E/CN.4/1503 page 36
73. Thirdly, there is food scarcity and soaring food prices in
many less developed countries. Quite apart from other factors, the spiralling oil prices of the 1970s hit the South hard and
may have made the cost of transportation prohibitive. With the need for hard currency to purchase imports even more acute,
food production has sometimes come to be sacrificed in favour of
export crops.
Furthermore, the uprooting of peasants by economic policies adopted by élitist governments, the loss of livestock and crops through inclement weather conditions and
central government methods which turn out to be
be disincentives
to some agricultural workers to produce more food are among the
elements contributing to scarcity and spiralling prices.
76.
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result, a 50 per cent increase in per capita income in the
South may take 30 years to achieve, as in the period since 1950, while in the North the growth rate may be at least twice
to three times higher.
74. Fourthly, growing inflation and unemployment may be chronic in the South, where unemployment may be as high as 50 per cent
nationally and be even higher in urban areas. Without investment
in what has been called human development including the raising
of educational and skills levels and the improving of health and
nutrition the South finds it difficult to keep inflation down
and create
create sufficient jobs. These problems may already have
been exacerbated by the flight of skilled manpower to more developed countries.
75. A fifth element to be taken into account is the ecological
deterioration which natural
natural or man-made disasters have wrought.
The process of deforestation which has gone on for centuries,
overgrazing, the recent incidence across many areas of the
third world of severe drought conditions which destroyed plant
and wild life, and damage to the environment in times of war have led to a worsening of conditions in many countries of
the South.
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