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The number of mouths the world's farmers feed cannot increase indefinitely. Neither unprecedented generosity by the wealthy nations, nor maximum exploitation of known farming techniques, nor anticipated scientific breakthroughs can win what Rural Economies Expert Egbert deVries calls the "stork-farmer race." Unless the experts are underestimating the potential for new discoveries in food production, population control is the sine qua non for solving the problem of world hunger.
The programs discussed at the Food Conference could at best give the L.D.C.s some more time—but not much—to control their birth rates. To head off still more hunger in the meantime, they will need much help from wealthy nations. Such aid may become quite selective. In the West, there is increasing talk of triage,* a common-sense if callous concept that teaches that when resources are scarce, they must be used where they will do most good. Thus in the future, if the U.S. considers building a fertilizer plant or a research lab in a developing country, Washington will more carefully scrutinize what efforts that nation has taken to help itself. If the U.S. decides that the grant would simply go down the drain as a mere palliative because the recipient country was doing little to improve its food distribution or start a population control program, no help would be sent. This may be a brutal policy, but it is perhaps the only kind that can have any long-range impact. A triage approach could also demand political concessions. The U.S. may be roundly denounced for "imperialist arrogance," but Washington may feel no obligation to help countries that consistently and strongly opposed it. As Earl Butz told TIME: "Food is a weapon. It is now one of the principal tools in our negotiating kit."
Even the limited policy of triage, however, may be delayed until it is too late for millions of famished people. "It is going to take a tremendous disaster from famine before people come to grips with the population problem," warns Norman Borlaug, the prime mover of the Green Revolution. "The stage is set for such a situation right now." Indeed, in parts of Central America, in ten sub-Saharan nations and in some rural areas of India, the 20-year trend of declining death rates and infant mortality is being reversed. Death rates are rising. This, according to Malthus, is nature's brutal way of redressing the balance when population exceeds food supply—if man himself does not first redress it voluntarily.
* A military term (taken from the French word for selecting or sorting) that describes how limited medical supplies could be allocated on the battlefield. Under triage, first priority is given to the wounded who can make most use of the medicine—those capable of surviving because of treatment but who probably would not survive without it. Those so seriously injured that they cannot be saved have lowest priority.