Dieoff starting in Africa

[UndercoverElephant]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b7aVZ3BHp3k

ETA: or maybe... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K2nHGlE06y0

[GlynG]

Providing vast quantities of food aid to countries has also often had the unfortunate negative side effect of driving many local farmers out of business, making the locals less food secure and more reliant on food imports.

NGOs, companies and individuals have been working for decades to try to improve the agriculture in Africa, I've been lectured by a number of them this last year. Sadly in the big picture the negative drivers are much bigger than the positive drivers.

[vtsnowedin]

[We need to step back a moment, look at the physical inputs, sunshine and rain, minerals from the soil, on the physical landscape, and determine what the productive capacity of the land and ocean could be, if everyone behaved themselves.
[quote.="vtsnowedin"]
And what if the capacity is less then the current population? Is not the limiting factor on more then half of the African continent the amount of rainfall. No amount of geoengineering is going to change that.

[Quote/]

Somalia could feed itself if only it stopped shooting itself in the foot and the rest of us stopped shooting too.

Wishful thinking.
I know this is a screwed up post and I have just not taken the time to learn the tricks of making several comments to a previous post but I am going to leave it rather then delete the whole thing.

[emordnilap]

[We need to step back a moment, look at the physical inputs, sunshine and rain, minerals from the soil, on the physical landscape, and determine what the productive capacity of the land and ocean could be, if everyone behaved themselves.
[quote.="vtsnowedin"]
And what if the capacity is less then the current population? Is not the limiting factor on more then half of the African continent the amount of rainfall. No amount of geoengineering is going to change that.

[Quote/]

Somalia could feed itself if only it stopped shooting itself in the foot and the rest of us stopped shooting too.

Wishful thinking.
I know this is a screwed up post

How so?

I have just not taken the time to learn the tricks of making several comments to a previous post

Have a go - it's easy and it gets easier.

but I am going to leave it rather then delete the whole thing.

Eh? Don't understand.

Anyway, if you want to respond to several points, do it in several separate posts. I know Biff prefers shorts, sharp posts; so do I and quite possibly the majority.

[Lord Beria3]

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-06-2 ... -says.html

The global agriculture supply situation has worsened and a failure to boost food production fast enough to meet demand may lead to shortages, said investor Jim Rogers, chairman of Rogers Holdings.

“We’ve got to do something or we’re going to have no food at any price at times in the next few years,” Rogers said in a Bloomberg Television interview with Rishaad Salamat today in Singapore. “I still own agriculture. If I found something to buy, I would buy it.”

Rising food prices are driving Africa into a mass die-off.

[UndercoverElephant]

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-06-2 ... -says.html

The global agriculture supply situation has worsened and a failure to boost food production fast enough to meet demand may lead to shortages, said investor Jim Rogers, chairman of Rogers Holdings.

“We’ve got to do something or we’re going to have no food at any price at times in the next few years,” Rogers said in a Bloomberg Television interview with Rishaad Salamat today in Singapore. “I still own agriculture. If I found something to buy, I would buy it.”

Rising food prices are driving Africa into a mass die-off.

The proximate causes for this have been prolonged drought and the fact that Somalia is a failed state. That's why it is this particular part of Africa that is being affected. A lot of these people (presumably) were dependent on growing their own food. Rising food prices and diminishing stockpiles are limiting the possible response - they are what will turn the existing emergency into a die-off.

I think it is interesting to see the effect of "donor fatigue" in places like Germany and Finland with respect to bailing out the PIIGS. Eventually people stop responding to further calls for help. I think it is inevitable that the same thing will happen with respect to providing food and financial aid to backward parts of sub-saharan Africa.

Live-Aid acheived nothing. The tactics were fine, but the strategy was disastrous.

[vtsnowedin]

]but I am going to leave it rather then delete the whole thing.

Eh? Don't understand.

Anyway, if you want to respond to several points, do it in several separate posts. I know Biff prefers shorts, sharp posts; so do I and quite possibly the majority.

You don't understand the trouble I have getting posts to go through. I get a lot of "Invalid session " messages and it some times takes a dozen attempts to get a post to send. It often requires refreshing the page and repasting in the post (if I have thought ahead and copied it.) a couple of times. Totally random as sometimes it will go on a single click as it should and does with every other site. I think it has something to do with my signal coming down from the satellite driving on the wrong side of the beam.
I was shooting for a point counterpoint presentation which I find quite readable but one of my points printed out as if it was contained inside the original post.
I like my writing to be readable and on target but becoming the worlds sharpest blog poster is a few steps down on my priority list. I'll fine tune my technique as time permits.

[biffvernon]

[We need to step back a moment, look at the physical inputs, sunshine and rain, minerals from the soil, on the physical landscape, and determine what the productive capacity of the land and ocean could be, if everyone behaved themselves.
[quote.="vtsnowedin"]
And what if the capacity is less then the current population? Is not the limiting factor on more then half of the African continent the amount of rainfall. No amount of geoengineering is going to change that.

[Quote/]

Somalia could feed itself if only it stopped shooting itself in the foot and the rest of us stopped shooting too.

Wishful thinking.

Yeah, I'm good at wishful thinking. But that doesn't detract from the physical reality that there is enough rain to sustain the current population.
It's a people behaviour problem not a climate or population problem, that is at the root. Climate and population just make things worse.

[2 As and a B]

]but I am going to leave it rather then delete the whole thing.

Eh? Don't understand.

Anyway, if you want to respond to several points, do it in several separate posts. I know Biff prefers shorts, sharp posts; so do I and quite possibly the majority.

You don't understand the trouble I have getting posts to go through. I get a lot of "Invalid session " messages and it some times takes a dozen attempts to get a post to send. It often requires refreshing the page and repasting in the post (if I have thought ahead and copied it.) a couple of times. Totally random as sometimes it will go on a single click as it should and does with every other site. I think it has something to do with my signal coming down from the satellite driving on the wrong side of the beam.
I was shooting for a point counterpoint presentation which I find quite readable but one of my points printed out as if it was contained inside the original post.
I like my writing to be readable and on target but becoming the worlds sharpest blog poster is a few steps down on my priority list. I'll fine tune my technique as time permits.

Damn! That was only supposed to happen to RGR.

[vtsnowedin]

[Somalia could feed itself if only it stopped shooting itself in the foot and the rest of us stopped shooting too.

Wishful thinking.[/quote]

Yeah, I'm good at wishful thinking. But that doesn't detract from the physical reality that there is enough rain to sustain the current population.It's a people behaviour problem not a climate or population problem, that is at the root. Climate and population just make things worse.[/quote]
Do you really think that is true today? And even if it is true today, with two percent per year population growth when will it become false?

[vtsnowedin]

[Damn! That was only supposed to happen to RGR.

So my difficulties are just collateral damage? That would explain a lot.

[biffvernon]

Do you really think that is true today? And even if it is true today, with two percent per year population growth when will it become false?

Yes, I do think it is true. People are able to live, and feed themselves, in remarkably arid places if the social and political conditions are right. That's a big 'if'.

[JavaScriptDonkey]

Rising food prices are driving Africa into a mass die-off.

Oops. Spoke too soon?

[UndercoverElephant]

Rising food prices are driving Africa into a mass die-off.

Oops. Spoke too soon?

How is a better-than-expect maize crop in North America going to help millions of starving people in the horn of Africa?

[UndercoverElephant]

Do you really think that is true today? And even if it is true today, with two percent per year population growth when will it become false?

Yes, I do think it is true. People are able to live, and feed themselves, in remarkably arid places if the social and political conditions are right. That's a big 'if'.

Of course they are. The Bedouin inhabitated the Arabian peninsular for centuries. But how many of them were there?

Places like Saudi Arabia and Egypt are absolutely dependent on importing food. It doesn't matter how good the social and political conditions are, they simply do not have enough fertile land and/or rainfall to grow enough food to feed their current populations. Not even close.