Hungry?

[Mr. TM]

The thread on current global food stores. Do we have enough food for the world?

We are all aware that it is quite easy for us to get food. We go to the grocery store, and buy bread, eggs and so forth. But for those of you who know the cost of groceries, you may have noticed you pay a lot more for food this year than you did last year. I noticed it, and it looks like it is a sign of things to come.

China and India are the two most populated countries on the earth, with about 8x the population of the United States combined. now both of these nations have population explosions happening. And another phenomena is happening. Their middle class (you know that thing that most of us live in?) is growing. Now imagine if all those people start to want to eat the way we do? Then there would not be near enough food on earth, without a massive innovation in food creation.

Now as you may know, China is a big hog eating society. I think half the worlds hog meat is consumed by them alone. Hogs are very harmful to the environment, and consume a lot of grain (30% of grain goes to feed animals for consumption, which is a wasteful process for food energy). If more hogs are consumed, then more land will be needed to graze them on. We would have to look to places like Brazil to raise the food. to put them in Brazil means more of the rain forest will need to be cut down.

So what will we do as populations grow? How will we feed them?

Many think the only way to reduce the demands for food is through disasters, such as plague, starvation, natural disasters, or other things of the type. I think that as the populations reach a middle class existence, the fact that middle class societies produce less, that China and India will slow their own population growth (evident in China already). But by this time, it might be too late as food stocks will be depleted.

 

[Cena's Little Helper]

I got the perfect solution to the issue of hogs in China, man! I say all nations come together to work on a plan to convert all of the Chinese to Islam. That way, they won't eat pork or any of its products. Consequently, demand for pork will pretty much become non-existent, and there will therefore not be as many hog farmers, and thus not as much land used for this purpose. With this solution, we save the rainforest! Give me my Nobel Prize!

 

[FromTheSouth]

Umm, what we do is grow dwarf wheat.

Dwarf wheat doesn't grow as long of a stalk. In drier climates, there isn't enough water for wheat to grow without falling over and dying. Dwarf wheat allows for gorwth in dry climates. This is actually the reason that India's population exploded. This is all thanks to Norman Bourlag.

Dwarf wheat is also disease resistant, meaning novice farmers can grow it with limited trouble.

Also, if we want to to feed the world, we need to build infrastructure in Africa. Everyone seems to think that the more immediate need in Africa is fight AIDS and malaria. However, so much medicine and food and money never makes it to where it is going because there are no roads. Building roads would allow for trucks to come in and irrigate. Desalination plants could provide drinking and gorwing water. Seriously, over a trillion dollars goes to Africa every year. Using half of it to build infrastructure (roads, irrigation, desalination) would open up innovation, farming, hospitals, everything needed to feed and care for a population. There is so much room to grow wheat in Africa. Within a decade, several nations could become net exporters of wheat, which would be a profit and the beginnings of an economy (albeit a socialist one, as it has to be over there for now).

 

[Dexter]

This very point is why the Frankenfood controversy (link) is so stupid. We've become so arrogant in this country that we're insisting on "organically grown vegetables". Rather than be such selfish elitists, we could use the same amount of farm land used to grow this overpriced crap to grow genetically modified fruits and vegetables that are higher yield per acre and ship more easily. We could potentially feed millions more across the planet.

Just a damn shame people are so afraid that they can't embrace technology like this that could potentially... not to be hyperbolic here but... it could potentially end world hunger permanently. It's right there in front of our faces and we don't use it because it's different and strange. Disgusting, no?

 

[laxfan41]

I think that we shouldn't use ethanol, people complain that there isn't enough food on Earth, yet those same people preach the importance of ethanol, now I know that there isn't an infinte amount of oil on the planet, but drilling in
America would help, and finding ways to make alternative fuel sources easy to afford for everyone would be great. But that is not the point, now people dying is a good way for everyone else to have enough food but if it happened to me personally, I wouldn't like that, so we have to find other ways other than relying on nature to keep population down. The Jews have it right, don't eat pork, pigs eat a ton of food and don't give enough meat to justify giving them all of that food, however, pork is very delicious. On the short term, donating food to your local food bank is good, and you can sponsor a child in a different country to feed and pay for an education so that maybe they can help find a cure for this future problem.