Malthus Redux.
Tuesday, October 27, 2009 at 11:25AM From last week's New York Times:
Scientists and development experts across the globe are racing to increase food production by 50 percent over the next two decades to feed the world’s growing population, yet many doubt their chances despite a broad consensus that enough land, water and expertise exist.
The number of hungry people in the world rose to 1.02 billion this year, or nearly one in seven people, according to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, despite a 12-year concentrated effort to cut the number.
It is estimated that the effects of the global recession added about 100 million people to the hunger tally.
The problem that the world faces here is quite similar to the one facing the US financial system: How do we bend the curve without incurring disastrous side effects? Just like the Medicare/Social Security/National Debt cost curve, the projections for the food production/agriculture curve are unsustainable for estimated population increases over the next 20-50 years.
In other words, there ain't enough to go around now and it's just going to get worse.
The previous green revolutions were spurred on by chemical sprays and other methods that have proven to be environmentally unfriendly and ecologically unsustainable. Presently, a large portion of arable farm land that could be used to grow food is instead being used to grow biofuel crops which are also environmentally unfriendly and ecologically unsustainable. Another large portion of arable land produces food specifically for animal feed that fuels a meat industry servicing parts of the world that don't need more food.
So, short-term solutions for our energy crisis and previous agricultural crises have created long-term dilemmas for the sustainable production of food. Equally troubling is the fact that massive portions of the world's hungriest population live in areas without adequate methodology and/or land to produce food while also being deprived of the necessary market infrastructure to distribute food at a reasonable cost.
All this and a projected global population of over 9 billion people in 2050. Barring drastic solutions, we better start looking for another planet.
Reader Comments (2)
An interesting panel discussion on whether or not biotech food can solve world hunger:
http://roomfordebate.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/10/26/can-biotech-food-cure-world-hunger/?partner=rss&emc=rss
maybe... according to this week's Economist, that 9 billion figure is where we'll be topping out.
http://www.economist.com/displayStory.cfm?story_id=14744915&source=most_commented
by their reckoning, there will still be a lot of serious pressure on our resources, but the disaster should be avoidable.