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INSPECTION OF FOOD AND SUPERVISION OF FOOD PREMISES
According to reliable estimates, the present world population of
3,500 million will have doubled by the year 2000. If all these
additional people are to be adequately nourished, a great expansion
in world food production is essential, for malnutrition has already
reached substantial proportions in many parts of the world. Not
withstanding the efforts of the U.N.'s Food and Agricultural
Organisation to improve world food supplies, in Asia for example,
production per capita has fallen by 5% since 1960 and the figure
for Latin America is probably worse.
Not only must more food be produced but we must consume
more of what we grow and to this end we must make the control
of pests, which could devour as much as one third of all food
production, much more complete.
From a purely practical point of view, the responsibility for
making good the world's food deficiency falls to the more developed
and civilised areas of Europe and America. However, most of the
arable land in these regions is already under cultivation and
increases in production are achieved mainly by the application of
modern scientific and technological methods which include the use
of artificial fertilisers, pesticides and herbicides, not to mention the
employment of antibiotics, coccidiostatics, tranquillisers, anthelminthics
and hormones in dairy farming. If present in sufficient
quantities, effects of ingesting many of these compounds could be
dangerous and far-reaching. Furthermore, other serious problems