IF IT’S NOT ONE CRISIS, it’s another. This month, food is taking the center of the global crisis stage. Deadly riots in Haiti and civil unrest in Egypt have broken out over the skyrocketing cost of food.

In addition to welcome media coverage, the world food crisis has commanded the attention of economists, agronomists and political scientists, each with unique policy recommendations for addressing the situation. Demographers, however, have been strangely absent from the general discussion, as if feeding the world’s population has nothing to do with people. As if it is possible to explain the lack of food solely in terms of increased use of biofuels and rising meat consumption while ignoring the fact of rising demand due to population growth.

Every year another 80 million people need food provided by a system that is already struggling to keep up.

Some years ago, the nations of the world agreed to an aggressive goal to reduce by half the proportion of people in the world suffering from chronic hunger by 2015. The current crisis makes clear that such a goal will be nearly impossible to meet. And the long-term objective of ending hunger altogether is also likely out of reach, especially if global population growth continues to be ignored.

According to the United Nations, sub-Saharan Africa, southern Asia, and Oceana are not progressing quickly enough to meet the target. Western Asia has made no progress at all. These regions have the highest population growth in the world.

With the recent rise in prices, regions that were previously on target might falter in their progress as well. In 2007, North Africa was on track to halve the proportion of hungry people. But Egypt, which has a population of about 75 million today and projected to grow to 100 million by 2025, is now in full crisis mode.

In fact, the least progress in addressing hunger has occurred in the areas of the world growing the fastest. Africa, for example, is likely to have twice as many people in just 36 years, yet the supply of food is unlikely to increase at the same rate.

In Haiti, the sight of deadly food riots, the population is likely to double by 2050.

The Philippines was once a rice-exporting country. But with a population growing by more than 8 million people every year, it has become one of the largest rice-importing countries in the world. In 2007, the Philippines imported 2 million tons of rice, and that still wasn’t enough to feed the ever-growing population.

There’s no question that emergency steps to resolve the current food crisis are necessary.

But, in addition to steps to meet the demand for affordable food, we must take steps to meet the global demand for affordable and accessible voluntary family planning.

Couples around the world desperately want to manage the timing and spacing of their children. In fact, there are at least 200 million women who want to limit or space pregnancies but have no access to contraceptives.

Sadly, though, the Bush administration’s hostility to contraceptives has undermined these services across the globe. His imposition of the Global Gag Rule — a policy that bars U.S. family planning aid to private organizations that so much as support the concept of legal abortion — has led to clinics’ being closed and services’ being cut back and has intensified shortages in contraceptive supplies.

At the same time, the president has refused to support the critical work of the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA). This agency is so important that 181 other countries support it — including Afghanistan, Haiti, Iran and all the countries in sub-Saharan Africa.

It’s time for the United States to step up and reclaim the mantle of leadership that it held for much of the past 40 years on family planning. Congress can start by approving $1 billion for international family planning programs for next year. A billion dollars can help buy stability, security and survival. Few investments bring the kind of return in terms of improving health, protecting the environment and building stability as family planning.

Brian E. Dixon is vice president for media and government relations at Population Connection.