How will the world be "fed" in the future?

[mrj]

Isn't it troubling to anyone that the anti-meat bias is apparently stronger than ever when the fact is that red meat is one of very few foods in the USA consumed at or less than the recommended daily 5 to 7 ounces?

I read recently that red meat consumption is currently 4 ounces. If true (which I doubt) it has doubled in maybe the past 5 to 10 years as it used to be listed at slightly less than 2 ounces daily.

Re. the entire premise of 'starving millions', has anyone read anything recently about leaders who deliberately keep some of their population starving for political reasons? Whether misguided attempts at population control, or for their personal greed, it has the counter effect. It seems when people are better off financially and with enough food, population actually decreases.

Re. the high numbers of US citizens getting food stamps, WIC and other federal and state assistance, there seems to have been a tremendous push to get more and more people into these programs in the past 20 years. Why? People control? Make those who truly need it feel less 'needy' when so many are getting help?

And, isn't a hand up always better than a handout??? Teach a man to fish versus giving him a fish.......

Just how many people are our US farmers, and other citizens feeding in this country and around the world, via government aid, personal donations, churches, etc.?

There have been significant increases in diets and health in many countries due to research making rice and other grains and 'starches' as mentioned in a previous post carry more nutrients than they did naturally. Some denigrate that process as 'tinkering' with genetics, but it has enhanced the diets of many people around the world, and the research continues.

mrj

[Oldtimer]

[pointrider]

"Was it inevitable that a species would evolve that is capable of creating its own evolutionary process in the form of intelligent technology? I will argue that it was.

According to my models we are only two decades from fully modeling and simulating the human brain. By the time we finish this reverse-engineering project, we will have computers that are millions of times more powerful than the human brain. These computers will be further amplified by being networked into a vast world wide cloud of computing. The algorithms of intelligence will begin to self-iterate towards ever smarter algorithms.

This is how we will address the grand challenges of humanity such as maintaining a healthy environment, providing for the resources for a growing population including energy, food, and water, overcoming disease, vastly extending human longevity, and overcoming poverty. It is only by extending our intelligence with our intelligent technology that we can handle the scale of complexity to address these challenges."

Ray Kurzweil

[cure]

Don't get me wrong I think technology is great but I just got done pulling a dairy calf I would give anything to see a computer do that. In my opinion technology is what is going to distroy this nation. Computers can only take you so far and that is when we as the human race need to step up to the plate and take over.

[Triangle Bar]

[RobertMac]

Pointrider, aren't you old enough to remember the fear mongering in the 50s, 60s (that Clarencen mentioned) that predicted the collapse of civilization by this time? Sounds like more of the same!

The main reason for starving people is dollars. Remember PL-480? Corrupt dictators couldn't get rich with USA foreign aid being food.

[pointrider]

Triangle Bar said, "I have read recently of scientists developing a wheat plant that would be a bi-annual that will fix it's own nitrogen from the atmosphere, like alfalfa plants do, thus eliminating the need for nitrogen fertilizer and a great deal of field work. This is the kind of advancement through technology farmers need to feed a growing population."

I would agree that this would help a lot if it were available today. Any idea when it will be ready to go?

Meanwhile, here is an article that appeared in some newspapers yesterday, and after this first article I have included another article about wheat. So, be sure and look for that one, too. Then tell me what you think. Sounds to me like there is going to be constant pressure in the world to keep food prices down.

Riots Spotlight Spike In Food Prices

THE PRESS-ENTERPRISE FRIDAY, September 3, 2010

REPEAT?: Mozambique is one of many places where rising costs can have frightening consequences.

By Donna Bryson, The Associated Press

JOHANNESBURG - A few pennies' increase in the price of a loaf of bread can mean the difference between getting by and going hungry -- in the world's poorest countries.

A spike in food prices has triggered deadly riots in Mozambique this week, and experts worry other countries that saw such unrest during the last global food crisis in 2008 could be hit again. Over the last two months alone, food prices worldwide have risen 5 percent.

"I think everyone is wondering if we are going to have a repeat of 2008 when there were food riots around the world," said Johanna Nesseth Tuttle, director of the Global Food Security Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.

In Egypt, where half the population depends on subsidized bread, recent protests over rising food prices left at least one person dead. The crisis could impact upcoming parliamentary elections because the regime's increasingly tenuous legitimacy rests on its ability to provide the masses with cheap bread.

In Pakistan, the prices of many food items have risen by 15 percent or more following devastating floods that destroyed a fifth of the country's crops and agricultural infrastructure. Flooding has also hit distribution networks, leading to shortages.

In China, officials are threatening to punish price gougers, while in Serbia, a 30 percent hike in the price of cooking oil reported for next week has led to warnings of demonstrations by trade unions.

International food prices have risen to their highest levels in two years, the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization said Wednesday, reporting a 5 percent increase between July and August alone. The Rome-based agency also forecast this year's wheat crop at 648 million tons, down 5 percent from 2009, reflecting a cut in drought-hit Russia's harvest.

However, there are few parallels between today and the 2008 food crisis, which was blamed on high oil prices and growing demand for biofuels that pushed world food stocks to their lowest levels since 1982, according to Maximo Torero, an expert on markets and trade with the International Food Policy Research Institute.

The United States, Canada and other countries have had good harvests and supplies are sufficient, Torero said, adding that what must be avoided are panicky policy decisions, like banning exports.

In Mozambique's case, he said, higher prices set by the government were based on monetary exchange issues, not concerns about world supplies.



Genetics Not Enough to Increase Wheat Production
Have wheat breeders reached the maximum potential for grain yield?

MADISON WI, August 16th, 2010 – The deep gene pool that has allowed wheat to achieve ever increasing gains in yield may be draining. Crop scientists estimate that 50% of the gain in wheat production over the past century has been due to breeding. According to a new study, however, that improvement has been slowing since the late 1980s, with little chance that future increases in yield can be met by breeding efforts alone.

The researchers, Robert A. Graybosch of USDA-ARS and C. James Peterson of Oregon State University, estimated that the average rate of genetic improvement in winter wheat yield potential since 1959 was 1.1% per year. However, most of this gain was realized from 1959-1989.

The study, reported in the September-October 2010 edition of Crop Science, published by the Crop Science Society of America, evaluated data collected from long-term USDA-ARS regional nursery trials in the Great Plains. The varieties entered into these trials from public and private entities represent the highest current genetic potential for grain yield production.

Since the late 1980s, the rate of grain yield improvement has slowed, and now appears to have reached a plateau. There are several reasons for this, including the perpetual evolutionary arms race against new pathogens, the resurgence of old pathogens, or perhaps merely the exhaustion of available genetic resources for yield improvement.

“We truly are in need of a second ‘Green Revolution’ in wheat,” says Graybosch, a wheat geneticist

Fifty years ago, it was estimated that world population growth would out-strip world food supplies. These dire forecasts never reached fruition, as advances in genetic improvement via plant breeding and improved plant production practices have been able to keep pace with food demands.

Since inception of modern breeding efforts, improvements in wheat grain yield were driven by major breakthroughs, from adapting the plants to their climate, introducing disease resistance, and the introduction of dwarfing genes that caused plants to put more energy into growing seeds rather than stems. However, since these developments, no other major breeding advances have produced the “great leap forward” necessary to continue improving yields.

Unless some significant advance shortly impacts wheat genetic potential for grain yield, any increased demand for wheat can only be met by changes in current production practices or expansion of cultural environments.

The full article is available for no charge for 30 days following the date of this summary. View the abstract at https://www.crops.org/publications/cs/abstracts/50/5/1882.

Crop Science is the flagship journal of the Crop Science Society of America. Original research is peer-reviewed and published in this highly cited journal. It also contains invited review and interpretation articles and perspectives that offer insight and commentary on recent advances in crop science. For more information, visit www.crops.org/publications/cs

The Crop Science Society of America (CSSA), founded in 1955, is an international scientific society comprised of 6,000+ members with its headquarters in Madison, WI. Members advance the discipline of crop science by acquiring and disseminating information about crop breeding and genetics; crop physiology; crop ecology, management, and quality; seed physiology, production, and technology; turfgrass science; forage and grazinglands; genomics, molecular genetics, and biotechnology; and biomedical and enhanced plants.

CSSA fosters the transfer of knowledge through an array of programs and services, including publications, meetings, career services, and science policy initiatives. For more information, visit www.crops.org

[andybob]

The tradgedy is that there is enough good land available, and potential for irrigation in the territories south of the equator, to rpoduce enough food not only for the Southern African States, but to export, lack of agricultural training and research are the stumbling blocks.
Consider Rhodesia/Zimbabwe the former "breadbasket of Africa" has a smaller arable area and lower rainfall than Zambia or Mocambique, past research funding by past governments resulting in new efficient breeds of cattle, hybrid strains of maize, soya, sunflower and wheat, resulted in the second largest economy in Africa, based mostly on agriculture, our mineral resources were carefully managed so that finished products were exported not raw materials.

[Whitewing]

The peaking and slow but steady decline of world oil production (while prices continue to rise) will have a tremendous negative impact on the ability of farmer's worldwide to produce the food the planet's population needs to sustain itself at these levels.

Most folks have never stopped to consider what the discovery of a cheap energy supply (oil and natural gas) has done for the world in the last 150 years or so.

Once it becomes clear that fossil fuels are in decline and never again will be 'cheap', it'll be time for TSTHTF.

[Silver]

This is an over simplification, but if people around the world could afford to pay for food what it's actually worth, the world would supply all the food they could handle. I don't think the answer lies in looking for miracle crops and better ways to mass produce it all the while lowering the price and raising input costs for producers.
If a country can establish a growing economy and an improving standard of living, the food will be there.

[burnt]

[andybob]

With economic sanctions and an oil embargo from 1965 - 1980, we learned to make do with alternative fuels and agricultural practices, min till, no till, developed cattle that grass finished with minimal maintenance.
No one was without a home or food, there was enough employment and no social security to enable the lazy, you worked or you starved!
All this, and we exported food, vegitable oil, textiles, soap and trademarked, quality beef.
When the challenges are put before us we can rise to them, so long as we are supported by the powers that be, and that support may well be forthcoming as the potential for food shortages becomes more of a political concern.