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Page added on October 5, 2016
No, Giant Farms Are Not Feeding the World. They’re Feeding Canada.
If you’ve followed debates around US agriculture over the past decade, you’ve surely heard it: Our industrial-scale farms may pollute and overuse water, foul air, destroy soil, harm local economies, and abuse workers, but that’s just the cost of providing a crucial humanitarian service: feeding the world. The GMO seed/pesticide giants Monsanto and DuPont make versions of this argument; so has USDA secretary Tom Vilsack, the California Farm Bureau and American Soybean Association. But can US exports really help “feed the hungry and malnourished in developing nations around the world,” as the industry-funded site Facts About GMOs puts it?
A new report from Environmental Working Group basically destroys that claim. Here’s the key takeaway, in a single chart:
The left side of the chart sums up the top 20 foreign destinations of of US food exports last year, accounting for 86 percent of total US food exports that year. Here they are:
So, most of the countries that buy lots of US-grown food—and especially the ones at the top of the list—are highly developed (based on UN measures of life expectancy, income and level of education) and have low hunger rates.
Meanwhile, the 19 nations with the biggest and most dire hunger problems import very little food from the United States—they accounted for a whopping 0.5 percent of total US agricultural exports in 2015, EWG reports. Even accounting for food aid, the great US ag behemoth contributes very little to feeding the poorest of the world’s nations. This chart depicts how much the world’s most hunger-plagued countries rely on US food exports as a percentage of their total food supply. Takeaway: not very much.
So why are our food exports largely bypassing the world’s poor? The answer lies in the first chart above. Note that about half of our exports to the top 20 destinations are either meat and dairy or livestock feed, and meat is a luxury product. As EWG puts it, “most agricultural exports from the United States go to countries whose citizens can afford to pay for them.”
There’s a lot to be done to alleviate hunger as global population grows and climate change continues to wreak havoc on agriculture. But growing loads of soybeans in Iowa or almonds in California is largely irrelevant to those challenges.
116 Comments on "No, Giant Farms Are Not Feeding the World. They’re Feeding Canada."
Apneaman on Sat, 8th Oct 2016 12:58 pm
Obsessed with meaningless American political theater while the homefront is ignored. A true fantasist.
ING announces 7,000 job cuts as unions condemn ‘horror show’
Dutch bank’s decision to shed 12% of staff in favour of digital investment prompts threat of strike action from workers
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2016/oct/03/ing-job-cuts-7000-union-bank-netherlands-belgium
The Netherlands, compulsory contraception, and reverse democracy
http://www.bioedge.org/bioethics/the-netherlands-compulsory-contraception-and-reverse-democracy/12034
I like the last one. They should go further though. Like euthanizing all the dutch dead weight over 65 who sit around all day collecting government retirement cheques only to spend it in muslim countries. Won’t catch me supporting muslim countries with my dollars.
Cloggie on Sat, 8th Oct 2016 1:07 pm
Pussy grabing seems to be a national pasttime, even POTUS chimes in:
https://mobile.twitter.com/i/web/status/784812512814309380
Cloggie on Sat, 8th Oct 2016 1:09 pm
“Dutch bank’s decision to shed 12% of staff in favour of digital investment prompts threat of strike action from workers”
As Friday correctly observes, the Netherlands are a technological advanced country. Not sure what this has to do with WW3, pussy grabing, let alone US producing food for Canada.
But someday everything is going to be revealed.
Ghung on Sat, 8th Oct 2016 1:11 pm
Cloggie lies again. It’s telling that the only person here that has actually advocated for any sort of “New World Order” repeatedly, and dishonestly, accuses others of promoting said “NWO”.
Again, this liar attributes to me something I never said: “…you said earlier that “we” (can only mean the US) are losing WW3 (can only mean confrontation US-SCO).”
The guy is simply a fucked-up fantasia of self-importance living in his imaginary world, and clearly needs to support his fantasies by inventing dialogues that never occurred and creating enemies he’ll never have to confront, cowardly frustrated, perhaps, with his own impotence.
For the record, the only “New World Order” I foresee is increasing disorder, dissolution of institutions that can no longer function, and progressive permanent contraction. I neither advocate for such, promote this process, or have the arrogance to pretend that I have any effect at all on delaying the consequences of the hubris people like Cloggie display so proudly.
I suspect that Cloggie lives in extreme fear that he too has no control over the deluge of dissolution that will soon engulf his puny and ill-prepared homeland.
It’s a really fucked-up way to waste a life. People like Cloggie REALLY need Jesus.
Cloggie on Sat, 8th Oct 2016 3:05 pm
“Cloggie lies again. It’s telling that the only person here that has actually advocated for any sort of “New World Order” repeatedly, and dishonestly, accuses others of promoting said “NWO”.”
OK, I have to admit that I fell victim to an embarrassing misunderstanding.
This site has a parallel forum that requires registration (and I was and am not registered). The only thing I ever saw was this:
World War III is well and truly underway. And we are losing.
Clicking on the link required registration and I wasn’t.
When ghung made the “liar” accusation I Googled the link, but surprise, surprise, now for the first time I had access to the content behind the headline. No idea why I now suddenly have.
And only now I understand that with WW3 wasn’t meant the most logical interpretation, namely the assault the US is waging against the rest of the world not-yet-part-of-the-US-empire, but a war against “climate change”.
I admit that a lot of posts should not have been written. Not that ghung did any effort to explain his exotic interpretation of WW3. And he probably left me in the dark on purpose all the time.
http://peakoil.com/forums/world-war-iii-is-well-and-truly-underway-and-we-are-losing-t72761.html?sid=c0f0c4c8890f17c55e438b47f4512a67#p1323171
Not that I withdraw most of what I have said about him. The only thing that was not true is that ghung believes that the US is going to lose the real WW3, namely the US attempt to ram the entire world in a single power structure, owned by the US (sanhedrin, really).
My apologies for a lot of unnecessary theater.
Cloggie on Sat, 8th Oct 2016 5:04 pm
“That’s why he spends so much time on an obscure American energy blog telling us how America works and how his new world order is going to make whites dominant forever.”
Your non-existant harmonious multiethnic world of the future will in reality look like this:
https://youtu.be/RM9uH4XgOmI
If Trump loses, European-America will never gain a majority again. Clinton will use her four years to create facts and cement the power of the non-whites by importing many more of them.
And than the plunder of the whites can begin.
The Russians and Chinese will have a hard time figuring out why Euro-America is committing suïcide?
Ghung on Sat, 8th Oct 2016 5:17 pm
“And than the plunder of the whites can begin.”
Survival of the fittest, eh? If white Europeans are so superior, what’s the problem?
onlooker on Sat, 8th Oct 2016 5:46 pm
In the years that I have been here Ghung has consistently been about this —For the record, the only “New World Order” I foresee is increasing disorder, dissolution of institutions that can no longer function, and progressive permanent contraction. I neither advocate for such, promote this process, or have the arrogance to pretend that I have any effect at all on delaying the consequences of the hubris people like Cloggie display so proudly.” Oh can we all just get over these power dynamics. We are ALL going down. Call it divine irony or justice
GregT on Sat, 8th Oct 2016 5:56 pm
“Oh can we all just get over these power dynamics. We are ALL going down.”
Expect the ‘power dynamics’ to get more intense, and widespread, the further we go down onlooker. It’s just basic human nature.
onlooker on Sat, 8th Oct 2016 8:18 pm
It’s just basic human nature.-Sadly true
Apneaman on Sat, 8th Oct 2016 8:45 pm
Old dutch you is full of shit. I been around here for over two years and the only thing I ever saw ghung advocate is personal & community preparedness and some alt energy usage, so just fuck right off with your stupid NWO shit. You hold it up like a cross to a vampire. Getting pretty tired it is. As for advocating/telling everyone what to do you take the cake. You’re the one insisting like a bitchy girlfriend on the rag that everyone needs to do this and stop doing that. Holy fuck you have a prescription for all 7.5 billion humans and a crystal ball to boot. Typical of every deluded fascist. You are a fucking weasly little peice of shit moron. You don’t have a goddamn clue what the various retard politicians and big powers are going to do, yet you talk with such certainty – an internet know it all. The know it all of know it all’s. Old fool is what you are. You really want to understand the future? Drop the cartoon politics and whacked out conspiracy shit and start studying physics, chemistry and biologly. Once you have an advanced laypersons understanding of those topics and connect all the dots then you might understand the humans bleak future. At this point the only thing the humans can do is fuck things up more and the only way the dying biosphere won’t do them in later this century is if they have a nuke party. You just one more little screeching know nothing tribal monkey clogg. One of the louder ones. Grow up while you still can.
JuanP on Sat, 8th Oct 2016 9:48 pm
I am for compulsory contraception and involuntary sterilization. The world is full of people that should not be allowed to breed. My parents being a classic example. I meet people who shouldn’t have children but do every single day. The fact that most people are against compulsory contraception and forced sterilizations is one of the reasons why the world is so full of completely fucked up people. There are many insane and depraved human animals that should be permanently sterilized or prevented from breeding in one way or another.
Boat on Sat, 8th Oct 2016 10:31 pm
JaunP,
No human has the right to decide for another. Has anyone ever described you as an insane and depraved human animal? Let climate change decide who lives and dies. Humans have to many beliefs and conspiery to make smart decisions. Mother Nature carries no such baggage.
Cloggie on Sat, 8th Oct 2016 11:09 pm
“Survival of the fittest, eh? If white Europeans are so superior, what’s the problem?”
White Americans are the problem, they lost the competition a century ago, by being unable to generate an elite strong enough to withstand them (read Henry Ford) and let themselves being used as a tool of the youknowwhos, team up with that other conquered people, the Russians and subdue the continental Europeans. Your English were conquered since 1688, the year the Dutch invaded your depressing island, an operation funded by the same people on condition they could operate the English central bank. That was when the trouble really began, after Cromwell had already let them in first.
The problem were/are:
– the English, these half Germanics/half Gaelics –> British empire, global finance, Rothschildt
– the Russians serfs of the Czar –> communism, funded by Wallstreet
– the Americans –> descendants of the under classes of Europe (‘”huddled masses”), with weak sense of identity, teaming up with the Soviets, the largest criminals in world history and destroy continental Europe and invent the German war guilt and holocaust baloney obtained by torture.
But that was the 20th century, the…
https://www.amazon.com/Jewish-Century-Yuri-Slezkine-ebook/dp/B005646E32/ref=sr_1_1
Meanwhile, after enormous suffering, the Russians have morphed from a bunch of Czarist and Gulag serfs into an effective force resisting what Joe Biden in 1991 in the WSJ called the NWO:
http://www.pennsylvaniacrier.com/filemgmt_data/files/Biden-New%20World%20Order.pdf
No need for Alex Jones “conspiracy theories”, the folks in power use the term themselves.
It is essentially a world-encompassing empire, officially under the rule of the UN, but in reality a world dominated by the “sanhedrin”, to borrow yet again that effective phrase, borrowed from Theedrich. It means a desegregated world, with nations abolished, European culture destroyed and every western city gradually turned into Charleston’s and Detroit’s, with simmians terrorizing whites, who don’t fight back, because they are mentally colonized by decades of unsuspecting media consumption, leading to servitude to political correctness, more aptly described as “Jewish Sharia”.
And then there is that other ancient Great Civilization China, without fatal Christian heritage that can’t be hijacked by Frankfurter Schule thinking.
Now everything is in place to “solve the American problem of the white race”. If the “Americans” would win, everything would be over for the European race, so it doesn’t matter if some real brinkmanship is applied by Russia and China and a few cities lost if necessary.
The decisive facts:
– 1400 million IQ100 Chinese rapidly rising in stature
– 200 million aging and depressed whites, who know that the story of old America is over (below age 5 it is 50/50)
– Russia is more or less reborn under effective leadership and nuclear armed to the teeth and allied with China
– Europe is meanwhile united under one currency and one army soon, after the British are kicked out of the EU (initiating article 50 is enough)
Perhaps it is even better if Clinton wins, so we can have WW3 now, while Putin is still around. The US will probably begin by creating a major incident in Syria, for instance by shooting down a Russian plane. Expect China to announce in response that no US vessels will be tolerated in the South China Sea. That should be enough to get things starting. And if Europe would choose the side of the Americans, a Russian oil boycot would be the result, etc., etc.
Everybody who in 2016 worries about “climate change” doesn’t have his priorities right. Ghung’s “superior white Europeans” have presented the only reasonable way forward, namely largely phasing out fossil fuel by 2050 and forbidding fossil fuel driven cars by 2030. There is nothing more that can be done. Whining about climate change without offering solutions, that’s for impotent little girls like Friday.
Enjoy WW3.
Boat on Sun, 9th Oct 2016 12:40 am
clog,
No need to shoot down a Russian plane. I wouldn’t be surprised to see The US do Iran style sanctions on Russia. Russia is raising it’s head in the whack a mole of misbehaving countries.
Cloggie on Sun, 9th Oct 2016 2:07 am
http://s.newsweek.com/sites/www.newsweek.com/files/2015/04/17/0417namfall01.jpg