PowerSwitch

A lecture about the state of the world's nutrition from a bloke who is worth listening to.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O0FhOXDkB4w

"I've written or co-written fifty-six reports...I mean this is a complete waste of a man's life"

He doesn't mention peak oil much, which will reduce our ability to redistribute food, surely.
"there's enough food.." under present oil fueled conditions

Even before peak oil we managed to mal-distribute food quite successfully. If peak-oil triggers the collapse of international trade it might even force food to be grown locally - good for the poor bad for the corporates.

Heard on radio 4 yesterday they were trying to develop anew strain of wheat that can get its nitrogen from the atmosphere, so saving feeding fertilizer.

Things must be getting desperate. Although it gives them a good excuse to keep on with the GM research.

biffvernon wrote:Even before peak oil we managed to mal-distribute food quite successfully. If peak-oil triggers the collapse of international trade it might even force food to be grown locally - good for the poor bad for the corporates.

Imagine if the US and Canada stopped exporting food. The countries that receive it now would be up the creek as no other exporter has enough reserves to make up the difference.

vtsnowedin wrote:

biffvernon wrote:Even before peak oil we managed to mal-distribute food quite successfully. If peak-oil triggers the collapse of international trade it might even force food to be grown locally - good for the poor bad for the corporates.

Imagine if the US and Canada stopped exporting food. The countries that receive it now would be up the creek as no other exporter has enough reserves to make up the difference.

The importing countries are up the creek because USA, Canada and the EU have dumped food surpluses on less developed nations, ruining indigenous agriculture, bankrupting farmers and pushing populations into cities. The tragedy of Africa is of the West's making.

Africa is booming! Ethiopia is one of the fastest growing economies in the world. In a few years it will be sending aid to the poor and staving of europe

And Somalia is doing so well a lot of Somalis who came to Britain are going back there. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-21626770

biffvernon wrote:A lecture about the state of the world's nutrition from a bloke who is worth listening to.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O0FhOXDkB4w

Good stuff - if anyone hasn't watched it yet it's worth 40 minutes of your time.

biffvernon wrote:Even before peak oil we managed to mal-distribute food quite successfully.

mal-distribute enough to feed expoential population growth, enough for 7billion people wheras before oil it was 1.5billion, before industrial revolution it was 800m, before globalizeation started to take hold.. 500m

biffvernon wrote: If peak-oil triggers the collapse of international trade it might even force food to be grown locally - good for the poor bad for the corporates.

peak oil will not be good for the poor.
most will die.


I'm not saying its perfect, but what people seem to forget when they criticize the current food system is, it fed succesfully rapid population growth.

It sucessfully supplied what people were demanding (the problems we have are as much in the *latter* as in the system itself)

Perfect efficiency isn't possible.. especially while a system is growing.

I was surprised when I discovered various efficient software/hardware architectures repeated some significant % of the work they did and/or data storage, due to the extra cost associated with getting the right results in the right place - and these solutions were arrived at after many alternatives were tried. It allowed more units to function in parallel, etc.. I'm sure this is analogous to real world issues r.e. transporting information & physical goods.

What if the 1st world waste goes hand in hand with the sophisticated industry needed to produce fertilizers,pesticides, medicine.. Put the % waste in perspective by comparing to the population multiple we're feeding now compared to the starting point.
Its something like 8x since the industrial revolution?

would one have ever been impossible without the other? can't know for sure without a parallel earth to test every factor experimentally

biffvernon wrote:And Somalia is doing so well a lot of Somalis who came to Britain are going back there. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-21626770

Maybe a couple of hundred out of a population of 100,000 plus doesnt seem that important

biffvernon wrote:Even before peak oil we managed to mal-distribute food quite successfully. If peak-oil triggers the collapse of international trade it might even force food to be grown locally - good for the poor bad for the corporates.

Collapse of world trade means end of food aid thats keeping people alive, at present in these fat times we have a billion people without enough to eat, lots of them living in deserts. I don't see them all farming they will either migrate or die .

And then you have the choice let this human wave engulf you or shoot them, I fully believe we will allow it to engulf us much like in the book camp of the saints by Jean Raspail

jonny2mad wrote:Collapse of world trade means end of food aid thats keeping people alive, at present in these fat times we have a billion people without enough to eat, lots of them living in deserts. I don't see them all farming they will either migrate or die .

And 1.8 billion (was it?) with too much to eat. There is a distribution problem, but also a power problem, with large food corporations distorting matters,


Peter.

jonny2mad wrote:Collapse of world trade means end of food aid thats keeping people alive, at present in these fat times we have a billion people without enough to eat, lots of them living in deserts. I don't see them all farming they will either migrate or die .

Do you you have any data on how many people are 'artificially' kept alive due to food aid? How does that figure compare with the the number that aren't able to farm competitively because of western subsidies and dumping?

According to these data:
http://www.wfp.org/fais/reports/quantit ... /0/order/0

The total tonnage of food aid has been falling for the last couple of decades (despite populations increasing).

The latest figure is 3.8 million tonnes in 2011. Assuming you need 1000/day kcals to survive and grain has around 3000 kcals per kg we can calculate that 3.8 million tonnes is enough to keep 30 million people alive on a starvation diet. Now I expect a chunk is wasted, a chunk is eaten by people eating more than 1000 kcals of it etc...

So I'd guess that no more than 20 million people are kept alive by food aid. That's a fairly trivial number compared to the population growth in these regions.