Consumption of wheat, rice and maize roughly tracks population growth but at a higher level, so demand for them will add about a billion tonnes to the 2 billion produced in 2005-07.
More than three-quarters of the Honduran population's daily calorie consumption comes from maize and beans, and Mitch destroyed an estimated 60% of these crops.
On one reckoning, in order to keep up with population growth farmers will have to grow more wheat and maize over the next 40 years than was grown in the previous 500.