Lesson #297 in Why We'll Never Feed the World
Searching For a Fourth Wife
Farid would take a fourth wife if he could afford one. This 29-year-old gravel supplier says he has already received a dozen calls from single women in his neighborhood who want to join his three current wives. He is something of a catch. His hillside house has no water or electricity, but his business hauling gravel provides a steady income. The fact that he has three wives and seven children, three of them sons, is a mark of his status in the community.
. . . “Neither I nor my wives come from a rich or well-educated family, so we value things different to the smart people in the city,” said Farid. “We want lots of sons, and for them to grow up clever and strong.”
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You don't need to be a math major to see where this leads.
Unsurprisingly, Africa and the Middle East are where the population growth rates are three or four times the world average. That America and Europe are am…