[copious.abundance]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Ludi', 'A')nd if people need it but can't pay, they're just up shit creek.

No money, no market.

Which is the situation with food - plenty of food, but plenty of starving poor people also. There's a need, but no market.

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('pstarr', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('OilFinder2', 'M')ost episodes of starvation have political causes.

[Homesteader]

U.N. says food production may fall 25 percent by 2050

snip: "Up to a quarter of global food production could be lost by 2050 due to the combined impact of climate change, land degradation and loss, water scarcity and species infestation, the United Nations said on Tuesday."

snip: "We have a very serious problem on our planet," he said. "Simply ratcheting up the fertilizer and pesticide-led production methods of the 20th century is unlikely to address the challenge."

Link: http://www.reuters.com/article/environm ... 6W20090217

Wish the site still had the ignore button.

[Ludi]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('OilFinder2', '
')Most episodes of starvation have political causes.

[sparky]

.

After the disastrous 2007 harvest , the UN had a big hoodhaa conference about " food security "
its conclusion was the world must produce 30% more food in twenty years.......
and advised its members countries to do so

Presto , abracadabra the UN has solved the problem

in december of this year by some rather abtruse calculation I reckon ,
the world population will drop below the one hectare of farming land per head

.
.

[Ludi]

Real "security" is something which can only be obtained by people living within the carrying capacity of their territories. The UN needs to be promoting that instead of demanding the world produce more food.



"It is only when others feel secure that we need not guard our environments, so that the very best preparation for security is to teach others the strategies, ethics, and practices of resource management, and to extend aid and education wherever possible." -Bill Mollison, "Permaculture: a designers manual" Chapter 14 Strategies for an Alternative Nation

[Pops]

One thing not mentioned in this thread and only touched on in the OP article is that food producers are taking it in the shorts this year.

Typically, fluid milk prices need to be 3x feed prices, currently they are about equal = huge herd reductions coming.

Beef and pork producers are both losing money on every head they sell = see above.

In the last couple of years investors bid up the price of corn & beans so farmers went out and borrowed big time for land and equipment - currently the price of corn won't cover the cost of inputs = see above.


Does anyone remember the reason for Farm Aid?

[Ludi]

Farmers have been taking it in the shorts for nearly a century in the US. It has for many years been promoted as positive to remove people from the land to save them from the "toil".

See "The Unsettling of America" by Wendell Berry

[dorlomin]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('OilFinder2', '
')I've said it many times before, and I will say it again: You can't have your doom and eat it. If you get your "peak oil" doom and oil becomes scarce and expensive, you will be denied your "there are no electric farm tractors" doom. On the other hand, if you get your "there are no electric farm tractors" doom, that will be because you were denied your "peak oil" doom. I'd suggest you get used to this concept now, because the longer you observe things the more apparent it will become.

[dorlomin]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Pops', 'O')ne thing not mentioned in this thread and only touched on in the OP article is that food producers are taking it in the shorts this year.

Typically, fluid milk prices need to be 3x feed prices, currently they are about equal = huge herd reductions coming.

Beef and pork producers are both losing money on every head they sell = see above.

In the last couple of years investors bid up the price of corn & beans so farmers went out and borrowed big time for land and equipment - currently the price of corn won't cover the cost of inputs = see above.


Does anyone remember the reason for Farm Aid?

[dorlomin]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Ludi', 'F')armers have been taking it in the shorts for nearly a century in the US. It has for many years been promoted as positive to remove people from the land to save them from the "toil".

See "The Unsettling of America" by Wendell Berry

[Pretorian]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Ludi', 'F')amines are almost always political in nature - that is, there is plenty of food available (plenty of food in the world for everyone in the world, at the present moment) but it doesn't get to the people who need it because of political reasons.

[Pops]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Pretorian', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Ludi', 'F')amines are almost always political in nature - that is, there is plenty of food available (plenty of food in the world for everyone in the world, at the present moment) but it doesn't get to the people who need it because of political reasons.

[Pretorian]

If the food was distributed "properly" meaning that every schmoe gets his share of whatever crop/calories available worldwide, regardless of his personal input into the food production or global economy in general, this will not just bankrupt whomever is forced to " share" , but also will cause a popuiation explosion which will jeopardize lifes and wellbeing of whomever who decided to 'sponsor" them. There are no jobs and no food in Africa but every vagina has popped 6 kids on the average, imagine what would they do if they will get acess to unlimited free food.

[sparky]

.
The ratio of food producers to food consumers is the critical number
before the farmng revolution of the 17th century it was 90% producers for 10% extra
this was tradesmen , priests the lords and such
this 1/10 ratio is found from china to medieval Europe , it was the classic level of agrarian taxation
often paid in kind

now in the western world it is typically 5% producers for 95% being feed off the land in cities
it make perfect sense to screw down %5 of the population
to have a better life style for 95 % , should it come to a vote there is no contest
it make perfect sense to subsidize farming on the margin of survival to have cheap plentiful food

it is only possible thanks to intensive farming of high yield races of crops and breeds with the manual drudge taken ( mostly ) by machinery

.

[Ludi]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('sparky', '
')it make perfect sense to subsidize farming on the margin of survival to have cheap plentiful food

it is only possible thanks to intensive farming of high yield races of crops and breeds with the manual drudge taken ( mostly ) by machinery

.