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The world is not prepared to deal with a decline in food production of this magnitude. Right now, the world's food reserves are at about 68 days of consumption,
which is well below the historical norm of 100 to 120 days.
And not enough food
to protect us in the event of this kind of shortfall.
In addition, there are already
at baseline today,
100 and - excuse me - 870 million people in the world
who are malnourished.
They're getting about 1800 calories a day, which is just enough to keep an average-sized adult alive,
to maintain his or her body mass, and to allow him or her to do a little bit of physical work, to grow food, to gather food.
Besides this, there's an additional 300 million people in the world today,
who live in countries where the nutrition is pretty good,
but in countries which are highly dependent on food imports. Most of the countries in North Africa, in the Middle East,
and many of the industrial countries in East Asia.
In the event of a nuclear
war in South Asia, and subsequent decline in food production in the magnitude which we now believe will take place...
...there will be a significant drop in international food commerce and these people too will be at risk...
...over 1.2 billion people.
The World Food Project of the Red Cross,
all of us will do our part, will all try to help. But the fact is the food, just won't be there.
And it is probable, that up to 1 billion people could die of starvation.