone up 1.4 billion dollars in1974. Import costs for Bangladesh, another sizable importer, tripled.

The Eve r-Wi dening Hunger Gap 23

Total cost of fertilizer imports for the poorer nations of Southern Asiajumped from $1.6 bil lion to $5.4 billion. With per capita incomes running around $150 a year, with little in the way of exportable resources, and with limited foreign exchange , the nations of the FourthWorld had no cho ice but to cut back on these vital imports.

Lester R. Brown , a leading expert on food problems in the ThirdWorld, explained what these price increases meant to the average"man on the street." "When one spends about 80 precent of one'sincome on food , as does a sizable segment of mankind , a doubli ng inthe price of wheat or rice cannot possibly be offset by increased expenditures. It can only drive a subsistence diet below the survivallevel" (~n the Human Interest, p. 55) .

James P. Grant, president of the Overseas Development Council , added this comment: " Five-dollars-a-bushel wheat . . . over along period of time does mean that really tens of millions of peopleare going to die an earlier death by malnutrition. "

The outlook for the future is every bit as bleak. By 1985 it willtake $17 billion worth of grain just to satisfy the projected cereal import requirements of the developing nations. The capital outlays required will also be nothing short of staggering. Future increases ingrain production will require substantial additions to the amount ofarable land now under cultivation . But with most of the good land already under the plow, farmers will have to turn to marginal acreageto help bridge the world's growing hunger gap.

Taking the extremely conservative figure of $400 an acre toopen up new farmland , Dr. Paul Ehrlich calculated that " the worldwould have to invest $28 billion per year simply to . .. feed thepeople now being added to the population annually " (Population,Resources , and Environment, p. 92).

Nor is the picture for future fertilizer production any better. Bycentury 's end, world production will have to increase fourfold to keeppace with projected population growth. India will have to build 2%fertilizer plants every year, the Philippines , one every four years.

Raymond Ewell, an author ity on world fertilizer problems, estimated that investments of $8 billion a year in f1ew plant facilitieswou ld be required just to keep up with these projected demands. By1980 this figure is expected to jump to $12 billion , or roughly threetimes the.present level of investment.

Rather than ask " How do you feed the hungry world?" perhapswe ought to ask, "Is such a thing financially possible?"

24

velopment - we can see in retrospect that Malthus - andnot his critics - was accuratein his pessimistic prophecy.

As technology increased, itonly helped to push death rateslower. The more ·people wererescued from poverty and earlydeath, the faster the populationexploded.

As Death Rates Plummet

The major cause of the recentsurge in the population explosion is the development ofworld health programs andchemical breakthroughs whichprotect the world 's poor fromearly death. Shocking as itsounds, people aren't dying fas tenough!

The post-World War II use of

Even if the doubling timeremained at its presentrate of 35 years, theworld would theoreticallyhave 130 trillion peopleby the year 2500.

DDT to kill malaria-carryingmosquitoes has drastically lowered the death rate in many underdeveloped areas . Bettersanitation and medical facilitieshave also aided the dramaticcutting in half of death rates inmost poor nations. In many


such nations, including India;life expectancy has almost doubled - from a 29-year life expectancy in 1940 to a 55-yearexpectancy today. One bill ionpeople on earth today owe theirexistence, directly or indirectly,to DDT and other chemicals.

The Malthusian "check" ofinfant. ' mortality, early death,disease, war and starvation nolonger works in many of the developing countries. Take for instance the semi-developed landsof Northern Africa. Most havemaintained a fairly steadybirthrate of roughly 4-5 percent, but their death rate hasdropped to 1.6 percent or 1.7percent, in all six lands ofNorthern Africa (Algeria ,Egypt, Libya, Morocco, Sudanand Tunisia). Instead of an average 2 percent net growth,some of these nations are exploding at over 3 percent peryear . Morocco and Algeriadouble their population every21 years, as compared toroughly a 35-year doubling timefor the world as a whole.

The death rate decline is evenmore severe in Latin America,the continent with the greatestpercentage of populationgrowth. Death rates in someLatin American nations havedipped to less than one percent!Typical of these exploding nat ions is Venezuela, with a birth

The Ever-W idening Hunge r Gap 25

rate of over 4 percent and adeath rate of 0.8 percent.

An Ever-Growing Juggernaut

In effect, the lid has blowncompletely off natural population checks in the developingnations. Their growth potentialfor the future is staggering,both in terms of number"andrate of growth. A United Nations study on populationrecently warned: "Many developing countries may quadruple in population within 50years if they do not movetoward the goal of a reducedgrowth rate" (World Popu-

lation: The Task Ahead, p. 11).By the turn of the century,

India's population will hit theone billion mark unless drasticmeasures are quickly taken.The Philippines will mushroomfrom 42 to nearly 100 millionsouls. During the latter part ofthe next century, Indonesia willbe teeming with 1% billionpeople at her present growthrates. If present trends continue, three quarters of theearth's population will comefrom the underdeveloped nations by the time the 21st century dawns.



Dave Conn - AC Photo

An Ominous Shiftin the World's

Weather PatternsThere's been a change in the weather - and from all indicat ions

it may put a big damper on man's efforts to feed the earth's hungrybillions.

Over the last few decades, climatologists have noticed a markedcooling trend emerging from their masses of meteorological data.Temperatures peaked around 1945 and have been dropping eversince. The favorable weather period we have just lived through " hasbeen the most abnormal of the last thousand years," says Reid Bryson, a noted meteorolog ist from the University of Wisconsin.

Some scientists now suspect that the earth may be on the wayback to a " mini ice age" like the one that lasted from the late MiddleAges till the beginning of this century. The signs of this advancingglobal cold front are widespread. In 1972 and 1975, cooler weatherwas the major culprit behind the Soviet Union 's devastating crop failures. Growing pack ice around Iceland has made life a little more difficul t for local fishermen. England has lost 9 days from her growingseason since the early 1950s. And during the winter of 1971-1972,scientists noted a 12% increase in the size of the Arctic ice cap.

This cooling of the earth's climate has also prevented moisture-

The Ever-Widen ing Hun ger Gap 27

laden equatorial air from reaching the badly parched African subSahara region. The extended drought that followed was responsiblefor the massive famines that occurred there in the early 1970s. Theresultant " brown belt" that was created now c uts a sizable swaththrough Africa, the Middle East, India and Northern China.

With world grain reserves dropping to record low levels, a goodharvest every year has become a virtual imperative. That means optimum weather will be essential if humanity expects to even stay in theball park and play its losing food-popul ation game. In this respectman's technolog ical improvements could turn out to be a curse aswell as a blessing. New genetic crop strains developed by the GreenRevolution are much more susceptible to climatic variations. Optimum comb inations of water and temperature are required to maintain their increased yields. And much of the credit for thesetremendous yield increases over the last 15 years should be attributed to optimum weather conditions, according to John McQUigg,a leading government climatologist at the University of Missouri." The probab ility of getting another fifteen consecutive years thatgood is about one in 10,000 ," McQUigg says.

Reid Bryson echoes McQUigg 's forebodings: " There isvery important climatic change going on right now. And it's not merely somethingof academic interest. It is something that. if it continues, will affect thewhole human occupation of the earth - like a billion people starving.The effects are already showing up in rather drastic ways." Bryson feelsthat the life-g iving monsoons that have so far provided marginal subsistence to many areas of the third and fourth world may not return with anysort of regular ity during the rest of the century. " If he [Bryson] is correct ," accordi ng to Fortune magazine, "there would seem to be scantprospect that even the present popu lations of the monsoon belts can bemaintained. even if all the arable land in the rest of the world were placedin full production for this purpose ."

Even relatively minor cl imatic changes could easily tip the presentprecar ious food-population balance in the wrong direction . " It will nottake an apoca lypt ic climatic event such as the onset of a new ice age tobring great human suffering from famine," says Henry Lansford of theNational Center for Atmospheric Research. And the chances of this occur ring may not be all that remote. According to Lansford . "The climatetrends that some scient ists are predicting could bring us to a point ofcatastroph ic consequences between the increasing populat ion and inadequate food supplies much sooner than many people expect. "

28 The Black Horse : Faminef.- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

The chances of stemming thisgrowing tide of humanity register somewhere between slimand none. Assuming for a moment the miraculous happenedand that the number of children born to every woman inthe world was instantaneouslycut in half (this would roughlyapproximate what it would taketo achieve replacement levelfertility), zero populationgrowth would not be achieveduntil the end of the century!World population would continue to grow until it hit the 5.7billion mark.

Being a little more realistic,let's assume that by the end ofthe century every woman in theworld was bearing children atreplacement level. World population would still reach the 6billion mark by this time andwould not stabilize until it doubled the present level of 4 billion.

However, even assuming thismuch is being generous. According to a report issued bythe World Bank on populationplanning: "To reach a NRR[net reproduction rate] of 1.0[replacement level fertility] bythe year 2000 would require amaximum effort, something it isprobably not realistic to expect"(World Bank, Population Planning, March 1972, p. 11).

Part of the problem stems

AC Photo

THIS BIAFRAN CHILD, photographed during the civil war inNigeria , shows some of the classic symptoms of starvation .

from the structure of thepopulation itself. In many underdeveloped countries, 40%of the populace is under 15years of age . Median age isaround 19 compared to that of31 in the developed countries.This means record numbers ofwomen will be coming into

The Ever-W iden ing Hunger Gap

their peak childbearing years inthe next few decades. Consequently, populations in developing countries will continue toswell for some time to comeeven if fertility rates drop. TheU.S . Population Reference Bureau summed up this situationas follows : "In order to achievea nongrowing population, evenin most of the more developedcountries fertility would haveto decline significantly belowthe replacement level. In theless deve loped countries such asituation seems inconceivableduring the coming 50 years . . ."(W prld Population Projections:Alternative Paths to Ze roGrowth, p. 26).

An Insat iable Global Appetite

Future food requirements forthis growing mass of humanityare nothing short of mindboggling. To accommodate projected population increases,world cereal production willhave to increase 43 percen t overpresent levels by 1985. And thiswill merely perpetuate presentmarginal levels of malnutritionthat exist in the poorer parts ofthe world.

Georg Borgstrom, professorof Food Science at MichiganState University, estimatesthat a doubling of curren t foodproduction is needed just tobring the present world's popu-

29

lation up to an adequate dietary level. If we consider therather conservative figure of 6billion people who are expectedto be alive at the, turn of thecentury, then, according toBorgstrom: "Food productionfour times the present level isrequired " (F oca l Points ,p. 240).

Lester Brown, another leading food authority, had this tosay: -rr ... we accept the UNmedium projection of a population of 6.5 billion by the endof the century, and if we assume an average global foodconsumption level approximating that currently prevailing inWestern Europe we ca nproject a need for roughly2.5 times current [grain] output, by the year 2000. Worldpopulation growth alone with no increase in per capitafood intake - would require anincrease of nearly one billiontons of grain per year, orroughly four times the currentprodu ction of No rth America"(By Bread A lone, p. 44).

Can this giant st ep in foodproduction be taken for humanity in t ime? That question willbe di s cussed in the nextchapter.

Chapter Three

.'

31

32 -

.Can the . human .race

save itself from mass starvation? Ask the question and youwill probably get a variety ofanswers. While some might seethe rapid rise in the world'spopulation as cause for alarm,others view the situation withmore equanimity. "After all,"they might reason, "we've hadfamines before. Science andtechnology will come to our rescue. Never fear, the earth'sfood-producing capacity is virtually unlimited. We can feedmultiple billions if we only getabout the business of diligentlyapplying the principles of 20thcentury technology to the ancient art of food production."

Often proponents of this typeof technological solution citewith some satisfaction theachievements of the Green Revolution as an example of whatcan be done. "Given the GreenRevolution and a few othertechnological breakthroughs,world food production will riseto meet the needs of humanity," they might say.

But will it?Proponents of the tech-


nological solution sometimestend to overlook a few limitingfactors in the food-populationequation. One of them is available land.

A Growing Scarcity of ChoiceReal Estate

Much of the land in theworld is unsuitable for farming- too precipitous, rugged andmountainous - and the soil istoo poor. Only 5 percent of Canada's land surface is suitable forfarming. One percent of Australia is cropland; only two percent of Brazil; and ten percentof China.

High hopes have been heldout for the vast Amazon Basin,but most of them have turnedout to be illusory. Only about200 of its over one millionsquare miles are suitable forcultivation. Unfortunately,equatorial soil fertility is low most of it is laterite, a poor reddish soil leached of its qualityby the heavy rainfalls of the region . Too little is known abouthow to improve tropical soils;how to develop strong plants toresist the virulent tropicalplant diseases and insect attacks.

Even at best, the resources ofthe Amazon Basin are extremely limited when comparedto burgeoning world food de-

Balanc ing th e Food-Population Equation

mand . According to LesterBrown: "Many view the vast interior of Brazil as a potentialsource of almost unlimited foodproduction, but available soilmaps show only a very smallpercentage of arable land in theBrazilian interior. The fact isthat even if Brazil were t odouble its food ou tput, the resulting increase would notequal even one year's growth inworld demand" (By BreadAlone, p. 244).

Biologist Georg Borgstromcalculates that whatever poten-

"We are in the throes ofan apparently irreversibleprogressive reduction ofthe surface of cultivablelands. It is estimated thatthe area of such lands hasdecreased by 20 percentin the last hundredyears."

tial land reserves are left willonly provide for a brief 15 years'worth of world populationgrowth. And most of this realestate will require immenseamounts of capital to bring upto productive standards. According to the recent Limits toGrowth study: "The remainingland will require immense capi-

33

tal inputs to reach, clear, irrigate, or fertilize before it isready to produce food. Recentcosts of developing new landhave ranged from $215 to $5,275per hectare. Average cost foropening land in unsettled areashas been $1,150 per hectare. According to an FAO report, opening more land to cultivat ion isnot economically feasible, evengiven the pressing need for foodin the world today" (p. 48).

Tenuous Top Soil

In addition, t he world maysoon find t hat it is actually"losing ground" in the race toincrease it s arable acreage. Insome areas of the African Sahel,the Sahara desert is advancingsout hward at the rate of 30miles a year. Thirty thousandbadly needed acres are beinglost annually in the Indianstate of Rajasthan. And , according to J. H. Scott Watsonin the Agricultural InstituteReview, an average of 13 million acres is being lost to theworld every year because of erosion. Every day 36,000 acres arelost.

Ironically, man's growingneed for valuable croplandsonly serve to accelerate the pro cess. Deforestation and over grazing lead to wind erosion,flooding, climatic alterations


Population ControlA Global Imperative

Henry Kissinger: " It is clear that population cannot continue indefinitely to double every generation . At some point we will inevitably exceed the earth's capacity to sustain human life."

Former President John F. Kennedy: " If we do not stem this humantide now, we will all be inundated in an immense ocean of poverty."

Robert S. McNamara: " If there is one thing certain about the population explosion, it is this: If it is not dealt with reasonably, it will infact explode - explode in suffering and violence."

Stewart L. Udall: "If the present rate of population increase continues indefinitely, most of the crucial problems that now confront thehuman race will simply become insoluble."

Norman E. Borlaug: " If the world populat ion continues to increaseat the same rate, we will destroy the species." .

Lester R. Brown: ' 'The signs are ominous. The urgency of checkingpopulation growth everywhere and of moving toward stability as rapidly as possible cannot be overemphasized."

Vannevar Bush: " The world 's population is increasing at a ratewhich renders distress, famine and disintegration inevitable unlesswe learn to hold our numbers within reason. Man is headed for catastrophe unless he mends his ways and takes thought for the morrow."

Binay Sen, former director-general , UN Food and Agriculture Organization: "Either we take the fullest measures both to raise productiv ity and to stabilize population growth , or we face a disaster ofunprecedented magnitude."

Rene Dumont, French agronomist: " If the population growth ratedoes not decline more rapidly, and if at the same time consumerhabits and income distribution systems are not changed, total collapse will undoubtedly be inevitable."

Balancing the Food-Population Equation

and the inexorable advance ofthe deserts.

"S ince 1882," according to biologist Georg Borgstrom, "t hedeserts have grown on an average of 25 million hectares [62.5million acres] annually ... Theboundaries of both the Saharaand the Kalahari deserts arebeing pushed a couple of milesfarther out each year, and thisdue to man 's intervention"(Too Many, p. 296).

Sprawling Cities, airports andhousing developments have alsotaken their toll. In the UnitedStates, for example, some onehalf million acres of valuablecropland are being gobbled upevery year because of the urbanization process. "In short,"wrote the dist inguished Belgianbotanist Raymond Bouilenne,"we are in the throes of an apparently irreversible progressivereduction of the surface of cultivable lands. It is estimatedthat the area of such lands ont he earth has decreased by 20percen t in the last hundredyears. Of the 40 billion acres remaining today, at least 20 million disappea r irretrievablyeach year."

The Stunted Green Revolution

Advocate s of the scientificcure -all method also overlookt he fact that technology itselfhas it s own limitations and

35

shortcomings. One prominentcase in point is the GreenRevolution. Initially, the GreenRevolution, as it came to becalled, was sparked by the introduction of new high-yield"miracle" grains in poor nations

All the efforts of man the new varieties of grain,harvesting the seas,developing new sourcesof protein from theoceans, etc. - only putoff for a few more shortyears the final day ofreckoning!

such as the Philippines, Mexico ,Sri Lanka and India. Dramaticincreases in crop yields followed.

But this increased productivity also meant increased dependence on essentially artificialagricultural techniques. For instance, four to seven timesmore water is required per acreto achieve these copious cropyields : Unfortunately, theworld is not exactly "swimming" when it comes to available freshwater supplies. TheUN Food and Agricultural Organization has predicted that60 nations will probably experience water shortages by the endof the decade even with no fur-

36 The Black Horse: Famine

RAPIDS in the Uraricoera River,Brazil. The high hopes once heldout for the Amazon Basin as afood-producing cornucopia haveturned out to be illusory.

ther increases in use of irrigation. And most of the earth'sirrigation potential has alreadybeen tapped. According to Lester Brown: "The irrigati on potential of most of the world'smajor rivers - including theNile, Yellow, Indus, Ganges andColorado - has largely been realized. Among those yet to be

King Leopo ld Photo

exploited are the Mekong andthe Amazon. But the latter isan exceedingly difficult river toharness because of its vastwidth and broad flood plains"(By B read Alone, p. 102) .

Irrigation also has its detrimental ecological aspects. Millions of acres in Pakistan,Egypt, Greece and South America have been transformed intoveritable salt deserts because ofexcessive use of irrigation techniques. Irrigated acres have alsobe come a fertile breedingground for parasitic diseases

Balancing the Food-Population equation

such as malaria, schistosomiasisand river blindness.

The new hybrids of the GreenRevolution were also high onquantity but low on quality.Fat and carbohydrate contentsof the new grains rose, but protein levels dropped . Acresformerly planted in nutritiousvegetables and beans were sacrificed in the push for highergrain yields.

The hybrid grains were alsohighly susceptible to insectpests and plant disease. Thismeant increased use of chemical pesticides and fertilizerswere also necessary for theirgrowth. The result was a dangerous trend toward cropuniformity which has plantgeneticists frankly concerned.The Philippines t ast ed thefruits of the Green Revolutionin 1971 when a virus diseasecalled tungro played havoc withtheir hybrid rice. The U.S. corncrop of 1970 was likewise decimated because of the geneticuniformity factor.

M irac les From th e Sea?

Many of the advocates of thetechnological solution have alsoheld out great hopes for theoceans as a future source ofman's food. But the seas are already showing signs of beingoverworked. In ' spite of themany advances in ocean fishing

37

techniques, world fish catcheshave declined in the last fewyears. Intensive overfishing haslargely been to blame. Declining stock of cod, herring andhaddock in the North Atlanticare expected to take years toreturn to normal.

In this regard, technologyoften "giveth and taketh away."Modern fish-pumping techniques produced bumper harvests of anchovy off thePeruvian Coast from 1969 to1971. But subsequently this lu crative fishery, which at onetime accounted for one fifth ofthe world's production, col lapsed. Experts now feel thedisappearance of the anchoviesmay be more than a passingphenomenon.

Fish farming is another foodproducing area for which thereis more hope than substance.To produce fish on a mass-production basis is an enormouslyexpensive process. Food chainsin the ocean are longer andmore involved than theircounterparts on the land. Toraise a one-hundred-poundtuna requires the equivalent of250 tons of phytoplankton!

For the same reason, harvesting plankton from the sea offersno real hope of feeding theworld's growing millions. In order to extract enough planktonto equal the nutritional equiva-

38

lent of a pound of beans, a manmade plankton gatherer wou ldhave to strain the equivalent offifteen one-story houses full ofwater. In very rich areas of theocean like the Gulf of Maine, orthe North Sea, some 5000 tonsof strained water would yieldonly 10 pounds of plankton!

Flour of the Sea - FPC

Other experiments in foodproduction from the sea haveincluded the development ofFPC, or fish protein concent rate, lauded to be a solutionfor part of the world's hu ngerproblem. Tasteless, withoutsmell, it looks much like ordinary wheat flour.

It can be mad e from justabout any kin d of sea life fish, shellfish, shrimp, kri ll, etc.T he whole animal is t hrowninto a chemical and electric alprocessor which purifies andpr ocesses t he mass into a whitepowder. This powder would berich in raw protein for nationswith starving populat ions.

Bu t if t he total world seacatch could be evenly dist ributed as FPC, it would be onlyan ounce or so per person perda y. Even then ,'experience hasshown that ground fish can 'teven be given away to the hungry people in need, due to acquired tas tes and r eligioustaboos.


Solace From Soybeans?

Soybeans have a lso beenlooked to as another palliativeto the world's protein problem.Currently some 90% of t he nonexported U.S. crop is used foranimal feed.

The idea would be to divertsoybeans from use as an animalfeed to direct human consumption. While this would undoubtedly go a long way towardclosing the world's protein gap,it still would not satisfy currentneeds. In 1965 one authority estimated that even if the world 'sentire oil seed crop were uti lizedin this manner it woul d onlyfulfill about one half of theearth's pr otein deficiency(World P rotein Resources,p. 63). And protein needs havebee n growing ever since.

Hope has also been held outfor synthetic foods as a mean sof easing future shor t ages. Fewseem to give much tho ught asto the massive capital and indust rial outlays necessary forany type of synthetic food industry . According to GeorgBorgst rom: "Despite t he euphoria over various new highpro t ein foods now eme rgingfrom laboratories - the ir impa ct on human nu trition hasbeen insignificant " (We Don'tKn o w H ow , p . 23 6). And ," Merely t o provid e for onesingle year' s added nu mbers


through chemistry - morethan seventy million in 1967 would require facilities greatlyexceeding the total syntheticorganic industry of present-dayUnited States. An annual investment of at least fifteen billion dollars would be needed"(Too Many, p. 24) .

In a book edited by CliffordM. Hardin , former UnitedStates Secretary of Agriculture,this admission is made by afood-science expert: "There are

39

those, of course, who put theirfaith in nonconventional agriculture, in the biological orchemical synthesis of foods.The time has no t yet come,however, when factories canproduce the bulk of basi c foodsthat more than three billion


THE BARREN FRUITS of man 'sland abuse. Deserts often result from deforestation and overgrazing .

Bob Taylor


Bob Taylor

Eating Less Meat:Answer to the

World Food.Crisis?In the wake of recent famines in India, Bangladesh and the Afri

can Sahel, much has been said concerning the virtues of eating lessmeat. Beef cattle, for instance, take in many more pounds of feedgrain than they produce in the form of meat. If people in the affluentWest were to cut down on their meat consum ption, much more ofthis grain would be available to feed the hungry nations of the world.

In many respects this kind of eat-less-meat approach makes alot of sense. Most Westerners, especially Americans, eat more meatthan they should. And a significant portion of the beef consumedconta ins a higher conten t of fat than is cons idered healthy. According to the calculati ons of one leading food expert, if all 'Americans cuttheir meat and poultry consumption by one third, enough grainwould be saved to feed the equivalent of 200 million people from India for one year,

But there are certain drawbacks to this approach. Animals suchas beef cattle, dairy cattle and sheep do more than consume valuable food grains. Rough ly 70 percent of their feed comes from forageon the open range. And significant portions of what they consume infeed lots are grains, wastes, by-products, meat scraps, meal, etc .,whic h are not suitable for human consumption. A report by the Presi-

Balancing the Food-Population Equation 41

dent's Science Advisory Committee in 1967 summed up the particular contribution range-fed animals make to man's food supply : " Over60 percent of the world's agricultural land is non-arable land suitedonly for grazing . Animals are the only practical means of utilizing thisresource for human food production . .. . The use of small quantitiesof cereal grains as livestock feed in modern nations makes it possibleto use, at low cost in terms of food that could be consumed bypeople, large quantities of forages and by-products that might not beused otherwise" (The World Food Problem , pp. 248, 249).

Another shortcoming to the meatless mentality: Man can 't liveon grain alone; he needs protein to survive. And the best kind of protein comes from animal products: meat, milk, eggs and cheese. Plantproteins such as those found in corn and wheat are deficient in someof the amino acids essential for proper nutrit ion. A person can survive quite adequately on a 'vegetarian diet if he has proper variety andbalance. But a one-grain diet just won 't suffice. According to the National Research Council Committee : "The greatest [nutritional] riskcomes from undue reliance on a single plant food source . Usually acereal grain or starchy root crop."

Theoretically it is possible to subsist off large quantities of lowprotein foods. But usually a person's energy and appetite requirements are satisfied long before sufficient protein intake is achieved.Consequently , he may suffer protein deprivation without even consciously being aware of it at the time. This is especially true of children who have a limited bulk intake capacity .

One major reason why many living in the poorer, parts of theworld suffer is because they lack protein as well as calories. Simplysending them bulk shipments of grain is not going to solve their nutritional prob lems.

And even if consumers in the West were to reduce their meatconsumption , this would not magically put grain into the mouths ofthe needy. Worldwide distribution of food grains, however inequitable it may be. is based on the dictates of supply and demand. Graincannot reach the poor unless someone is willing to buy and distribute it.

If Westerners were able to abandon their headlong pursuit of affluence and contribute significant portions of their wealth towardhelping feed the poor, substantial benefits might be derived. But overtheJong haul, with the population in the developing nations expectedto double by the year 2000, even this type of humanitarian effort willprobably not come close to solving the problem.

42

human beings require. We cannot wait for potential miracleswhile millions of people hunger.For many decades still we mustdepend on con ventional agriculture and its improvement"(Overcoming Wo rld Hunger,p. 93). But the problem is mankind simply doesn't have"many decades" to solve theproblem . "New foods" areneeded immediately.

CORN BLIGHT descended likea mushroom cloud over the 1970U.S. corn crop: loss was 700 million bushels.

Roger L. Smith


Th e Shor tcom ings ofTechno logy

As long as population continues its unchecked growth,technology can do little to significantly shift the world's foodpopulation balance. The AswanHigh Dam is a good case inpoint. When initially conceived,it was designed to increase thearable land in Egypt by 15 percent. But by the time of itscompletion, Egypt's populationhad expanded by 35 percent.

Mexico had the same experienceduring her Green Revolution.According to Lester Brown: "Fifteen years of dramatic advancesin wheat production made Mexico a net exporter of cereals in thelate 1960s, but a populationgrowth rate that ranks amongthe highest in the world hasagain converted Mexico into animporter offood" (In the HumanInterest, p. 53).

Perhaps that is why JohnHulse, a leading Canadian nutritionist, recently said: "Fancytechnology will do little to easethe needs of hungry people."Much of what technology hasdone to increase food production is based on limited, finiteresources. Many of the dramatic increases in crop yieldsthat have been achieved are theresult of intensive applicationof petroleum-based productssuch as pesticides and chemical


fertilizers. Given enough timeand consumption, this petroleum base will vanish.

Continual expansion of theearth's food producing capacityad infinitum is just not possible.As the U.N. Center for Economic and Social Informationput it: "Unlike population, theearth is not expanding. Technology can produce more foodper acre, render more landarable and possibly develop newtypes of food not requiring theuse of agricultural land. Butthe earth is finite; its resources,however vast, are limited. Thismakes 'zero population growth'ultimately and inevitably theonly viable alternative; anyother alternative is simply unacceptable" (World Population: The Task Ahead, p. 25).

Worldwide Birt h Control

Ultimately, averting worldwide famine comes down to theissue of stabilizing the population of the earth. But as wehave seen, the problems involved in cutting the worldbirthrate to "zero growth" arestupendous. Much of the worldactually stands opposed to population control. Communismstands against it . Communistscall Malthus' theory of populati on a "libel on the humanrace." Khrushchev called it a"cannibalistic theory."

43

Even many in the Westernworld stand opposed to birthcontrol. The largest churchbody on earth, Roman Catholicism, is opposed to it. In fact ,the Pope, while addressing delegates to the recent UN WorldFood Conference at Rome,made the following statement:

The religious andideological hurdle isonly part of the picture.Ignorance and traditionare even greater obstaclesto implementing birthcontrol practices.

"It is inadmissible that thosewho have control of the wealthand resources of mankindshould try to resolve the problems of hunger by forbiddingthe poor to be born."

The religious and ideologicalhurdle is only part of the picture. Ignorance and traditionare even greater obstacles toimplementing birth-controlpractices. In much of Asia, forexample, families are used tohaving as many children as possible. Children are a status symbol. They he lp do the work. Ahusband and wife try to have asmany chil dren as possible in thehope that at least one male


child will survive to adulthood.Then the child can supportthem.

Besides, people love children.They aren 't convinced that"two are enough." Usually theybegin their family planning after they have had one morethan the number of childrenthey want.

A lack of doctors and nursesalso hampers birth-controlplanning. In India, for example,the country's five-year plan begun in 1966 envisioned 23 million LU .D. loop insertions. Theproblems facing this programwere overwhelming. There were

FA O. Photo

FISH PROCESSING factory inValparaiso, Chile, manufacturesfish meal for export.

only 8,000 woman doctors in allof India to insert these loops.With this limited effort, theresimply wasn't enough time ormanpower available to .educateand convince sizable numbers .of Indians of the need for birthcontrol.

On the other hand, Japan,South Korea and Taiwan havemade remarkable strides toward achieving stable populations. But often overlooked isthe fact that these nations had

Balancing the Food-Populat ion Equation

already achieved relatively highlevels of educational and economic development before theyembarked on successful birthcontrol programs.

Mainland China is no idealsuccess story either. Accordingto current estimates, the average Chinese is receiving onlyabout 91% of optimum caloricrequirements. A major cropfailure could easily reduceChina to the status of a "havenot" food nation.

Adding It Up

When we add up all of man'sefforts to curb the populationexplosion, it seems to be liketrying to stop a flood with athimble. All the efforts of man- the new varieties of grain,harvesting the seas, developingnew sources of protein from theoceans, etc. - only put off for afew more short years the finalday of reckoning!

Robert McNamara, presi dentof t he World Bank, put theproblem in proper perspectivewith the following statement:"The threat of unmanageablepopulation pressures is verymuch like the threat of nuclearwar. Both threats are undervalued. . .. Both threats canan d will have catastrophic consequences unless they are dea ltwith rapidly and rationall y. Itis clear that population pres-

45

sures in the underdeveloped societies can lead to economictensions and political turbulence and cause stresses in thebody politic that in t he end canbring on conflict among nations."

A group of Nobel Prize winners were even more explicit intheir appraisal of the food-population situation: "Unless a favorable balance of populationand resources is achieved with aminimum of delay, there is inprospect a Dark Age of humanmisery, famine, undereducationand unrest which could generate growing panic, explodinginto wars fought to appropriatethe dwindling means of survival."

Dr. Binay Sen, former director-general of the UN Food andAgriculture Organization ,sounded this prophetic warning: "If the rate of food production cannot be significantlyincreased, we must be p reparedfor the four horsemen of theApocalypse."

It all ad ds up to this: Barringnuclear war, the food -population race is the biggest, mostexplosive cris is to ever hit thehuman race! If mankind is going to avert ul t imate disaster,he needs a greater solution thananything heretofore remotelyenvisioned. The final chapterwill reveal what that solution is.

· .

fEEDINGrHEBLACI( HORSEOF IiAMINE

48

Centuries ago thegreatest prophet, forecaster,and newscaster who ever liveddescribed in vivid detail themost climactic period in all ofman's existence. The prophet,Jesus Christ, was referring toevents immediately precedingthe end or consummation ofthis present era of human history.

His answer came in responseto His disciples' question: "Tellus , when will this be, and whatwill be the sign of your comingand of the close of the age?"(Matt. 24:3.)

Jesus spoke of several majorevents that would signal the beginning of this troubled period.After .false prophets and warscame a third significant indicator: "... and there will befamines" (Matt. 24:7).

Some 60 years later, Christfurther elaborated on this description when He gave the

' apost le John the propheciesconcerning the Four Horsemenof the Apocalypse in the sixthchapter of the 'book of Revelation. Again the same basic sequence of events is described.Following the white horse rep-


resenting false Christs and thered horse of war comes theblack horse of famine: "And Ibeheld, and 10 a black horse;and he that sat on him had apair of balances in his hand.And I heard a voice in the midstof the four beasts say, A measure of wheat for a penny, andthree measures of barley for apenny; and see thou hurt notthe oil and the wine" (Rev. 6:56, KJV).

Unprecedented Famine

There have always been famines, but there have never beenfamines the likes of which theworld is currently experiencing.Usually famines of the pastcame in conjunction withdroughts, wars, and other natural or man-made disturbances.They were cyclical in nature.Today worldwide famine isbuilt into the structure of worldsociety. Famine is now a way oflife for millions of people.Weather fluctuations, wars andcrop failures only serve to exacerbate existing conditions.

Today's famines also differ inboth nature and size from thoseof the past. Never before didmultiple hundreds of millions ofpeople suffer from hunger andmalnutrition at any givenperiod in history as they dotoday. As Paul and ArthurSimon wrote in The Politics of

Feeding the Black Horse of Famine

World Hunger: " T h e population explosion has producedstress and deprivation on ascale without precedent, as wellas a momentum of growth thatboggles the mind" (p. 51).

So Jesus Christ was notmerely guessing about futurefamines. He was describing anage of human existence thatwas unique from all others inwhich widespread famine wasonly one of many interrelatedevents. In the 24th chapter ofMatthew, He made this clear

49

when He said: "For then therewill be great tribulation, suchas has not been from the beginning of the world until now, no,and never will be" (verse 21).

The prophet Jeremiah describes this tumultuous age asfollows : "Alas! that day is sogreat there is none like it; it is atime of distress for Jacob .. ."(Jer. 30:7).

SOUTH VIETNAM refugeesclamor to purchase canned foodfrom black market vendor ,

Ernst Herb

50

Jim White - Black Star

FULANI WOMAN begs for foodas a result of prolonged droughtin Niger.

Daniel likewise wrote: "Andthere shall be a time of trouble,such as ne ver has been sincethere was a nation till thattime" (Dan. 12:1).

Today, modern-day prophetshave finally caught up with thepatriarchs of old . Notice whatRobert Mc Namara says aboutthis era of world history : "Wehave to see the populationproblem as part .. . of a muchwider social and polit ical crisis

The Black Horse : Famine

that grows deeper with eachdecade and threatens to roundoff t his century with years ofunrest and turbulence, a 'timeof troubles ' [emphasis ours]during which the forces of historical ch a n ge threaten ourfrail t wentiet h cen tury societywith disintegration."

Al s o , Georg Borgstromstates: "As a human race we areheading for Supreme Disaster,and the great challenge to ourgeneration is to avert thiscalamity. It has to be done inthis crucia l century, or mankind may well deprive itself ofboth its future and its history."

And worldwide famine, fueledby an exploding population andfuture international conflicts,will undoubtedly be a key catalyst in this rapidly deterioratingchain of events.

Old Testament W arn ings

Christ, who was the Logos orSpokesman of the Old Testament (see I Cor. 10:4, John 1:1),also gave national warningsconcerning famine throughmany of the prophets of old .

In these passages, famine ,along with the 2nd and 4thhorsemen, war and pestilence,are shown to be the ult imateres ult of false re ligion (the firsthorseman ) and flagr ant disobedience of God's commandments.

Notice some of the penalties

Feeding the Black Horse of Famine

for disobedience recorded in the26th chapter of Leviticus: "Ifafter all this you have notlearnt discipline but still defyme, I in turn will defy you andscourge you seven times overfor your sins. I will bring war invengeance upon you ... youshall be herded into your cities,I will send pestilence amongyou, and you shall be given over .to the enemy. I will cut shortyour daily bread until tenwomen can bake your bread ina single oven ; they shall dole itout by weight [see Revelation6:5-6] , and though you eat, youshall not be satisfied. If in spiteof this you do not listen to meand still defy me, I will defyyou in anger, and I myself willpunish you seven times over foryour sins. Instead of meat youshall eat your sons and daughters" (Lev. 26:23-28, The NewEnglish Bible).

Other passages warn of famine-producing upsets in weather(Amos 4:7, Deut. 28:24); ruinedharvests (Ezek. 5: 16, Deut.28:17) ; blighted crops (Amos4 :9); harmful insect pests(Deut. 28:39,42); and nonproductive soil (Deut. 28:23).

Israel of old didn't heed thesewarnings and suffered the consequences. Today many of themodern nations of the world,including the United States andBritain, are following ' in the

51

footsteps of the ancient Israelites and are beginning to paythe same penalties as theirpredecessors.

The Bitter Harvest ofDisobedience

And as men continue to flagrantly disregard the laws oftheir Creator, such conditionswill continue to be aggravated.Jesus Christ went on to warn ofsimilar calamities in the future.In the book of Revelation, Hedepicts an earth whose entirefood producing ecosystem willbe in jeopardy.

"And 10 a black horse;and he that sat on himhad a pair of balances inhis hand. And I heard avoice in the midst of thefour beasts say, Ameasure of wheat for apenny, and threemeasures of barley for apenny; and see thou hurtnot the oil and the wine."(Revelation 6:5-6)

Pollution of the oceans on anunprecedented scale will undoubtedly cause a dramatic decline in the world's fish harvest(Rev. 8:8,9; 16:3). Wanton de-



The Future of FalllineHubert H. Humphrey: " For years we laughed at Malthus' gloomytheory, but now he is coming into his own as we have come to the realization that the world 's resources are not unlimited."

Georg Borgstrom, professor of food science, Michigan State University: " Our future is at stake in this very century, and food is thekey issue. . . . As a human race we are heading for Supreme Disaster, and the great challenge to our generation is to avert thiscalamity . We need to declare the Great War for Human Survival but it is getting late. Time is running out on us."

Gunnar Myrdal : " It is diff icult to see how the world can avoid a foodcatastrophe within the immediate future years."

Feeding the Black Horse of Famine 53

C. P. Snow: " The most dreadful of all - again, men of sober judg ment have been saying it for years - is that many millions of peoplein the poor countries are going to starve to death before our eyes or, to complete the domestic picture , we shall see them doing soupon our television sets."

Lester R. Brown: " We delude ourselves if we think the years aheadwill be easy. At best they will be traumatic, and they could be catastrophic ."

Thomas M. Ware, head of the Freedom From Hunger Foundation:"Very few grasp the magnitude of the danger that confronts us. . . .The catastrophe is not something that may happen; on the contrary itis a mathematical certainty that it will happen."

Philip Handler, president of the National Academy of Sciences: " Ihave diff iculty facing the future with equanimity . This is a bitter pill indeed. With my fellow scientists, I was enraptured by a beautiful panorama of understanding offered by science in our time. . . . But theplanet is small, and there are too many of us."

Second Report to the Club of Rome: "The most thorough analysesof a large number of scenarios using our world system computermodel lead to the inescapable conclusion that mankind 's opt ions foravoiding catastrophe are decreasing, while delays in implementingthe options are, quite literally, deadly. "

Don Paarlberg, chief economist, U.S. Department of Agriculture:"Those who are pessimistic about the ability of the world to feed itspeople have more persuasive evidence to lay before us than in manyyears."

Recent report by House Subcommittee: " In all probability, theworld can expect more, rather than less, disasters associated withmalnutrition. The world food crisis will not disappear spontaneouslyor soon, and maybe never."

Dr. Frederick J. Stare, leading food research expert: " Mankind hasnot yet solved his food problem . . . There is little reason to expectsudden dramatic progress during the next decade."

54

struction of one third of theearth's plant cover and forests(Rev. 8:7) will contribute toclimatic upsets, advance of thedeserts, and the loss of valuablecropland. And massive pollu-

"As a human race we areheading for SupremeDisaster, and the greatchallenge to ourgeneration is to avert thiscalamity. It has to be donein this crucial century."

t ion of vital freshwater sources(Rev. 8:10, 11; 16:4) will mostlikely dry up the fruits of irrigated crop production.

Perhaps lack of food or resources resulting from theseglobal catastrophes explainswhy a massive army of 200 million men decides to march onthe Middle East in the 16thchapter of Revelation. In anyevent, Jesus Christ went on toshow that unless He personallyintervened in the affairs of menduring this tumultuous timeperiod, all life would be erasedfrom off the face of the earth(Matt. 24:22).

A Global Surplus of Food

Christ's intervention will setoff a chain of events that will


finally bring a halt to the continuous rounds of famine andhunger the human race has experienced down through history. Satan the Devil will beput away (Rev. 20:1-2), andwith him will go the centuriesold system of greed and exploitation that has left many abroken, hungry, and destituteperson in its wake. The "dispossessed masses" will become athing of the past as every individual will have a chance toown agriculturally productivereal estate (Micah 4:4) . Farming methods will be overhauleduntil lush crops are consideredcommonplace (Isa. 32:15), andone harvest follows hard on theheels of the previous one (Amos9:13-14).

The earth's arable land masswill be greatly expanded asmountains are lowered (Isa.40:4 ) and the sands of thedeserts begin an unprecedentedretreat (Isa. 35:1,7). Only thenwill the age-old problem of famine finally be put to rest.

ADDITIONAL READING

The Worl dwide Church of God publishes many informat ive booklets on a wide range of biblical topics:Four are listed below.

.-;,/

Is This the End Time?

Do the present prophesied end-time conditions represent the .end of this physical globe as well as the close ofthis age? Or does our presently plundered planet have apermanent and vital place in the universe? And are theseworsening world conditions just a horrible prelude to au topian era of peace and plenty?

How To Understand Prophecy

The major events that will headline tomorrow's newsare already pre-recorded. Yet biblical prophecy is a complete mystery to millions. This booklet reveals certainvital keys that will unlock predictive prophecy to yourun derstanding. It will explain prophetic time lapses andprop hetic symbolism.

Are the Ten Commandments obsolete in today's chaotic, war-weary world? Or are they as applicable now ast hey were when God gave them on Mount Sinai? Here is abook explaining plain ly this inexorable living law - soonto become t he globa l standard for t he peaceful, prosper ous , joyful World T omorrow.

Write for your free copies of the ab ove booklets.Worldwide mailin g addresses are listed at t he end of thisbooklet.

BibliographyAltschul, Aaron M. World Protein Resources. Washington , D.C. :

American Chemical Society, 1966.Berg , Alan . The Nutrition Factor. Wash ington , D.C.: The Brookings

Institute, 1973.Borgstrom, Georg. Focal Points. New York: MacMillan Publishing

Co., Inc., 1973.Borgstrom, Georg. Harvesting the Earth. New York: Abelard

Schuman, 1973.Borgstrom, Georg. The Hungry Planet. New York : MacMillan

Company, 1967.Borgstrom, Georg. Too Many. London: MacMillan Co ., 1969.Brown , Lester R. In the Human Interest. New York : W. W. Norton &

Co ., 1974.Brown, Lester R. and Eckholm, Erik P. By Bread Alone. New York:

Praeger Publishers, 1974 .Ehrlich , Paul R. and Ehrlich , Anne H. Population, Resources, and En

vironment. San Franc isco : W. H. Freeman and Company, 1970.Ehrlich Paul R. and Pirages , Denn is C. Ark II. New York: The Viking

Press, 1974.Halacy, D. S., Jr . The Geometry of Hunger. New York: Harper & Row

Publishers, 1972.Hardin, Clifford M., ed . Overcoming World Hunger. Englewood Cliffs,

New Jersey: Prentice-Hall , Inc. , 1969.McNamara, Robert S. One Hundred Countries , Two Billion People.

New York: Praeger Publishers, 1973.Mesarovic , Mihajlo and Pestel, Eduard . Mankind at the Turning Point.

New York: E. P. Dutton & Co ., Inc. , 1974.Paddock, William and Paddock, Elizabeth. We Don 't Know How.

Ames , Iowa: Iowa State University Press, 1973.Paddock, William and Paddock, Paul. Famine 1975. Boston : Little

Brown & Co ., 1967.Population Reference Bureau. World Population Projections: Alterna

tive Paths to Zero Growth. Washington , D. C.: Population Reference Bureau , Inc ., 1974.

President 's Science Advisory Committee. The World Food Problem.White House. 1967.

Schroeder, Richard C. World Food Needs. Washington , D. C.: Editorial Research Reports, 1974.

Simon, Paul and Simon. Arthur . The Politics of World Hunger. NewYork: Harper's Magazine Press. 1973 .

United Nations. Assessment of the World Food Situation. Rome:United Nations World Food Conference, 1974.

United Nations Center for Economic and Social Information. WorldPopulation: The Task Ahead. New York: United Nations. 1974.

World Bank. Population Planning . Washington , D. C.: World Bank,1972.

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Why wereyou born?"l will say that any man must

indeed have a blind soul whocannot see that some great

purpose and design is being worked out here below."

-Winston Churchill

To the United States CongressDecember 26, 1941

Churchill understood that man's blood,sweat and tears are not spent in vain.Life was not intended to be an exercise in futility, but rather a meaningfuland fulfilling experience.From birth, every human being possessesan incredible potential that few de-velop, or are even aware of. Thereseems to be no consensus of what man isor why he exists, if there is a reason at all.There is a purpose to life that sciencehas not discovered and religionhas not explained. There are uni-versal goals that lead toabundant living and happiness ina frustrating world.You can receive your free copyof Why Were You Born? by mailingyour request to our office nearestyou. See the last page of this bookletfor our mailing address nearest you.

7603

MAILING ADDRESSES WORLDWIDE

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THIS BOOKLET IS NOT TO BE SOLD. It is provided as a public service in the public interest by Ambassador College - madepossible by the contributions of those who. voluntarily. have become co-workers in support of th is worldwide work . Ambassador College, as a separate corporation, is associated with theWorldwide Church of God, and a portion of the financial needsof the work is supplied by that Church. The publishers havenothing to sell . and although contributions are gratefully welcomed. no solicitation is ever made to the public for financialsupport .

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