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Tom, I agree with your point on the need to increase support for small-scale farmers. Food security is intimately tied up with social and political stability, but the development community needs to be sure that in seeking to increase food production, it doesn't inadvertently marginalize rural farmers in the process. That's a recipe for local unrest, and could also drive new waves of unemployed migrants to cities, which are already struggling to cope with rapid population growth, especially in places like Bangladesh and much of sub-Saharan Africa.

The threat of rural farmers getting cast aside in the push to increase food production is also one of the reasons a number of countries have been lukewarm about the introduction of GM crops in their territory. They worry that the presence of multinationals in their agricultural sectors is going to push out the little guy and, well, given some of the heavy-handed legal actions by actors like Monsanto as of late, you can't really blame them for being concerned. At the end of the day, protecting rural livelihoods not only makes smart policy sense from the perspective of bolstering food supplies in those areas and ensuring a degree of local economic vitality, but also (as you point out) protecting soil and water resources, since local farmers have a vested interest in ensuring their farming methods are environmentally sustainable.

well with the new globally hungry planet who falls at fault for helping to solve world hunger? is it america because of their prosperous state even if they are the deepest in debt…are they responsible for any state falling into a crisis or just states that are in need of repair that could be prosperous to america

Jordan, you bring up a good point.  Education plays a vital role in determining the development of a country and, for many countries, education is one thing many people are being deprived of.  While many developing countries are seeing a boom in their demographics, an increase in food production is required to sustain those growths in population otherwise hunger will insue.  Some countries are able to provide for themselves but the majority need a little foreign assistance from those developed coutnries that have the knowledge, experience, and resources to get them going.  Going back to Kodiakcabin's response, I don't believe that anyone falls at fault for helping to solve world hunger.  Many organizations globally, to include the U.S., have taken it upon themselves to aid countries who cannot help themselves.  It's a fragile situation because many organizations want to throw resources and food at those struggling countries but, as Jordan mentioned, this would just be a "short term fix", so it may be better in the long run to properly educate the citizens of those countries and provide enough resources to them so that they can help themselves.  It's s matter of this:

"Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime."

>I feel that the problems with global food security are only being
addressed from a food >production standpoint when a big part of the
problem is the overall population….It
>seems that
the world keeps looking for ways to provide more food when what we

>really need to do is reduce the strain being caused by our global
population. 

Jordan, I'm not sure encouraging rural-to-urban migration would
necessarily have the desired effect of lowering long-term population
growth on a large enough scale, but I get your point. You did hit the
nail on the head though, pointing out that population growth, not
increasing food production, is the real issue here. Bringing demographic
change under control is a tricky issue in a lot of countries,
especially because of entrenched religious and social traditions that
aren't necessarily supportive of improving access to family planning
tools and services. Uganda has struggled with promoting family planning
in that regard, and today it has one of the highest total fertility
rates in East Africa.

In general though, until global population growth plateaus — and that
is a matter of when, not if — food insecurity is going to remain a
major issue. For the most part, I imagine, policy-makers will
continue to view increasing food production as a more readily attainable (and politically/socially viable) goal than taking steps to limit
population growth.

I agree that you can't go wrong with education, in terms of a smart means of raising awareness about problems associated with population growth. Ideally, such outreach programs target not only children in school, but also adults of reproductive age who may still be looking to expand their families. Education can raise awareness about the potential economic downsides to having large families, and can also help encourage more consistent use of contraception.

In an urban context, you're right, having a large family isn't necessarily an asset, in that it arguably becomes harder to financially support many children in a city. There are space issues, food costs more, education fees, etc. So I think as we see a greater trend toward urbanization in the developing world, cities will increase in size, but the average family size in those cities may not. That's in part because one of the big growth drivers of cities today is rural-to-urban migration, not the people already living in those cities having big families.

The problem is, urbanization alone isn't enough to drop population growth rates.  Even countries with booming populations that are experiencing rapid urbanization (Bangladesh and India come to mind), the population is still mostly rural. And the incentive to have large families in those areas still exists, because, as it's been for hundreds/thousands of years, bigger families mean more children to work on the farm, to help support parents in old age, etc. — that hasn't changed much.

Bringing educational outreach (re: family planning) to those types of off-the-beaten path rural areas would be a key next step, and a lot of aid/development agencies are already busy at work on that, and have been for some time. But no matter what foreign development workers or personnel from a local NGO say to a local population about the need for smaller families, entrenched habits/practices (i.e. having lots of kids) can be quite hard to break. It takes time to get the message across, and a lot of persistence.

The other option to feasibly limit global population growth is through policy — a/k/a China's one-child policy. However, the U.N. doesn't have enough clout/enforcement capacity to make this happen, and most countries throughout the world would be unwilling to implement something along these lines. Even China is loosening its restrictions. I personally think relying on the government to  cap family sizes is near impossible, so it will come down to using educational outreach to get families at the household level to see the economic wisdom in having smaller numbers of kids.