Mathematics of Starvation

This may seem uncaring but I had a great tasting whopper with fries from burger king today... No offense but I am unwilling to give up my burgers and beef and chicken and bacon to ensure the survival of the impoverished children in the third word who if they live to adulthood will almost certainly reproduce beyond their capacity to provide and just make the problem that much worse... I am an only child of two parents who are both only children themselves and was raised in the middle of a 90-acre corn and soybean field that was next door to a cattle farm so in my little corner of the universe we are not the root of the problem... ok... I'm done venting now...

 

I just read that article and just about vomited that Whopper back up... I would starve myself before I would eat an insect-protein pseudo-burger... Now I don't mind eating those veggie burgers (in fact they are faster as easier to cook with a tangy taste) but bug burgers is the line I will not cross... BLEH

 

I was listening to a very small local politico radio show earlier and they brought up an interesting although tongue-in-cheek idea. the farmers in america have the chance now to do what they could never really do before. Become wealthy.

" The World Bank now believes that some 33 countries are in danger of being destabilised by food price inflation, while Ban Ki-Moon, the UN secretary-general, said that higher food prices risked wiping out progress towards reducing poverty and could harm global growth and security."

Food shortages: how will we feed the world? - Telegraph

There have been riots in a lot of countries over food prices. Where before people in Haiti bought rice by the bagful they are now buying in cups.

I liked the above article because it somewhat discussed the practices used in the US and much of the developed world to PAY farmers to NOT grow food crops on usable land. But now of course there's a lot of heat to change this policy which would make Mom, Pop, and family generation farmers happy to once again get real profits from their land.

The article also briefly discusses grain fed livestock in Asia being a possible cause of the high food prices, simply feeding all the cattle it takes to sustain a few billion people is a lot of grain.

My father and I were discussing this and he recalled while growing up all you heard on the news everyday was famine and starvation in India. So have times really changed? Is it any worse than it was? I don't know the answer to that but THANKFULLY there hasn't been a repeat of the huge rice famine that hit asia in the first part of the 20th century. But conditions where the land is being exploited, overproduced, and weather is just plain crazy - hot bed for disease for vegetation and people.

But no matter how much food the earth could produce there is almost no way for it to keep up with exponential population growth. So what comes first? Feeding the hungry, strict scary policies to stop births in 3rd world countries, or massive culture changing policies to stimulate economic growth in agrarian societies?

The world needs one superhuman leader

 

I vaguely remember (that happens more and more) that starvation wasn't a food supply problem, but a food distribution problem, give or take speculative bubbles. A quick google only yielded some local dislocations such as some corruption in India. And the equation is probably sensitive to the cost of energy. But the idea is nobody wants to take food to places they my get shot. To reduce it to a bumper sticker: stop shooting each other and hunger will be solved. Anybody have any better data?

 

It is not technically a production problem at the moment because we are mining for food, we are pulling higher yields at the expense of soil stability. The current levels of land degradation will not support current yields far into the future and in many places we are already seeing a decrease in yield. So while some argue it is a production problem and others argue it is a distribution problem I say they are both right in their own way. Simply put, current agricultural methods will not continue for long and then food production will decrease. Global warming could exacerbate this issue as well. Soils and genetics take time to form/occur and unfortunately we are racing to our own starving doom. lol

Did I forgot to mention scarcity of water for irrigation???

 

We can get around the water problem, but it won't be cheap. Soil degradation and wanton, uncontrolled humping are the biggest problems. Pass the land shrimp!!

 

Well, TonyPSchaefer is the ruler of Omicron Persei 8. Maybe he knows somebody...:noidea:

 

It's also a political problem.

Food was sent to Burma but the people never got it. The Junta seized it and I'm sure they're eating quite well.

Who are the biggest whiners and finger pointers at the recent international food conference? Ahmadinijad of Iran and Mugabe of Zimbabwe. Neither exactly motivates me to send them food or money. I'm sure I'm not alone. While it's a sorry state that their people will suffer, there is no guarantee that any food sent to Iran or Zimbabwe will actually get where it will do some good. Nor is there any guarantee any money sent will be used to buy food for the starving people who need it most.

Solve that problem first.

 

Every few years we have a drought in California, and we have to kill our lawns. But the meat consumption is untouched.

I'd like to put my share of the water in my garden, instead of into meat production.

So how much lawn do I get to equal my neighbor's meat consumption?

 

Before that can happen, we need the ability to see beyond ourselves, and to appreciate all perspectives. And maybe for the press to accept a few tiny flaws and mistakes from their exalted ones.

Just wait until we realise that water is a non-renewable resource, and that all those aquifers are fed by glaciers. Yeah, the ones that are melting. Oops. How many people live off the meltwaters of the Himalayas? Maybe a billion? Sadly, population control may not be the problem we think it is.

 

It takes roughly 60 calories of grain to produce one calorie of beef. Roughly 80% of energy is lost each time you change trophic levels. Not a cost-effective ratio. European cattle have an extraordinary impact on world ecosystems. Time to shift to climate- and ecosystem-appropriate grass-fed bison in North America. At the same time we need a strong dose of self control to reduce human population.

As we enter Peak Everything (Oil, Water, Food) we need more than ever to live within our means - globally and locally.

 

Wild Idea Buffalo - Grass-Fed Free Range Buffalo Meat is where we get our buffalo. In fact they roam the plains where we used to call home! Not cheap, but put a price on sustainability...

Plus, buffalo is so much better tasting.