Collapse

This is the Rwanda Genocide Museum in Kigali. Residents and visitors alike are reminded of the Rwandese catastrophe in 1994.

In his book, Collapse, Jared Diamond provides a history of the many forces which lead societies to decline and fall. One chapter is devoted to Rwanda, which he analyses in the context of Thomas Malthus's bleak 200-year old theory: human population growth is exponential, whereas agricultural production growth is linear, and therefore population will expand until it consumes all available food unless it is halted by one or more of the four horsemen of the apocalypse.



Malthus's theory has aroused considerable debate and emotion for many years. It has been rejected by many academics on the basis of what has actually happened. The global population has, after all, grown by a factor of 10 since the beginning of the 19th century without absolute disaster. This achievement owes a great deal to scientific and technological advancement: without the Haber-Bosch process to convert atmospheric nitrogen into fertiliser, without the development of high yielding hybrid crops, and without the invention of the instruments of deforestation humankind would have run out of food long ago. And we may yet stave off failure in the food supply for some time to come: we are after all yet to possess the technologies to exploit even a fraction of the world's marine resources. We have also managed to change reproductive behaviour. Voluntarily, through the adoption of contraception, and, in some less-than-liberal countries, through compulsory legislation limiting the number of children per family. Indeed, so effective a tool has contraception proved to be that economic threats from an ageing population - for example in Japan and many European countries - are becoming a matter of great concern.


However, Malthus may still be correct, if not on a global scale, but at the level of particular economies. There is certainly reason to believe that the failures of the Mayan and Khmer civilisations were driven by population growth leading to environmental destruction, and, in Collapse, Diamond argues that the Rwandese genocide was in part driven by the same factors. "Friends who visited Rwanda in 1984 sensed an ecological disaster in the making. The whole country looked like a garden..... Steep hills were being farmed right up to their crests. Even the most elementary measures that could have minimised soil erosion, such as terracing, plowing along contours and providing fallow cover of vegetation..... were not being practiced." (Certainly, when I visited Rwanda in 2002, it seemed as if every square metre of available land was being cultivated, right up to the edge of the mountain top forests that are home to Rwanda's precious population of mountain gorillas). The median farm size had shrunk to less than quarter of an acre. Under these circumstances, increasing numbers of Rwandese were unable to feed themselves and their families. Family tensions and disputes over inheritance became more widespread. Diamond concludes his Rwanda discussion by asserting that population increase was a contributory factor to the 1994 genocide

In the broader African context, this is interesting. The population of the continent as a whole has exploded over the past 40 years. Food production has increased , despite inefficient farming techniques, as a result of the widespread adoption of new crops (especially those originating from the Americas). Maternal and child mortality rates have drastically improved. Conflict has - despite external news coverage - significantly decreased. This creates extraordinary statistics. For example, more than 50% of the population of Niger and Uganda is aged 16 and under. Kenya, Tanzania, Ethiopia and many other African countries have demographic profiles which are not dissimilar. An opportunity - economists like to call it a demographic dividend - but also a threat of social unrest from a relatively poorly educated, unskilled, but rapidly increasing labour force. Could other countries in Africa be at threat of a Rwandese disaster?

In this context, the current trend for large-scale investors - both public and private - in acquiring massive landholdings is relevant. Considerable publicity has recently been given to "land-grabbing" in Africa. There is an entire website devoted to the topic (www.farmlandgrab.org). The World Bank has published a report into land acquisition in Africa. The conversion of agricultural land from food to biofuel production comes in for special attention. Rightly so - in the context of weak governance, low levels of transparency, traditional land rights and a rapidly increasing population - large-scale land acquisition presents a considerable long term social and economic risk. Let us hope that the countries most at risk will sign up for and implement the World Bank's recommendations of how to manage the process.