Present Immigration Trends Threaten Loss of 90 Million

       Acres of Farmland in 21^st Century

The U.S. presently has 330 million acres devoted to crops, or about 1.12 acres per person.  It is estimated that about one acre per person is needed to provide a minimally adequate diet. Hence, we have a 14% surplus to provide crops for export, making us the largest international supplier of food to the world. 

At today's rate of immigration the U.S. population will reach 500 million people during the next 50 to 60 years.  At current population densities, that would almost double our urban area to about 180 million acres thus reducing cropland by up to 90 million acres.  Cropland per person would drop to only .48 acres per person, the level of many of third world countries.  If we reach a billion people, as the Census Forecasts by the end of the century given present trends in immigration, cropland per person would drops to a mere .24 acres.  This assumes no further urban sprawl resulting in additional lost cropland – a wildly optimistic assumption!

We would need to increase cropland productivity by 400% to feed a billion people.  But long before then in less than 30 years - the US will and cease to be a net exporter of food and become a net food importer .  (Actually the value of US agricultural imports exceeded agricultural exports for the first time in 2003, but this was due to a number of factors that are beyond the scope of this brief analysis.)

Increased cropland productivity in the US has virtually ground to a halt.  We might increase productivity by genetic engineering, but that is not without risk.  We might be able to create additional cropland by clear-cutting more forests, filling in the remaining wetlands, and converting national parks to farmland.  We might also grow more crops on marginal land.  We could also freeze all further building of housing on cropland and demand that we increase the densities of our urban areas.  We could take all of these draconian measures, but doesn't it make far more sense to simply slow our population growth and its primary component, immigration?

In short, the present trends will result in incredible overcrowding, or a shortage of food, or both.  What a horrific legacy to leave our children.

J. L. Daleiden

Ameritech Director of Corporate Planning, (Ret)

mcri/essays/farmland.doc

9-7-04

*  *  *

Forsaking Fundamentals
The Environmental Establishment
Abandons U.S. Population Stabilization

By Leon Kolankiewicz and Roy Beck
Center Paper 18, March 2001