Some time tomorrow, the UN Says the world’s population will hit seven

Some time tomorrow, the UN Says the world’s population will hit seven billion. But can the planet even feed that many people? Already, the World Bank estimates almost one billion people are hungry.

Ziona (69) has 39 wives, 86 children and 35 grandchildren, making his family presumably the biggest in the world. All 160 of his family members live here, a four story mansion with 22 bedrooms in a tiny village in the northeastern Indian state of Mizoram.

Much of the growth is expected to come in Africa and Asia where India is expected to overtake china as the world’s most populous country by 2030. And that’s where we’re going now, to a family that’s doing more than its fair share to boost the population.

He first got married when he was 17. His first wife says, “I loved him so I married him.”His oldest wife is 70 and the youngest is 31. Ziona’s father founded this Christian sect in Baktwang Village, promoting polygamy as God’s will. Ziona says, “I never wanted to get married. But that’s the path God has chosen for me, I don’t have any individual or personal intention of getting married again and again.”

India is set to overtake china and become the world’s most populous nation by 2030 but crowding and crumbling infrastructure in India’s booming cities doesn’t seem to phase Ziona and his family.

The family isn’t listed in the Guinness Book of World Records because Ziona says he doesn’t want the publicity but as word gets out, Baktwang Village may not be so isolated for that much longer.