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Page added on May 2, 2015
What does a Dutch cereal farm have to teach us about overpopulation?
Concerns about overpopulation have been a mainstay in poverty eradication discussions for decades. But according to the Brookings Institution, the problem isn’t only overhyped, it’s also missing the bigger issue.
“Overpopulation is an appealing emotional concept for many. With refugees, poverty, malnutrition, and hunger broadcast onto televisions around the world every day, emotional pictures are more convincing than facts,” Brookings’ Heinz-Wilhelm Strubenhoff wrote on Tuesday.
The problem is, according to Strubenhoff, the data says otherwise. He cites statics that show world population is increasing by just under 1 percent annually “with a tendency to fall to zero by (the year) 2100,” meaning that there will likely be some natural population stagnation before the world hits the typically considered “critical mass” number of 10 billion or so.
The problem actually seems to be that we’re overproducing resources and failing to distribute them properly, not that we’re on the fast track to running out. Strubenhoff splits the issue into two very basic, and very familiar, categories: Supply and demand.
To argue the “supply” side of things, Strubenhoff looks at the output of cereal farms in the Netherlands, Ukraine and Nigeria. In short, they produce a lot.
Strubenhoff also looks to data from the EU that shows the scale of food waste in those countries.
So really, the feared devastations of overpopulation are more likely to be avoided by reducing waste, not lowering fertility rates to curb population growth.
In 2013, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations also raised a red flag on the impact of waste on the world economy.
“All of us — farmers and fishers; food processors and supermarkets; local and national governments; individual consumers — must make changes at every link of the human food chain to prevent food wastage from happening in the first place, and re-use or recycle it when we can’t,” FAO Director-General José Graziano da Silva said in a statement at the time.
“We simply cannot allow one-third of all the food we produce to go to waste or be lost because of inappropriate practices, when 870 million people go hungry every day.”
12 Comments on "What does a Dutch cereal farm have to teach us about overpopulation?"
penury on Sat, 2nd May 2015 9:35 am
As they say in economics (then the miracle occurs) and human nature changes worldwide overnight and we celebrate the fabled land of milk and honey with our pet unicorns at our sides. In other words Dream on folks it ain’t going to happen.
gdubya on Sat, 2nd May 2015 10:14 am
It is “waste” because it is not feeding people. At this point humanity has taken over most of the productive ecosystems, and killed off only half the animals on earth since I was born.
We need to eliminate this food waste by killing the rest of the wild animals.
http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/land_mammals.png
ffkling on Sat, 2nd May 2015 10:49 am
I feel so much better now knowing that the Brookings Institution believes overpopulation is a N/A so we can continue the man-caused extinction of between 150 and 200 species daily, and pay no concern to mankind’s net growth of 220,000 for the same 24 hour time period.
Joe Clarkson on Sat, 2nd May 2015 11:25 am
Articles about food waste are common. But what business would ignore leaving potential profits in the dumpster? None. Given the long path from farm to table in the developed world, the amount of food wasted is probably about as low as possible already.
Kenjamkov on Sat, 2nd May 2015 11:32 am
We are over populated so lets save the wasted food so people won’t starve. Yeah then population will not overshoot the projected 10 billion … wait, what?
WelshFarmer on Sat, 2nd May 2015 12:19 pm
I suspect the author of this article knows little about biochemistry or thermodynamics. The typical Dutch cereal farm of which he speaks is basically a hydroponics plant that converts fossil hydrocarbon fuels into edible carbohydrates at an overall efficiency of around 10 percent. If and when the amount of affordable oil falls, the food tonnage will fall commensurately.
The soil is so degraded that the normal subsurface biota (e.g. humus) is gone and is therefore it is infertile without these huge chemical inputs. The food produced is deficient in all of the trace minerals essential for human and animal health.
The secondary effects of this malnutrition are reflected in the global epidemic of diabetes, cancer, dementia obesity, depression etc. ad nauseam.
The chemical run-off from the fields has resulted in the total eutrophication of all the fresh water bodies in the Netherlands (and elsewhere).
I could go on…..
Only an absolute ignoramus could crow about the magnificent achievements of modern big ag.
Sorry Mr author, the world is by any rational measure already totally overpopulated and unless we can learn to collectively get our numbers down to sustainable levels, nature will do it for us in her own brutal manner.
Bob Owens on Sat, 2nd May 2015 1:10 pm
Overpopulation has to be and will be addressed, most likely by war, disease and malnutrition. To have a stable world we need to reduce the population to about where we were during the age of sail. So 75% of everyone will have to die. We can plan for it (or not).
Davy on Sat, 2nd May 2015 1:36 pm
I feel the same way Bob. Nothing whatsoever can be achieve until the process of both overconsumption and overpopulation begin a rebalance.
Rita on Sat, 2nd May 2015 2:29 pm
Bob, insectarianism and vegan diets can save a lot of us. Asians resorted to insect eating when facing starvation, the rest may as well.
SilentRunning on Sat, 2nd May 2015 2:42 pm
All the thinking you need to do about overpopulation can be resolved by dividing a sheet of paper into 2 columns. In column A, put all the ecological and resource depletion problems that will be helped by adding even more people. In column B, put all the ecological problems that will be made worse by adding more people.
Even a moron will quickly see that NONE of our problems will get better if we keep adding more mouths to feed. Stopping all population growth, and indeed having fewer births than deaths is the only way to solve our problems. Indeed, it will happen – 1 way or another. Whether we want it or not – it’s coming.
dolanbaker on Sat, 2nd May 2015 5:47 pm
“But what business would ignore leaving potential profits in the skip? None.”
Correct! Which makes me sceptical about what the manufacturing “waste” figure is, is this only the stuff that is inedible after processing as opposed to to edible waste or what? Wonky carrots and odd shaped tomatoes end up in soups, rather than on the shelves in supermarkets.
Most domestic waste is food that was over bought or too much was cooked and the like, this IS waste.
Lomax on Wed, 6th May 2015 6:39 am
Yep, I throw away probably about 400-2000 calories a week of food that has spoiled before I could eat it.
Here I am also including yogurt that you cannot get out of the pot, sauce that you cannot get out etc. Overall I do waste food (3/4 of a loaf went in the bin), but its pretty meagre.
Ditto for industry, this report really needs to compare the running costs of those farms too. My bets are that, without wages we’ll find the Netherlands ones are massively higher due to all the oil and pesticide use, but that’s inconvenient to the message being given, “its all good”.