Geography Matters

• Growing countries and Shrinking countries and population problems

  Global population changes are complex but it can be argued that many countries, but not all, fall into one of two groups, each with very different problems. First, there are the relatively poor, low income, developing countries with high birth rates and rapidly growing populations.Most sub Saharan African countries fall into this group. Second, there are richer, developed, countries with low birth rates and a generally slow growing, static or even falling population. Many European countries fall into this category and they face problems of shrinking labour force, an ageing population and growing welfare bills for pensions and health care. Not surprisingly there is a growing global trend for people to try to migrate from the first group to the second. Countries in the first group include Nigeria, Ethiopia, the Democratic Republic of Congo and many other sub-Saharan countries. In many of the these countries over 50% of the population is aged 18 or under. By contrast, in Japan, the country with the oldest population in the world, some 30% of people are now aged 65 or over and many parts of rural Japan are now shrinking villages of the elderly. The birth rate in Japan is now far below replacement rate (2.1 children per woman) and the countries population is continuing to fall. Many European countries are not too far behind. Italy has 22% of its population over 65 and Finland, Greece, Portugal, Germany, Bulgaria, Croatia, France all have over 20%. But one of the least well known but most remarkable countries is China. It currently has a population of 1.3 bn but this has now peaked and is starting to fall. And, as consequence of Mao's one child policy and the subsequent rapid economic growth, very few families have more than one child and China's population is forecast to almost half by the end of the century on current trends. The problem now facing many affluent developed western countries is the falling proportion of economically active people and a growing, ageing, dependant population of retired people. This poses problems both for the cost of care and the supply of care workers and for expenditure on pensions. Not surprisingly, many young people are trying to migrate from the first group of countries to the second, though both Japan and China have relatively little inward migration from overseas.

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• The Geography of global population change 1

  Global population change is important and it has a distinct geography. But first its important to note some general changes. Global population has increased dramatically over the last 200 years. In 1800 the global population was estimated to be about 1 million. There were high birth rates, no modern medicines or health care, and high death rates. Most people died relatively young if they survived infancy and childhood. Global population then began to increase quite slowly to about 2 billion by 1925, exactly 100 years ago. Since then, it is increased very rapidly with the developments in living standards, medicines and health care. It reached 3 billion in 1960 and 8.4 billion today. In the last 60 years global population has grown by about one billion every 12-15 years, largely as a result of the reduction in mortality. People in the less developed world are less likely to die in childhood and people in the developed world are now living much longer. But, and this is an important but, people in the developed world are also having far fewer children. And global population growth is projected to slow and peak at about 10 billion by the end of this century. But first its important to make two points about the relative population size of different countries. The population of the UK in 2025 is about 70m, almost the same as France. By comparison population of the USA (the third most populous country) is 350 million – exactly 5 times as big, and the population of China and India (the two most populous countries in the world) are roughly 1.4 billion –20 times as big. But the global distribution of population is not static. If we look at the population by continent today, Asia has over 5 bn people. Africa has 1.6bn, North and South America together about 1 billion, Europe 0.75 bn. But if we go back 200 years, the shares were very different. Asia still had most people but Europe was second, and Africa and the Americas had very few people. The transformation has been the shrinkage of Europe’s global population share, the growth of Asia and the Americas and and, since the 1950s, themassive increase in Africa’s share. Probably most listeners know the India and China are the two biggest countries in the world, by a very large margin. But maybe its a surprise to discover that USA is third. But then it gets more complex. The next biggest countries are all in the developing world, Indonesia, Pakistan, Nigeria, Brazil – between 200-300m. But then a big group of developing countries between 100-200m: Bangladesh, Ethiopia, Mexico. Egypt, Phillipines, DR Congo, Vietnam along with two developed countries: Russia and Japan. The majority of rapidly growing countries are in Africa but at the other end, many developed countries are losing population. All this has major geopolitical implications

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• Geopolitics: what is it, and why is it important?

  Geopolitics has a long history but it can be defined as how, where, when and why geographical factors, physical, economic and social influence the influence of political power, the shape of international relations and the strategic decision making of states and other entities, including both private companies and other non state actors. Where and when to invest is increasingly important globally and companies often want to ensure that investments are in relatively safe/politically stable areas. Geopolitics also involves decisions and conflicts over resources - gas, oil, copper, and recently rare earth minerals. The term geopolitics was first used in 1900 by Rudolf Kjellenn a Swedish political scientist but in 1904 Halford Mackinder, a British geographer, university professor and MP wrote an influential paper called 'The Geographical pivot of history' which argued that certain key areas of the world had been historically and politically important for many centuries. Although his choice of area can be queried 120 years later, his general thesis remains influential. Today, geopolitics is as important as ever and it is possible to look at many different parts of the world where there are conflicts between states over borders, oceans and territory. The podcast briefly discusses some of these, including the south China Sea, the conflict between India and Pakistan over Kashmir, American and Chinese spheres of influence and the conflicts in the middle east involving Israel, Gaza,Syria, Lebanon, Iran, Yemen and the Gulf states. Geopolitics is of growing importance.

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• The geopolitics of food and fishing

  Geopolitics is, as its name suggests, where geography and politics intersect. The geopolitics of food focuses on how food production, trade, and consumption are influenced by and influence political relationships between nations. Traditionally, geopolitics tended to focus on questions of strategic conflicts between states. but in the modern world issues of food security and sustainability have increasingly moved to the fore. This is highlighted by the impact of the Russian invasion of Ukraine which had quite major impacts on food supply and prices as the Ukraine has often been seen as one of the major breadbaskets of Europe, producing and exporting large volumes of grain along with sunflower oil and other products, much of which was exported from Odessa and other black sea ports. The Russians initially attempted to block these exports. But, there have been many other conflicts involving food. We look at the Cod Wars between Britain and Iceland from the late 1950s to the mid 1970s and the short but sharp conflict between Canada and Spain over Spanish fishing in the Grand Banks of Newfoundland off Nova Scotia. More recently fishing rights and quotas have been a considerable source of friction between Britain and the EU. But generally food production and security of supply are becoming major issues and there are some countries, particularly the Gulf States, which produce very little of their own food. They are almost entirely dependent on imports of food, and thus at major risk of food insecurity in the future.

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• The global food system and its problems

  This episode follows on from the previous one 'Where does our food come from?' This episode focuses more on food consumption but also touches on food production. Our starting point is the global food supply system from which most people in the developed world now get their food. The main distribution network are the supermarkets which all have integrated food supply chains. This means that whether we shop at Aldi, Lidl, Tesco, Sainsburys, Waitrose, or Asda (Walmart in the US or Carrefour in France, Denner or Migros in Switzerland) we are probably all going to get an all year round supply of fruit and vegetables coming from a wide range of places across the globe. Each of the supermarkets has a team of specialist buyers whose job is to ensure that we are able to get a year round supply of grapes for currently about £2 for half kilo. And a supply of frozen prawns from Thailand, Vietnam, or Honduras. But of course all of this requires long food supply chains, whether by truck within Europe or the USA ory ship or air. But these food production chains (particularly beef) generate considerable C02 as well as nitrogen fertilisers pollution. This raise big questions about the long term sustainability of such food systems. Meanwhile, in many less developed countries, food production causes problems of deforestation, soil erosion and is prone to drought, civil war and other problems. And within the developed countries there are sometimes political protests by farmers who feel they are being undercut, or by concerned citizens who object to some intensive food production processes - chlorinated chicken or hormone feed beef for example. Currently Britain only produces about 54% of the food that we consume which raises questions about food security in the event of any global conflicts if we were forced back just on national food production. .

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