Health and Food

A new study says Australia's water supply problems are only going to get worse as the population soars towards 45 million by mid-century. The report by Australia's major water utilities estimates demand for water will increase by almost 1 trillion litres by 2056 based on a population of 31 million people. The worst-case scenario indicates more than 1.5 trillion litres may be needed if Australia reaches 45 million.

(Reuters) - Asian countries need to increase investment in food production by 50 percent to $120 billion a year to ensure they can afford to feed their large and growing populations, a United Nations' body said on Wednesday. With the number of hungry people in the world increasing by about 100 million to 1 billion last year, the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) said food production in the developing world had to double by 2050.

More than two billion people, mostly those with low income or living in poor countries, lack access to surgical treatment and sites, according to a study of the Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH).

We have here an example both of the damage done in the service of unnecessary population growth and the failure to offset some of that damage by retaining a superb working food production area which also puts water to excellent re-use. Yet we are still subjected to harangues by suprisingly well-publicised so-called 'green' activists who basically argue for 'smart growth' and have been doing so for years in the face of the entrenchment of just the opposite. You can't help wondering what's in it for them.

Swathes of land in the Sydney Basin could be set aside for farming and market gardens under a proposal the state government is considering to stem the loss of agriculture in outlying suburbs.

To fight poverty and overpopulation, crops need coaxing. Advances in deep-root food plants may trigger a new Green Revolution.

PEOPLE who drink from their rainwater tanks may be consuming unacceptable levels of lead, a study says.

A few days ago there was an odd juxtaposition of Yemen-related news. On the one hand, U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates announced that the United States would double its military assistance to Yemen to about $150 million next year. That same day, the UN Refugee Agency warned that it faced a huge funding shortfall for its Yemen related work, which includes taking care of 250,000 people made refugees and internally displaced, in part by fighting between the Yemeni military and rebel groups. Mark Leon Goldberg - February 25, 2010

N'DJAMENA (Reuters) - Nearly a fifth of the population in Chad will suffer food shortages this year, part of a broader hunger problem looming in the Sahel region, the United Nations said Thursday. Moumine Ngarmbassa Thu Feb 25, 2010

STATE capitals will have enough water even if the national population swells to 35 million by 2050 as predicted, but only if residents are prepared to change their lifestyles and pay bigger water bills. ... Asa Wahlquist, Rural writer From: The Australian December 29, 2009 12:00AM