Think Tank Predicts Increased
Demand For Grain Over Horizon

WASHINGTON —(AP)— The world's farmers will have to increase grain production by 40 percent to meet global needs in 2020, according to a study offering hope to growers whose income has fallen as crop surpluses have driven down commodity prices.

The world's population is projected to grow by 73 million people a year — roughly the Philippines' current population — and demand for meat in developing countries should jump, too. That means stronger prices for the extra corn and other grains needed for livestock feed, according to the analysis by the International Food Policy Research Institute.

``If you're losing your farm now it doesn't do you any good ... but for someone who wants to go into farming this year or next, the prospects look very, very good,'' said Per Pinstrup-Anderson, director general of the Washington-based think tank.

The institute is funded by the United Nations, the World Bank and various governments, including the United States. It analyzes world food needs and makes recommendations to policymakers.

The report cites what it calls a ``livestock revolution'' in East Asia and other parts of the developing world. Demand for meat in developing countries has been growing three times faster than in industrialized nations and should double between 1995 and 2020, the analysts said. In the developed world, meat demand is expected to increase by 25 percent.

Other findings in the report:

— Unless rain forests and other environmental sensitive areas are turned into farmland, most of the world's arable land already is under cultivation. That means most of the increased grain production will have to come from improvements in crop yields.

— While millions of people will remain poor, Third World income is expected to grow by 4.32 percent a year, double that of the developed world. The greatest increase is expected in China and East Asia.

— China alone will account for a fourth of the global increase in demand for grain and 41 percent of the increased demand for meat.

— Even with improvements in crops and farming methods, production in developing countries will not keep pace with demand. U.S. grain exports are projected to rise by 34 percent between 1995 and 2020. Eastern Europe and the nations of the former Soviet Union also are likely to become major exporters, but the U.S. farmers probably will have to provide 60 percent of the developing world's needs by 2020.

Biotechnology could help meet Third World food needs if it were used to make crops more nourishing by adding vitamins and minerals to grains, for example, and to render plants resistant to drought or pests.

``If small farmers in West Africa are to be able to cope with drouths they have to have crop varieties that can grow with their soils and that will produce something during the drouth,'' Pinstrup-Anderson said. ``You can develop that using traditional research, but you can produce it much faster if you permit biotechnology to be a part of it.''

But strong opposition to genetically engineered food has arisen on two fronts in Europe and Asia: fears about possible health effects and that it will give the companies that produce the seed too much control over farmers.

``A lot of the biotechnology that has come down the pike ... as not designed to benefit the unfed of the world,'' said Neil Hamilton, a specialist in agricultural law at Drake University and an advocate for small-scale farmers.

Predictions of growing food demand ``can be used as a way to silence critics'' of technology, he said.

Environmental activist groups and animal-rights organizations are concerned about rising meat consumption. They say that could put excessive fat in the diet as well as lead to the kind of large-scale livestock production that has led to pollution problems in the United States.

``There's a real opportunity here not to encourage the Third World to adopt our dietary habits, which we are starting to back down from ourselves,'' said David Pryor of the Farm Animal Reform Movement, a Maryland-based advocacy group.