6 - Sunday, October 1, 1989 - North Shore News

INSIGHTS

We save them — but who'll feed them?

IN CANADA OUR NEWS MEDIA will repori about oral
and anal sex in relation to AIDS, but they are coy when it
comes to too many babies born in Baluchistan or

Bangladesh.

Reporters currently have a
ghoulish obsession with liver, heart
and kidney transplants, but the
cost is seldom mentioned. Neither
is the devastating effect western
medicine is having in the Third
World — quite clearly, what is
good for Toronto must be good
for Timbuktu, even if the Third
World is culturally different from
us.
In Canada, we do save, often at
great cost, most of the babies

lucky enough to be born. It is easy
for us to go to Africa, or Central
America, or anywhere in the Third
World and save more lives. Lots of
them.

We can treat diarrhea by oral
rehydration. Our antibiotics are
effective for many infections, from
pneumonia to scarlet fever to
bubonic plague and to sexually
transmitted diseases other than
AIDS. We can effectively treat
leprosy and tuberculosis. We can
immunize against a number of
childhood infectious diseases, and
other ones such as tetanus. We can
treat iron deficiencies. I have a
question, though. When we have
saved all of these people, who is
going to feed them?

Providing adequate food is not
simply a matter of throwing in
some tractors, seeds, fertilizer and
irrigation equipment, as so many
armchair experts in government
and academe seem to think —
those who have never farmed are
so terribly wise.

As populations grow, the land
available per person declines.

Africa has been a disaster area
since 1972: food production has
simply not matched population

Noel Wright

By W. HARDING LE RICHE
Guest Columns

growth. The iatest production fig-
ure is about 120 ke of grain per
person per year, down from more
than 150 kg 40 years ago. Africa’s
population is currently estimated
at 626 million people, and is ex-
pected to grow to 872 million by
the year 2000 —- if there is enough
food. There are an additional 15
million mouths to feed cach year.

The fact is that in many parts of
the continent there are (00 many
people for the battered land to
support, and our food aid only en-
courages dependency. In the long
run, every country must produce
its own food, or it must produce
goods that can be sold to buy it.
Loans and deficit financing will
not solve the problem.

The population of our workd
was about 760 million people in
1750 and 2.5 billion in 1950. If it
had stabilized at that figure, what
a@ wonderful world we could be liv-
ing in. About 1950, though, mod-
ern agriculture and medical tech-
nology and food aid started
spreading to the Third World.
From 1950 to 1959, the world’s
population grew by 50 million
people per year. In the current de-
cade, world population growth is
more than 88 million people per

year, with the developed world ac-
courting for six million. The total
world population by the year 2000
will be about seven billion. During
this period, the population of the
developed world will remain
stable, at about 1.2 billion people.

This Third World growth is

on vacation

of the school board.

NEWS VIEWPOINT

Future challenges

OUG PLAYER is off to a solid start as West
[rerconser new superintendent of schools if

his contributions to this school year’s initial
board meetings are any indication.

Player has told trustees and taxpayers that, with the
backing of the new School Act, he will be hoiding both
students and parents more accountable for their ac-
tions than may have been done in the past; that he will
confront such issues as foreign students and space
shortages head on; and thai he wants all citizens to
become more actively involved in the regular meetings

But several sizable challenges face Player.

fuelled by our misapplied techno-
logy. The American government,
influenced by the Moral Majority,
no longer supporis birth-controf
programs there. Our federal gov-
emment has taken away the smail
amount of moncy it used to give 10
Planned Parenthood.

Sub-Saharan Africa, excluding
South Africa, is the only part of
the world where the average fertili-
ty rate for 1980-85 was higher than
ai anv time during the previous 30
years. Fewer than 10 per cent of
the women there know about and
use modern contraceptives. This is
vere a great deal of Canadian aid
should po, along with medical care

and food.

The women of Africa need
education, and they need libera-
tion. For example, the total fertili-
ty rate — the number of children
produced during a lifetime per
childbearing woman — is 8.0 in
Kenya, !.7 in Canada.

Vast population growth means
the destruction of forests, increas-
ing killing of wild animals and
plants, growing soil erosion,
decreasing water supplies, expan-
ding deserts, and inhuman cities,
where the slums grow like a
cancer. This is happening across
the Third World, the result of
misapplied medical technology,

free food, and littie or no family
planning. Why should we be inter-
ested in the quality of life there, in
the deaths of women from ex-
cessive childbearing?

Simply because our aid pro-
grams should be based on the real
needs of the people, on popula-
tions in balance with their
resources,

Excerpts from a recent article in
the Canadian Medical Association
Journal, Dr. Harding le Riche is
Professor Emeritus of Medicine at
the University of Toronto.

THE CHEYENNE Dancers kick up their eels at Maplewood Farm's recest asnual Farm Fair. Participants
cajoyed « mini-craft fair, pames and family catertainnent.

Enrolments, scholarships, and teacher totals are ap
significantly in the district, causing a renewed focus on
academic excellence and pedagogical standards, uct to
mention space problems.

The Sullivan Report and the new School Act are

making new demands on public education in a time of Publishes. Peter Speck Wives norm mmeess mesos Display Advertsing 980.0511
economic doubt and consequent funding uncertainties. Sanaging Editor Barrett Fisher 1s Classified Advertising 986-6222
And West Vancouver's high-achieving parents, who Associate Editor Noel Wright Newsroom 985-2131
have the highest average incomes in Canada, have Advertising Director Linda Stewart ». hh SLO aoe 1337

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traditionally been more than ready to send their
children to competitive and high quality area parochial
or private schools if they felt that the public system
was falling short of their exacting expectations.

Player has made an impressive start, but it remains
0 be seen whether he will be equal to the challenges
ahead.

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