Food and Agriculture Organization

Extract

The annual report of the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) pointed out that estimates of the world total volume of agricultural production, excluding mainland China, showed an increase of only one percent in 1960–1961 over the previous year. This was less than the estimated normal population growth of 1.6 percent, although if the last two seasons were taken together, production would appear to have increased slightly faster than population. The main increases in production since 1958–1959 had been primarily in the more developed parts of the world, although in each of the less developed regions the prewar level of per capita output apparently had been reached or exceeded sometime during the postwar period. The Far East (excluding mainland China), where production per head has been the lowest in the world, was estimated to have reached the prewar level in i960. In Africa, in contrast, per capita food production returned to this prewar level soon after the war but appeared to have dropped below it in the year under review. Although Latin America had regained its prewar level between 1956 and 1959, its rapid population growth has caused a sharp drop in per capita output. In the Near East also, per capita production has deteriorated recently, although itremained much higher than before the war.