Malthusian fears that population growth will outstrip food supplies have been widely discounted as food production has kept well ahead of growing human numbers in the last half century. While population doubled, food supply tripled, and life expectancy increased from 46 in the 1950s to around 65 today. But more recently, some experts have once again been sounding the alarm about a possible food crisis.
The reason lies in the combined impact of many factors including climate change, forest denudation, land degradation, water shortage, declining oil supplies, species extinction, destruction of coastal ecosystems and the growing demands for a meat-rich diet from newly developed parts of the world.
At the root of all these problems has been the ruthless exploitation of the earth’s resources, fuelled by growing affluence in some parts of the world and desperate poverty in others. Between 1980 and 2000, global population rose from 4.4 billion to 6.1 billion, while food production increased 50 per cent. By 2050, the population is expected to reach 9 billion.
Data shows that while grain yields per acre have been increasing, the rate of increase has been slowing since the days of the Green Revolution in the 1970s. Most of the benefits of irrigation, machinery, fertilizer and plant breeding have already been realized. The production of grain per acre is close to the maximum obtainable through photosynthesis.
To keep up with the growth in human population, more food will have to be produced over the next 50 years than has been during the past 10,000 years combined, said the participants of the recent UN-backed forum in Iceland on sustainable development. It is, of course, possible that new technologies, smart environmental management and sensitive social policies will combine to good effect to usher in a new green revolution. But as grain reserves have fallen to their lowest level for many years, this cannot be guaranteed.
At the 1996 World Food Summit political leaders from 186 countries pledged to halve the number of hungry people in the world by the year 2015, or a reduction of 20 million each year. At that time, about 800 million people were reported to suffer from under- nourishment. In 2007 estimates from the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) suggest that there are 854 million people who do not get enough to eat every day. "Far from decreasing, the number of hungry people in the world is currently increasing," said FAO Director-General Jacques Diouf. (Of course, world population has increased by some 800 million in that time, so food supplies have kept up relatively well, but have failed to reach an increasing number, let alone reduce the total going hungry.)
According to the last paragraph, what happened in the year of 2007（）
A. There was an annual reduction of 20 million poor people
B. The number of starving people increased by 50% against 1996
C. The number of people suffering from malnutrition kept up well
D. Food supplies went up due to the application of new technologies
参考答案：C
解析：
[试题类型] 推理引申题。
[解题思路] 根据题干关键词the last paragraph可定位至文章最后一段。该段第二句指出，2007年全球约有8.54亿人每天吃不饱饭(In 2007 ...there are 854 million people who do not get enough to eat every day)，与上一句讲到的1996年全球有8亿人营养不良(At that time, about 800 million people ...under-nourishment)相对比可知，2007年营养不良的人数增长了。同时，联合国粮食与农业组织 * * 雅克·迪乌夫当时也指出，世界饥饿人口持续增长了(...the number of hungry people in the world is currently increasing)，故选项[C]正确。
[干扰排除] 根据最后一段第一句可知，每年减少2000万饥饿人口是1996年世界粮食首脑峰会的目标，2007年是否实现了这一目标还不得而知，并且选项[A]偷换概念，将文中的hungry people换为poor people，故排除。将文中的两组数据1996年8亿和2007年8.54亿相比较可知，选项[B]计算错误，故排除。根据文章末尾的信息可知，2007年粮食供给增长了(food supplies have kept up relatively well)，但作者并未指出粮食供给量上升是由于新技术的应用(due to the application of new technologies)，故排除选项[D]。