Food shortages

Post Reply New Topic

and bad eating habbits,
the western focus on meat is a huge drain on food resources.

ultimately i think a lot of the problems also stem from the way th global economy and social connections play out.

I am hit by it and the inflation is hitting all food the same.

Anyway, if meat is the problem it will eventually skyrocket and then people will stop eating it that much.

I for one, think it is 97% to overpopulation and natural disasters. Meat farms do take far more space and resources but if we had more resources (less people, less natural disasters) the impact of meat wouldn't have been high.

I don't think it's that simple. Which is a bigger problem, a region with relatively low population density and low population growth or even decline, which eats meat and thus ultimately consumes more grain per person, or a region with high population density and high population growth that only eats grain directly? I think a strong argument can be made that the latter is more of a problem than the former.

never said it was the sole factor, redistribution could solve a lot of the problems present today as it is.
a lot goes wasted, geography also plays a huge role in why certain regions are hit and not others, but i dont think geography in itself has much to do with the issue.

i agree overpopulation is an issue, i am just of the mindset that we cant ethically control the population well enough to the extent required.
we have to find alternative solutions, nothing would work as a single solution it would require a lot of different aproaches.

ultimately we will need a way of producing huge quantities of food in little space, or move it where there is space.

I think redistribution has been a major cause of the problems present today. Shipping excess agricultural output to third world countries for free over the past few decades has been a big contributor to the present overpopulation problems. When food is free, the cost of having kids is lower and people have more kids.

I'm not convinced that continuing that ill conceived policy is a good idea. You might end up causing a lot more famines in the future than you alleviate today.

possible i dont know enough to speak on that.

i think you are right that in this economy it would do more dammage than not.
i do think it is possible in an economic system where you lok at whats needed on a global scale and regulate accordingly.

It also puts the local farms out of business.

the problem is that people have more children when they are in poverty.
people have more kids when they are hungry.
ah shucks another armchair economic theory down the drain.
guess maybe we should start doing research instead of relying on Theory

Poverty is not the same thing as hunger. There are plenty of people living in poverty in the U.S., but they all have adequate food intake. On average, they likely have higher caloric intake than the affluent.

The fact is, the most conducive situation for population growth is a situation with political instability and poverty but with an excess of available food.

What limits population growth is a politically stable system that guarantees they will be taken care of in retirement. Apparently a primary motivating factor in having children is if that's seen as the most reliable way to be taken care of in old age.

Not to mention that it discourages local agriculture and business if everything is just given for free. imho, the best way to help Africa or other third world countries is direct investment into businesses there, not just free handouts (asides the corruption prevalent in governments that receive much of the financial aid). There are plenty of Africans who think this as well

Mind you I don't think food shortages will necessarily always be a problem, I suspect stem cell based technology will allow us to 'grow' meat, vegetables, fruit, grains, etc, in factory/lab environments that involve no actual animals or require large amounts of land for agriculture. Cornucopia technology, I guess one could call it, though they'll probably need to think up a more appetizing name than 'stem cell burgers' ...
Now that I think about it made a thread about this a few months ago: Stem Cells: Another Viewpoint

or at least that is the theory.

Yes.


I agree. I think the best solution would be for our government to focus on trying to help promote sufficient governmental stability in those areas for them to attract private investment.


The reason agriculture requires lots of land is because it requires lots of energy. I'm not convinced that growing food in laboratories would be more energy efficient than letting plants get their energy from the sun, at least not in this century.

That said, the fastest growing human populations in today's world are in tropical and subtropical areas with lots of sunlight and thus lots of potential for agricultural productivity. I think development of crops that work well in such climates - plus the political stability to allow farmers to invest in their land to make it more productive - would allow those areas to be self sufficient in food production.

For example, India is pretty much self sufficient in food production, despite its huge population. If India can do it, other third world areas should be able to do it too.

No, it's the facts. The lowest observed total fertility rates in history were not in the most affluent locations like North America and Europe, but rather in the considerably less affluent Russia and Russian speaking Belarus at the end of the Soviet period. Since then, Russia has become more affluent, but total fertility has increased, not decreased.

The theory that it's just affluence that produces low or negative population growth rates has been disproven. Affluence is merely a correlate of the true cause, which appears to be retirement security, or at least perceived retirement security.

(1) strong word for a pseudo-science
perhaps you meant the idea has fallen out of favor.
that's the theory?

I meant what I said. The idea that it's just affluence that lowers birth rates has been disproven by the factual counterexample I mention. That's how science operates; counterexamples disprove theories.

Russian life expectancy is also decreasing.

ruveyn