In a surprisingly outspoken report, a Ford Foundation team last week warned India that it is on a grim arithmetical collision course. Unless a drastic turn is taken, by 1966 the birth rate will have so outstripped food production that literally millions may starve to death in a crisis that "no conceivable program of imports or rationing can meet."
The report, prepared by 13 American agricultural experts at the request of the Indian government, makes these points:
ΒΆ By 1966 India's exploding birth rate will have added 80 million mouths to feed. At present growth rates, food-grains production will be 28 million...