Some decades of research have left little clear evidence of malign effects of population growth on economic development or environmental factors. In combination with a stronger ethical concern about some family planning programmes, this lack of obvious externalities to high fertility is an important reason why the focus has moved away from demographic targets to unmet individual needs in recent global discussions of population policy, such as those at the 1994 ICPD in Cairo. This aim of this project is to see whether population growth has inhibited improvements in food availability, using national data from FAO and various other sources. The affirmative answer that is given will hopefully not be taken as an invitation to re-instate demographic targets, but rather be considered an additional argument for efforts to help people avoid unwanted births.