BOOKS OF THE DAY
Food and Population
Road to Survival. By William Vogt. (Gollancz. 15s.)
Ir the world were endangered by a widespread outbreak of a terrible epidemic, a new Black Death, for which no immediate remedy were known and which threatened to decimate mankind before it could be checked, it is likely that the nations would get together with commendable speed to devise and put into operation measures to meet the menace ; even the U.S.S.R. might participate without making too many frustrating reservations and time-wasting references to Moscow. But when no less a danger is clearly apparent by reason of the obvious widening of the gap between world food-production and the growth of world population, most of those who should be shocked to immediate action remain blissfully unperturbed. - Those of us who were present at the birth of F.A.O., so few years ago, hoped that this vast and menacing problem would be first and foremost the task it would engage on and that its efforts would have the wholehearted support of governments. Today we are, for the greater part, disillusioned ,people. Restriction here and limitation there have quietly moulded the form of F.A.O. to familiar pattern. It is genteel and eminently respectable, with statistics neatly filed and admirable advice ready for issue on request. But as a world power to meet the crisis we are ffcing it is impotent. It can do no more than renew the warnings its late Director-General so often sounded.
Road to Survival sounds another loud alarm. As a book it has many defects. It is badly written, its presentation lacks balance, its charts and illustrations are a waste of good paper ; but in spite of these faults it is a book that should be read and widely read. The author has had much experience as Chief of the Conservation Service of the Pan-American Union. It is understandable, therefore, that he writes convincingly on soil erosion and many related problems. The picture he draws of the consequences of loss of soil by water and wind is terrifying. By contrast he fails to set in its appro- priate perspective the possibility of bringing back to cultivation vast areas that have become desert ; after all, much of the ground now being cleared for the groundnut scheme in East Africa could be fairly described as a " dustbowl."
Mr. Vogt is less at home when he tackles the other side of the picture, which concerns the rapid increase of populations, particu- larly those of Asia. He defines the problem, which, as it now exists, is to a large extent a question of simple arithmetic, but he does not bring the whole complex situation, -with its interplay of racial, religious and social influences, into anything approaching good perspective. That is probably why be has so little to contribute to suggestions for meeting the situation, beyond making the observa- tion that a billion dollars spent on discovering a cheap and dependable contraceptive would be money better spent than on the production of the atomic bomb. The struggle for existence is no more than the struggle for "free energy." That simple thermodynamic principle is then disregarded, but it cannot be .evaded.
In every quarter of the globe men are searching for new or undeveloped stores of solar radiation which for millions of years have been lying hidden from sight in the form of coal and oil. By increasing acreage and improving crops we are trying to make better use of the solar radiation that comes to us today. Unfortunately little or nothing is being done to use solar rays or other forms of energy that are now becoming available to man, as a means of con.- verting carbon dioxide into sugar. That is a very difficult but by no means an impossible task for the chemist and biochemist. Already starch has been made from sugar in the test-tube, a change that was thought outside the range of the chemists' powers in the laboratory. This laboratory approach to the major problem should certainly receive far more attention than it has been given. True, it is a long- range approach, but then so at present are plans for bringing to cultivation vast tracts that have in historic times become deserts or others that have never yet been brought under man's subjection.
JACK DRUMMOND.
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