Economists are not dismal, the world is not a Petri dish and other reasons for optimism

Tiffin, R. (2012) Economists are not dismal, the world is not a Petri dish and other reasons for optimism. Food and Energy Security, 1 (1). pp. 3-8. ISSN 2048-3694 doi: 10.1002/fes3.7

Abstract/Summary

One of the recurrent themes in the debate around how to ensure global food security concerns the capacity of the planet to support its growing population. Neo-Malthusian thinking suggests that we are in a situation in which further expansion of the population cannot be supported and that the population checks, with their dismal consequences envisaged by Malthus, will lead to a new era of stagnant incomes and population. More sophisticated models of the link between population and income are less gloomy however. They see population growth as an integral component of the economic growth which is necessary to ensure that the poorest achieve food security. An undue focus on the difficulties of meeting the demands of the increasing population risks damaging this growth. Instead, attention should be focused on ensuring that the conditions to ensure that economic growth accompanies population growth are in place.

Item Type	Article
URI	https://reading-clone.eprints-hosting.org/id/eprint/28908
Item Type	Article
Refereed	Yes
Divisions	Interdisciplinary centres and themes > Centre for Food Security Life Sciences > School of Agriculture, Policy and Development > Department of Agri-Food Economics & Marketing
Uncontrolled Keywords	Agriculture, food, food security
Publisher	Wiley-Blackwell
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