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6 Fighting the Diseases of Poverty
Figure 2 Food supplies per capita vs. income, 1975–2002
4,000
3,500
Kcals/capita/day
3,000
2,500
2,000
1,500
fs1975
fs2002
fsp1975
fsp2002
0 10,000 20,000 30,000 40,000 50,000 60,000
GDP per capita (2000 International $, PPP)
Source: Based on data from World Resources Institute (2005), World Bank (2005b)
World Resources Institute and the World Bank 3 shows that available
daily food supplies per capita (FS) increase with both GDP per capita
– a surrogate for per capita income (or “income” or “affluence”) –
and the passage of time. 4 The upward slope for each year probably
reflects the fact that the wealthier the country, the greater its ability
to afford more productive technologies to increase crop yields or
purchase food in the global market through trade. The upward shift
of the available food supply curve from 1975 to 2002 is consistent
with the fact that for any given level of resources (represented by
GDP per capita), over time food production increased largely due to
technological change. 5
According to Figure 2, if a hypothetical country’s per capita
income were frozen at $1 per day (in 2000 International dollars),
available daily food supplies would have increased from 1,652 to
1,818 calories per capita per day from 1975 to 2002, an increase of
10.0 per cent, due to technological change alone. And if income were
increased to from $1 to $2 per day in 2002, available daily food