[Quinny]

Your graphs implied it!

[frankthetank]

Just sit back and enjoy one of these...

[Ferretlover]

*gasp!* That is a real burger--not a joke, Frank?? In average times, that should feed about a dozen people; in bad times, two or three dozen people!

[frankthetank]

That is a real burger.. 5000 calories...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kI6f5c-7SjE

1lb of bacon on that bad boy!

[hillsidedigger]

If the world's number of people quickly drops back to a small fraction of the current number, that number might then survive for a long time.

The current 'business as usual' course will likely result in human numbers suddenly dropping to almost zero and before to long.

[bodigami]

OilFinder2, you are still welcome to make your posts... but your point is which one? you are trying to prove what to who?

[copious.abundance]

Even more corn on the way!

No wonder Doritos are always on sale at my local supermarket!

>>> LINK <<<
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'A')ug 12, 2009, 11:56 a.m. EST
U.S. corn supply to reach record, prices to fall, USDA says
By Moming Zhou, MarketWatch

NEW YORK (MarketWatch) - Corn supplies in the U.S., the world's biggest producer, are expected to hit a record high in the market year beginning Sept. 1, pressuring prices to move lower, the U.S. Agriculture Department reported Wednesday.

The USDA lowered its forecasts for soybean supplies in the same market year and raised its target for soybean prices.

Corn production for the market year is projected to rise to 12.8 billion bushels, 471 million bushels higher than the USDA had expected a month ago. Higher yields are expected to more than offset a small reduction in harvested area.

Adding stockpiles left from the previous market year, the 2009-2010 market year's total corn supplies will rise to 14.5 billion bushels, the highest level on record.

[...]

[copious.abundance]

There are soils in Europe and Asia which have been under continuous cultivation for literally thousands of years. The soils in the Midwest have been under continuous cultivation for almost 200 years. Some soils along the US east coast have been under continuous cultivation for more than 300 years.

Amazingly, it hasn't all washed and eroded away!
Amazingly, it's still extremely productive!

But what's most amazing is that doomers and so-called "concerned" people ridicule cornucopians in light of such facts!

[copious.abundance]

Next is the latest on wheat from the USDA.

>>> Ze Link <<<
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', '[')...]

Global wheat supplies for 2009/10 are projected 5.0 million tons higher with higher beginning stocks and increased prospects for global production. World wheat production is raised 2.8 million tons for 2009/10 with major increases for India, United States, EU-27, China, and Ukraine partly offset by reductions for Russia, Argentina, Canada, and Kazakhstan. India production is raised 3.0 million tons to a record 80.6 million based on the latest revision to the official government estimate. EU-27 production is raised 1.6 million tons mostly on higher reported yields for Germany, but also on better-than-expected yields for France and rising prospects for harvested area and yields for Poland. Partly offsetting are cuts for Spain, Romania, Bulgaria, and Austria where persistent dryness reduced yields. China production is raised 1.0 million tons reflecting the first official indications for the harvested summer crops. Ukraine production is raised 1.0 million tons on higher winter wheat area and harvest reports. Production forecasts for 2009/10 are lowered for several major wheat exporting countries. Production for Russia is lowered 4.5 million tons as dryness and extended heat during July sharply reduced yields in the Southern and Volga Districts. Kazakhstan production is lowered 0.5 million tons as western growing areas suffered under weather conditions similar to those in Russia. Argentina production is lowered 1.0 million tons as continued dryness in the central and western growing areas limited plantings. Production is also lowered 1.0 million tons for Canada as July rains came too late in some areas of Alberta and Saskatchewan and crop development remains delayed raising the potential for late season frost damage.

[...]

[copious.abundance]

Here's a trivia question for our "concerned" forumers. How long has THIS area been under cultivation? Hint: Zoom out.

[hillsidedigger]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('OilFinder2', 'T')here are soils in Europe and Asia which have been under continuous cultivation for literally thousands of years. The soils in the Midwest have been under continuous cultivation for almost 200 years. Some soils along the US east coast have been under continuous cultivation for more than 300 years.

Amazingly, it hasn't all washed and eroded away!
Amazingly, it's still extremely productive!

But what's most amazing is that doomers and so-called "concerned" people ridicule cornucopians in light of such facts!

[copious.abundance]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('hillsidedigger', 'I') wonder about your word 'continuously' on a site by site basis. Many of those older sites have likely been abandoned and then recleared after a number of years. As well, I will be the first to admit that the limited number of alluvial acres in the world become frequently replenished by floods and might be continuously farmed for centuries but all farmland will eventually wear out and need a long fallow period to refresh itself.

[hillsidedigger]

After the last ice-age a large swath of China was left with a 300' deep layer of loess (wind deposted topsoil) which is easily worked, highly productive but highly erodible which is why China had and has an abnormally large number of people and is also why the 'Yellow River' is yellow.

I have read that well over half of that inheritance of loess is now washed away, in some areas, over 90% washed away.

The Palouse region of Eastern Washington has 30' of topsoil (ash from the Cascade volcanoes) over a large area and it is dry-land farmed for wheat with very little rain but that soil won't last forever either. I drove farm machinery there for 2 seasons in the mid-1970's.

Of the 4 or maybe 5 billion acres of arable land in the world, I would bet that 80% of it has been brought into production since the beginning of the Age of Oil.

[hillsidedigger]

Consider this case of ephemerally spreading world food abundance (written by me on another site):


"Located within far Eastern North Carolina is an area of hundreds of thousands of acres on the peninsula between the Albemarle and Pamlico Sounds called the 'pocosins' which is chronic 'wetland', flat as flat can be, of only a few feet in elevation. Pine trees managed to slowly grow in parts of the area and it was largely held and traded earlier in the 20th. Century by timber companies. About 1975, a large agribusiness company acquired something like 275,000 acres there and was determined to drain that land and turn it into what they called a 'protein factory' raising soybeans and feeding to hogs.

Over the next 20 years, thousands of miles of drainage ditches were dug across that tract with an army of massive track-hoes using millions of gallons of fuel and a few seasons of soybeans were planted and harvested.

Then came the remains of hurricane 'Floyd' (in the late summer of 1997 as I recall). Over a foot of rain fell there and virtually all of the thousands of miles of drainage ditches became filled with sand over one night and none of that land was any longer 'arable'.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service now holds that 275,000 acres and quite a bit more of the land around it as the 'Pocosin Lakes' and 'Alligator River' National Wildlife Refuges."

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('pstarr', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('OilFinder2', 'T')here are soils in Europe and Asia which have been under continuous cultivation for literally thousands of years.

[copious.abundance]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('hillsidedigger', 'C')onsider this case of ephemerally spreading world food abundance (written by me on another site):


"Located within far Eastern North Carolina is an area of hundreds of thousands of acres on the peninsula between the Albemarle and Pamlico Sounds called the 'pocosins' which is chronic 'wetland', flat as flat can be, of only a few feet in elevation. Pine trees managed to slowly grow in parts of the area and it was largely held and traded earlier in the 20th. Century by timber companies. About 1975, a large agribusiness company acquired something like 275,000 acres there and was determined to drain that land and turn it into what they called a 'protein factory' raising soybeans and feeding to hogs.

Over the next 20 years, thousands of miles of drainage ditches were dug across that tract with an army of massive track-hoes using millions of gallons of fuel and a few seasons of soybeans were planted and harvested.

Then came the remains of hurricane 'Floyd' (in the late summer of 1997 as I recall). Over a foot of rain fell there and virtually all of the thousands of miles of drainage ditches became filled with sand over one night and none of that land was any longer 'arable'.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service now holds that 275,000 acres and quite a bit more of the land around it as the 'Pocosin Lakes' and 'Alligator River' National Wildlife Refuges."

[copious.abundance]

I don't see any farms in that first picture.

This thread is about agriculture.