October 31, 2011
World Population Reaches 7 Billion
http://www.keprtv.com/news/national/132920248.html
MANILA, Philippines (AP) - She came into the world at two minutes before midnight, a tiny, wrinkled girl born into a struggling Manila family. On Monday, she became a symbol of the world's population reaching 7 billion people and all the worries that entails for the planet's future.
Danica May Camacho, born in a crowded public hospital, was welcomed with a chocolate cake marked "7B Philippines" and a gift certificate for free shoes. There were bursts of photographers' flashes, and speeches by local officials.
The celebrations, though, reflected symbolism more than demography.
Amid the millions of births and deaths around the world each day, it is impossible to pinpoint the arrival of the globe's 7 billionth occupant. But the U.N. chose Monday to mark the day with a string of festivities worldwide, and a series of symbolic 7 billionth babies being born.
Danica was the first, arriving at Manila's Jose Fabella Memorial Hospital at two minutes before midnight Sunday - but doctors say that was close enough to count for a Monday birthday.
"She looks so lovely," the mother, Camille Galura, whispered as she cradled the 5-pound, 8-ounce (2.5-kilogram) baby, who was born about a month premature.
The baby was the second for Galura and her partner, Florante Camacho, a driver who supports the family on a tiny salary driving a 'jeepney,' a ubiquitous jeep-like bus used by many poor and working-class Filipinos.
Dr. Eric Tayag of the Philippines' Department of Health said the birth came with a warning.
"Seven billion is a number we should think about deeply," he said.
"We should really focus on the question of whether there will be food, clean water, shelter, education and a decent life for every child," he said. "If the answer is 'no,' it would be better for people to look at easing this population explosion."
In the Philippines, much of the population question revolves around birth control. The government backs a program that includes artificial birth control. The powerful Roman Catholic church, though, vehemently opposes contraception.
Camacho, a Catholic like her husband, said she was aware of the church's position but had decided to begin using birth control.
"The number of homeless children I see on the streets keeps multiplying," Camacho said. "When I see them, I'm bothered because I eat and maybe they don't."
Demographers say it took until 1804 for the world to reach its first billion people, and a century more until it hit 2 billion in 1927. The twentieth century, though, saw things begin to cascade: 3 billion in 1959; 4 billion in 1974; 5 billion in 1987; 6 billion in 1998.
The U.N. estimates the world's population will reach 8 billion by 2025 and 10 billion by 2083. But the numbers could vary widely, depending on everything from life expectancy to access to birth control to infant mortality rates.
In Uttar Pradesh, India - the most populous state in the world's second-most populous country - officials said they would appoint seven girls born Monday to symbolize the 7 billion.
India, which struggles with a deeply held preference for sons and a skewed sex ratio because of millions of aborted female fetuses, is using the day to highlight that issue.
"It would be a fitting moment if the 7 billionth baby is a girl born in rural India," said Dr. Madhu Gupta, an Uttar Pradesh gynecologist. "It would help in bringing the global focus back on girls, who are subject to inequality and bias."
According to U.S. government estimates, India has 893 girls for every 1,000 boys at birth, compared with 955 girls per 1,000 boys in the United States.
On Monday, the chosen Indian babies were being born at the government-run Community Health Center in the town of Mall, on the outskirts of the Uttar Pradesh capital of Lucknow.
Six babies were born from midnight to 8 a.m. Monday. Four were boys.
China, meanwhile, which at 1.34 billion people is the world's most populous nation, said it would stand by its one-child policy, a set of restrictions launched three decades ago limiting most urban families to one child and most rural families to two.
"Overpopulation remains one of the major challenges to social and economic development," Li Bin, director of the State Population and Family Planning Commission, told the official Xinhua News Agency. He said the population of China would hit 1.45 billion in 2020.
While the Beijing government says its strict family planning policy has helped propel the country's rapidly growing economy, it has also brought many problems. Soon, demographers say, there won't be enough young Chinese to support its enormous elderly population. China, like India, also has a highly skewed sex ratio, with aid groups saying sex-selective abortions have resulted in an estimated 43 million fewer girls than there should be, given the overall population.
India, with 1.2 billion people, is expected to overtake China around 2030 when the Indian population reaches an estimated 1.6 billion.
Ethiopia: HIV/AIDS causes lower population growth in Amhara region
http://www.aidsportal.org/News_Details.aspx?ID=10669
Addis Ababa, Ethiopia — Lower birth rate and high death rate especially from HIV/AIDS are the factors causing lower population increase rate in the Amhara regional state, a controversial study by the Population Census Commission revealed this week.
Due to HIV/AIDS and other reasons, life expectancy in Amhara region is lower than in other regions.
In addition, Amhara region witnessed a lower birth rate - the second lowest next to Tigray - which according to Samia, contributed to lower population growth rate in the region.
The population census released a few months ago puts population growth rate at 1.7 percent while in most other regions it is close to 3 percent.
AFRICA: Tractored out by "land grabs"?
JOHANNESBURG, 11 May (IRIN) - Rich countries and firms are leasing or buying
massive tracts of land in developing nations for the production of food or
biofuel.
An area equivalent to Germany's farmed land is at stake, and tens of billions
of dollars on offer.
On the plus side, agro-industrial production could develop underused land, and
broaden the world's food production base while providing much needed resources
for poor countries.
But is the land really idle and currently unused? Are small-scale farmers going
to be "tractored out" in a murky neo-colonial "land grab"?
Farmers and experts in several African countries know all too well the need for
higher food production, but the scale and structure of the deals gives rise to
concern on many fronts, according to multiple interviews.
The food and fuel prices hikes of 2007 and 2008 and a steadily growing world
population raised the immediate and strategic value of food production.
Food-importing countries that lack land and water but are rich in capital, such
as the Gulf States, are initiating deals to produce food in developing
countries, where land and water are more abundant and production costs much
lower.
Vast tracts of land and huge amounts of money are involved: 15 million to 20
million hectares, almost equivalent to the total area under cultivation in
Germany, according to analysts at the US-based International Food Policy
Research Institute (IFPRI). Investment so far adds up to $20 billion to $30
billion, dwarfing foreign aid budgets for agriculture.
Murky?
Joachim von Braun and Ruth Meinzen-Dick of IFPRI point out in a new policy
brief that developing countries with large populations, like China, South Korea
and India, are seeking similar deals, including growing biofuel crops.
The institute warned that there was a "lack of transparency" in many deals,
with the amounts involved "often still murky".
Land is an "emotional issue", said Theo de Jager, deputy president of Agri SA,
the South African farmers' association. Some of the deals have already begun to
ruffle feathers in developing countries, most of which are highly food insecure,
and at least one has led to the overthrow of a government.
An April 2009 policy paper from the German NGO Welt Hunger Hilfe says: "States
that are dependent on food imports, in particular, are surrendering more and
more land to foreign investors while failing to ensure that conditions improve
income and food security for their own population. Agricultural investments are
rarely made in such a way that they offer the local population a genuine share
of the benefits." The paper also points out the risks of high-level corruption.
The president of the International Federation of Agricultural Producers (IFAP),
Ajay Vashee, told IRIN "Faced with a growing population, if we do not increase
our global food production I can foresee another crisis, maybe in another two
years." IFAP, formed in 1946, claims to represent 600 million mostly small-scale
farmers, a third of the world's food-growers.
"We are not against the deals, as they will bring in huge amounts of money for
agricultural infrastructure development, besides boosting food production
globally, but we must also realise that in most developing countries, such as
those in Africa, most small-scale farmers have customary rights and face the
threat of being forced off their land," said Vashee, who farms in Zambia.
IFPRI has called for a code of conduct to be drawn up, modelled on
international business laws to prevent corrupt practices in the context of
foreign direct investment.
So what's the deal?
According to von Braun, the arrangements usually involve governments, either
directly or through state-owned entities and public-private partnerships, and
the land was usually leased or made available through concessions, but was
sometimes bought.
"The size and terms of the contract differ widely - some deals do not involve
direct land acquisition, but seek to secure food supplies through contract
farming [[and investing in]] rural and agricultural infrastructure, including
irrigation systems and roads - these are the better deals."
The concept is not new. Von Braun pointed out that China started leasing land
for food production in Cuba and Mexico 10 years ago.
However, in its 2008 report on "land grabbing", GRAIN, a Spain-based NGO that
promotes the sustainable management and use of agricultural biodiversity, warned
that the "very basis on which to build food sovereignty is simply being bartered
away" in the deals.
"These lands will be transformed from smallholdings or forests, or whatever
they may be, into large industrial estates connected to far-off markets. Farmers
will never be real farmers again, job or no job," GRAIN cautioned.
Various Gulf States have struck most of the deals in East Africa, which is
facing some of the biggest food shortages globally. IFPRI's von Braun and David
Hallam of the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) told IRIN it was "too
early" to assess the impact of the deals on food security and farmers in the
lessor countries.
Unease, resistance and protests
Farming and pastoralist communities in the delta of Kenya's Tana River have
reacted strongly to reports of government's intention to lease a chunk of this
rich coastal land to Qatar. Kenya is facing huge food shortages and high prices
after a third consecutive year of drought.
Mohammed Mbwana, who farms in the area and is an official of the Shungwaya
Welfare Association, a local NGO, said if the agreement would displace thousands
of locals. At least 150,000 families in farming and pastoralist communities
depend on the land in question, said to be part of Kenya's biggest wetland.
Tana River County councillors have threatened to go to court and block
government's plans to lease the land. The council's vice-chairman, Gure Golo,
told IRIN they were opposed to the project because local communities used the
delta for produce and livestock farming.
During drought periods, pastoralists from as far as Garissa, the capital of
neighbouring North-Eastern Province, and other arid regions, came to the delta
in search of pasture and water, he said.
According to media reports, Mozambicans have resisted the settlement of
thousands of Chinese agricultural workers on leased land.
In Madagascar, negotiations with the South Korean Daewoo Logistics Corporation
to lease 1.3 million hectares to grow maize and oil palms played a role in the
political conflict that led to the overthrow of the government earlier this
year, the IFPRI brief said.
In Malawi, Chinese investors were allocated land, used by locals for
agriculture in the southern town of Balaka, to construct a cotton processing
plant. When protests followed, local traditional leaders were taken to
neighbouring Zambia to see what the Chinese might deliver in terms of
development. When they came back they relented and opted to move to another area
"because the Chinese would create jobs for their subjects", a government
official told IRIN.
Victor Mhone of the Civil Society Agriculture Network (CISANET), a grouping of
individuals and NGOS in Malawi, said: "What we need as a country is to improve
on food production, and that can be done if we empower local farmers by giving
them the best land for cultivation. Foreign companies are here to make profits
and there is little that we can benefit from, whatever they will be growing
here."
Sudan, which has received some of the biggest foreign investments in
agriculture in Africa, dismissed notions of the emergence of a new form of
colonialism.
Abdeldafi Fadlalla Ali, the Federal Agriculture Commissioner at the Sudanese
Ministry of Investment, told IRIN that they always ensured local interests were
taken care of in the deals - the produce was sold locally and local people
"become the highest beneficiaries".
Sudan, Ali said, has 84 million hectares of arable land, of which only 20
percent is under cultivation, and had registered 75 deals worth $3.5 billion in
eight years. Almost $930 million of this was already invested. Eight countries,
including Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Egypt, Jordan, China and
India are involved.
Ali reasoned that in the face of limited domestic capital, foreign investment
seemed to be a "better strategy" to achieve agricultural targets, and expected
that produce from the deals would be exported in future.
Millions of Sudanese require food aid, according to the UN. However, Ali
claimed food insecurity was more related to transport and marketing than
absolute production shortfalls.
Safeguards
IFPRI recommends transparency, respect for existing land rights, sharing of
benefits, environmental sustainability and adherence to national trade policies
as key elements to be incorporated in a proposed code of conduct. This could
include foreign investors being denied the right to export during an acute
national food crisis.
Farmers and think-tanks talk about turning this "opportunity" into a "win-win"
situation. While the agriculture sector in most poor countries grapples with the
impact of the economic slowdown, deals for arable land continue to prove
attractive.
Rwanda recently announced a new programme to identify "unexploited" arable land
for foreign investors. On the other hand, the Republic of Congo announced it
would lease 10 million hectares of farmland to individual foreign farmers to
boost its food security.
"This is a better option - leasing out land to farmers who will transfer skills
to local farmers, boost the country's production, and care about the land," said
Agri SA's de Jager. South African farmers have helped improve production in
Zambia, Botswana, Mozambique and Nigeria, among other countries he said.
But IFAP's Vashee pointed out that farmers cannot bring in the huge investment
needed to build or rebuild infrastructure.
IFPRI is working with the African Union to develop guidelines on how to
negotiate with foreign investors, which will be presented to African leaders for
ratification at a summit in July.
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Ethiopian Demography and Health
