How much press is this getting in the US. Food riots in Egypt, people eating dirt cakes in Haiti, protest all over Africa and in parts of south America.
Here in T&T, rising food prices is a major news item and every one is talking about it. The price of flour for example has risen 39% so far this year.
Yesterday, the UN's chief humanitarian officer warned that rising food prices could spark worldwide unrest and threaten political stability link.
One major driving factor for this is the US biofuels initiative that has driven the price of corn through the roof and lead many farmers to switch to corn from other crops.
So I'm curious. How much have food prices risen in your area over the past year? How much press is this getting in your area?
Posted by Achilles (Member # 7741) on :
I think it's worth mentioning that food shortages have been the downfall of more than one culture.
Posted by Mucus (Member # 9735) on :
In Canada:
quote: For a number of reasons, rising shelf prices have yet to make a big impact in this country.
"We're not seeing the knock-on effect you would traditionally expect," said Craig Alexander, deputy chief economist at Toronto-Dominion Bank. "Commodity prices have soared, but it hasn't fed through to broad-based inflation."
Patricia Mohr, vice-president of economics at Bank of Nova Scotia, agrees. While current grain prices are "quite extraordinary," food price increases for Canadians "have been quite modest." What's more, she says, supermarket prices could fall back in the coming months as the U.S. economy slows.
...
The good news this time around, according to most economists, is that the blow dealt by higher grain prices is dampened by the high loonie.
"The rise in the Canadian dollar has actually led to lower inflation in Canada," Mr. Alexander said. "The Bank of Canada was initially worried about inflation, but the opposite has happened, and inflation fell below the BOC's core target."
Canadians can also thank Wal-Mart Stores Inc., whose move into grocery retailing has forced the supermarkets to keep their prices low to stay competitive.
All the major news outlets are carrying at least side stories about various food shortage-related events around the world with regularity, though rarely major pieces.
Of course, there's about zero chance of the ethanol subsidies being repealed anytime soon, even though they're likely killing more people than many diseases at the moment and doing nothing in particular to improve sustainable energy usage.
Posted by The Rabbit (Member # 671) on :
Of all the disastrous policies promoted by the Bush administration, the ethanol subsidies may turn out to be the very worst.
Posted by Christine (Member # 8594) on :
quote:Originally posted by The Rabbit: Of all the disastrous policies promoted by the Bush administration, the ethanol subsidies may turn out to be the very worst.
It just might. I knew this was to blame for rising food prices locally, but as I only have time to scan the top headlines on a daily basis I must admit that I wasn't aware of the global implications. It seems like something that should be in the top headlines -- definitely more important than the never-ending primary season -- but anyway...
I don't know exact statistics, but I do know that our household budgets for groceries has burst out of its breeches. We're spending almost double was we were 4.5 years ago when we got married and while I'm sure adding a toddler isn't helping that figure, he doesn't really eat all that much.
Looks like I should skip the top headlines tomorrow and read down a bit...
Posted by Lyrhawn (Member # 7039) on :
There are local stories about families who are paying more for their weekly groceries. I have noticed a slight uptick in the price of some things at the grocery store, but frankly the biggest sticker shock I've gotten personally is for a pizza. A large used to cost $8 at this one place I go to, now it's $13 and they've cancelled al coupons. When I asked them why, they said the price of cheese and flour has shot through the roof and they can't afford to keep the old prices. A friend of mine's mom works for the corporate offices of the same pizza place and she said they've been getting into some fights with distributors because they had price deals worked out for the flour ahead of time, but the price skyrocketed and they wanted to renegotiate the rates.
Food crop basead ethanol is having disastrous effects around the world, between the rising cost of food, the devastation of rainforests in South America and the overall reduction in the amount of food, it's at crisis levels. I can't remember the country, I want to say India, but one country recently banned some exports of food to keep home stockpiles high.
All this so that a very few agriconglomerates and biorefinery companies can cash in big on US subsidies.
Those subsidies should be going to non-food crop biofuels like cellulosic, which can include waste wood products, waste corn husks and the like, various kinds of grasses, and to the emerging algae farms, which are hundreds of times more efficient per acre than food based crops.
Posted by Puffy Treat (Member # 7210) on :
Today's paper had an article on how the skyrocketing price of the diesel fuel used in transport of certain staples has also lead to major increases in food price.
Posted by The Rabbit (Member # 671) on :
From the news stories it seems that the impact has been greatest in the world's poorer countries. I know that is at least partially because poor people spend a larger fraction of their total income on food so increases in food prices hit harder. But it also seems from the stories that the inflation rate for food is significantly higher right now in developing countries than it is in the developed world and particularly in the US.
I'm wondering if that impression reflects a real disparity or if its just an artifact of news reporting. I can think of a variety of reason why inflation rates might actually be higher in the developing world than they are in the US ranging from differences in the proportion of commodity foods to processed foods in peoples diets to farm and export policies.
Posted by Mucus (Member # 9735) on :
quote:Originally posted by Lyrhawn: ... I can't remember the country, I want to say India, but one country recently banned some exports of food to keep home stockpiles high.
Yep.
quote: Vietnam's government announced on Friday that it would cut rice exports by nearly a quarter this year. The government hoped that keeping more rice inside the country would hold down prices.
The same day, India effectively banned the export of all but the most expensive grades of rice. Egypt announced that it would impose a six-month ban on rice exports, starting April 1, and Cambodia banned all rice exports except by government agencies.
Even if food prices go down, this is a sign of things to come.
With global climate change aversely affecting the growing areas and seasons of many crops, and with drought more severe and more prevelant in many areas, this could be the shape of things to come. People should take note, and prepare.
Posted by Puffy Treat (Member # 7210) on :
Such as...food storage and planting a home garden? Posted by AvidReader (Member # 6007) on :
I wonder if the crazy corn prices will make it easier for me to find food that doesn't have high fructose corn syrup added. I'd be pretty happy about that.
But I'm not getting the connection between the issues here. Why would subsidies for ethanol in the US raise the price of rice in Asia?
Posted by Lyrhawn (Member # 7039) on :
quote:I wonder if the crazy corn prices will make it easier for me to find food that doesn't have high fructose corn syrup added. I'd be pretty happy about that.
Nope. It'll just make it more expensive. Tariffs keep cheaper sugar out of the country that would be used instead of corn syrup. Countries like Brazil are eager to get access, but the farm lobby won't allow it.
quote: Why would subsidies for ethanol in the US raise the price of rice in Asia?
Subsidies for ethanol have caused soybeans and corn to be used increasingly for fuel production. As a result the price of those two things is shooting through the roof. A lot of farmers are switching from other food crops to corn and soybeans in an attempt to cash in on the high price of corn and soybeans. Taking into account less supply for food because more is being used for fuel, and the scarcity of other food crops as farmers switch to the new cash crops, and you get an overall scarcity of food of varying kinds, and as a result, higher prices worldwide. Also keep in mind the amount of food the US exports, the number of foodstuffs in the US that are tied to corn directly, and how globalization has led to the ripple effect of prices across countries.
Posted by plaid (Member # 2393) on :
I work for a vegetable seed company. Seed sales are up a bit this year (and also at other seed companies we know), we're speculating that part of it is folks trying to garden more because of higher food prices. (I've had some conversations with customers where they say as much.)
Posted by fugu13 (Member # 2859) on :
The Indian policy is an excellent example of an idiotic reaction. If they want to make sure the poor can have food without significantly reducing production (less market == less incentive to produce) and harming producers they should purchase food at going prices to provide to the poor (this could be done through a food stamp-esque program, among other things).
Posted by quidscribis (Member # 5124) on :
We're definitely feeling it here. Inflation last year (overall inflation, not just food) was at 19.something %. February's inflation was reported at 20%. I dunno how they get their numbers, but yeah, prices are climbing rapidly.
We have regular shortages of rice, milk powder, and other things that I can't recall off the top of my head. Rice has increased in price at least 40% in the last six months (it could be more - I haven't paid close enough attention). Coconuts are now Rs.37 per, while two years ago, they were Rs.15 per. Eggs, when I moved here five years ago, were Rs.40-45 per ten, but now are Rs.128 per ten. Milk powder prices have close to doubled in the last six months. Produce is, for the most part, somewhat stable. So far. Imported honey (the local stuff is really gross to me) has more than doubled in the last six months - say, about 2.2 times.
Posted by aspectre (Member # 2222) on :
"...even with wheat at a robust $9 a bushel. Their own costs have increased, with diesel fuel and fertilizer up sharply... ...break-even last year was $4 a bushel. This summer it will be $6.20; the next crop, $7.75."
quote: Meteoric food and fuel prices, a slumping dollar, the demand for biofuels and a string of poor harvests have combined to abruptly multiply WFP's operating costs, even as needs increase. ...the number of people needing help is surging dramatically. It is what WFP Executive Director Josette Sheeran calls "a perfect storm" hitting the world's hungry.
Thanks, aspectre. That makes a lot more sense to me now. I figured it had to be more than just corn prices since the USDA FAQ made such a big deal about our wheat exports and corn didn't even make the list.
Posted by Morbo (Member # 5309) on :
Digby had a good post on this at her blog yesterday.
What shocked me was that rice has doubled in price in the last year, and is now setting price records daily. That's really alarming. Bloomberg quote via Digby:
quote: Rice climbed to a record for a fourth day as the Philippines, the biggest importer, announced plans to buy 1 million tons and some of the world's largest exporters cut sales to ensure they can feed their own people.
Rice, the staple food for half the world, rose as much as 2.9 percent to $21.60 per 100 pounds in Chicago, before paring gains. The price has doubled in the past year. Philippine President Gloria Arroyo announced two rice tenders today and pledged to crack down on hoarding. Anyone found guilty of "stealing rice from the people'' will be jailed, she said.
"We're in for a tough time,'' Roland Jansen, chief executive officer of Pfaffikon, Switzerland-based Mother Earth Investments AG, said in an interview with Bloomberg Television from Zurich today. Unless prices decline, "you will have huge problems of daily nutrition for half the planet.'' Mother Earth holds about 4 percent of its $100 million funds in the grain http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=ahRifIz3hjh0&refer=home
Posted by The Rabbit (Member # 671) on :
quote:I figured it had to be more than just corn prices since the USDA FAQ made such a big deal about our wheat exports and corn didn't even make the list.
The two are intimately connect. Because of ethanol subsidies, many farmers have switched from growing wheat to growing corn. What's more, corn and wheat are somewhat interchangeable in processed foods and diet. (i.e. if the price of corn starch soars, manufacturers may switch to wheat starch instead. If the price of corn tortillas soars, consumer demand for flour tortillas will rise.)
Its also important to understand historic factors. Over the past 30 years, US farm subsidies have had the duel effect of stimulating overproduction and keeping commodities prices below production costs. So the US has been exporting large quantities of grain at artificially low prices which has driven small farmers around the world out of business.
Corporate mergers, trade agreements and low fuel costs lead to a food distribution system that makes it almost impossible for people in many parts of the world to eat locally grown foods. In the US its estimated food travels on average over 1500 miles from farm to dinner table. That makes food prices more sensitive to the rising cost of fuel. Add to that the fact that large corporate farms tend to be more energy intensive than smaller traditional farms, and you get a food production and distribution system that is highly energy inefficient and therefore overly sensitive to changes in fuel prices.
Posted by The Rabbit (Member # 671) on :
Its also important to note that food is a fairly inelastic market, which means that a small decline in availability can result in a disproportionately large rise in food prices.
One of the interesting features of the current food crisis is that it isn't characterized by a lack of food. Food is available on the shelves in all the places where food riots are going on. It is simply become too expensive for many people to buy.
Posted by Lyrhawn (Member # 7039) on :
Weren't farm subsidies originally designed to help farmers because the price of food was too low? They paid the farmers not to grow certain things so that the price of food would go up a bit which would help out struggling farmers (back in the day) and keep them afloat. Granted that has become somewhat useless now that food prices for many crops are at their highest levels ever and agriconglomerates are the chief getters of these subsidies, but I still thought that the main purpose of subsidies wasn't so that they could sell the food at artificially low prices, but so they could afford NOT to grow some things, thereby driving the price up. It's one of the more commonly used arguments I hear to try and argue for the end of farming subsidies.
What would happen next year if all of a sudden the Farm Bill magically included no money for subsidies? I guess that's more of an open question that anyone can feel free to jump in on. Wouldn't there be a drop in the price, and wouldn't farmers start growing more crops to make up for the drop?
Also keep in mind that the spike in the price of many commodities is due to a great many things being overvauled at the moment, the most pertinent to this discussion of which is oil. It'll come back down once people stop dumping dollars into oil and other natural resource type things in an attempt to keep their money safe, but it'll be a weird ride until that happens.
Posted by quidscribis (Member # 5124) on :
(In response to Rabbit.)
That's certainly the case here - not that we have riots, but that a lot of people can't afford as much as they used to.
There is an entire segment of the population here that, before the outrageous inflation began, were already going to the markets and shops and buying two or three cups of raw rice, a half cup of dal, one onion, four carrots, and so on each day. They'd daily buy the amount of food they would cook that day. These are people who are paid a daily wage or are self-employed with jobs that bring them a small but steady amount of income. Like trishaw drivers, bicycle or motorcycle fish mongers, door to door vegetable sellers, street cleaners, some house servants, yard boys, beggars, and so on. They already don't have the money to buy their food even a week in advance.
Now the cost of living has risen dramatically. It's not just food, but also fuel - petrol for vehicles, gas for stoves, and so on. The gas for our stoves has doubled in price in less than a year, I think. In the last five years, it's quadrupled (ish. Or pretty close to that.)
But wages have not increased at anywhere close to that same rate. For some, yes, but not for all.
Posted by The Rabbit (Member # 671) on :
quote:Weren't farm subsidies originally designed to help farmers because the price of food was too low? They paid the farmers not to grow certain things so that the price of food would go up a bit which would help out struggling farmers (back in the day) and keep them afloat.
The short answer to that question is "no". From the time of FDR until the early 70s, US farm subsidies operated as a no interest loan program. If commodity prices were lower that production costs, a farm could get a no interest loan from the government on his crop and then wait until prices rose to sell the crop and pay back the loan. The effect of that policy was to insure a close relationship between the farmers production costa and to keep the supply relatively stable. In the early 70s a combination of factors (which are surprisingly similar to the current situation) lead to skyrocketing food prices in the US. People were protesting and so the farm policy was radically altered.
Since the 1970s the farm policy guarantees a minimum profit on the sale of certain commodities. If market prices are below the break even point, the government pays the farmer the difference. From the time that this change was made up to a few years ago when the US biofuels program started, the market price for corn was always lower than the break even point. What that meant to farmers was that their profitability was perpetually linked to government subsidies and that their profit margin per bushel was stuck at the minimum level guaranteed by the program. The only way to make end meet was to grow more bushels of corn. This policy had the combined effect of keeping commodity food prices unrealistically low, keeping production very high and driving small farmers out of business.
Posted by talsmitde (Member # 9780) on :
New Zealand went cold turkey off of subsidies some time ago. See here -- it looks to be working out pretty well.
It seems like a lot of the subsidy policy in the U.S. was designed to keep other countries dependent on American food imports, and the entire food system (at least in Anglo-North America) was built around the concept of cheap fuel. Here in Florida, the tomatoes in the grocery store are emblazoned with "Product of Canada" labels while most of the land around here is dedicated to beef ranching.
Prices have crept up, the most dramatic here was the steep climb milk went through last summer. It's been enough to persuade us to start building up our food storage.
Posted by fugu13 (Member # 2859) on :
Rabbit: that's not entirely true, the no lack of food bit For instance, Mugabe has managed to drive most of the food out of stores. Also, even where there's 'food on the shelves', that's just a statement of marginal stock. The amount that would be demanded at even a slightly lower price would, in many locations, obliterate the amounts stores are using to keep stock readily available at current prices.
The stated purpose of farm subsidies has changed repeatedly over the years. The (blatantly obvious) real purpose has been to buy votes and avoid being slammed as the anti-farmer candidate. There is no rational public policy argument for the farm bill as it is currently implemented, and that's been true for decades.
Posted by Lyrhawn (Member # 7039) on :
Rabbit, a quick Google search and a little reading says that the uses of subsidies are generally multipurpose, but that paying farmers when prices are low has been probably the largest part of it. But this is the sort of thing I was referring to:
quote: Upon his inauguration as president in 1933, President Franklin D. Roosevelt moved national agricultural policy far beyond the Hoover initiative. Roosevelt proposed, and Congress approved, laws designed to raise farm prices by limiting production. The government also adopted a system of price supports that guaranteed farmers a "parity" price roughly equal to what prices should be during favorable market times. In years of overproduction, when crop prices fell below the parity level, the government agreed to buy the excess.
...................
But as farm production climbed higher and higher through the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s, the cost of the government price support system rose dramatically. Politicians from non-farm states questioned the wisdom of encouraging farmers to produce more when there was already enough -- especially when surpluses were depressing prices and thereby requiring greater government assistance.
The government tried a new tack. In 1973, U.S. farmers began receiving assistance in the form of federal "deficiency" payments, which were designed to work like the parity price system. To receive these payments, farmers had to remove some of their land from production, thereby helping to keep market prices up. A new Payment-in-Kind program, begun in the early 1980s with the goal of reducing costly government stocks of grains, rice, and cotton, and strengthening market prices, idled about 25 percent of cropland.
Price supports and deficiency payments applied only to certain basic commodities such as grains, rice, and cotton. Many other producers were not subsidized. A few crops, such as lemons and oranges, were subject to overt marketing restrictions. Under so-called marketing orders, the amount of a crop that a grower could market as fresh was limited week by week. By restricting sales, such orders were intended to increase the prices that farmers received.
And crap, I accidentially just closed out the page that I'm referring to. It's a government website about labor and farming. Let me see if I can find it again.
And I agree with fugu. At the very least, politically the sort of thing he is referring to is exactly why the massively bloated Farm Bill will never die. Too much power in the farm belt, plus too much money in the argibusinesses, plus how easily it is to play politics with the farmers, to say nothing of the fact that no presidential candidate can advocate slashing subsidies and still win the Iowa caucus has kept them in force.
Posted by The Rabbit (Member # 671) on :
Mugabe is a separate issue.
And I never said that their wasn't a shortage of food. I said that this wasn't the primary characteristic of the current crisis and I noted the relationship between prices and supplies.
Posted by The Rabbit (Member # 671) on :
Lyrhawn, Different policies applied to different agricultural products as indicated in your links. My comments applied only to commodities, primarily grains and beans. I did a bunch of research on this last year for the energy class I taught. I will look for references for you.
Posted by Lyrhawn (Member # 7039) on :
Interesting, and thanks! I must've missed the part on which policies applied to which products. I'm not very well versed in 20th century agricultural policy, but I'm interested in reading more on the subject if you have something relatively accessible on hand.
Posted by The Rabbit (Member # 671) on :
Most of my stuff is literally lost at sea right now so I don't know what I will be able to find.
Which reminds me that I need to call the shipping company and see if they've had any progress finding my stuff.
[ April 10, 2008, 09:58 AM: Message edited by: The Rabbit ]
Posted by pooka (Member # 5003) on :
I once heard that some large number (40%?) of American crops go to making alcoholic beverages. Has anyone heard that?
To me, this is kind of like the population bomb argument. I'll worry about three being too many kids when there is no longer a pet food aisle at the store.
Posted by quidscribis (Member # 5124) on :
You just reminded me of another shortage! There's been no cat food for the last three or four months. We've switched my cat over to fish and rice.
So, not as important as, say, rice or milk powder.
Posted by Morbo (Member # 5309) on :
Your stuff was lost at sea? That's awful Rabbit. I hope it turns up.
Was it pirates?
Posted by The Rabbit (Member # 671) on :
The latest word is that its still in the Bahamas.
Posted by Qaz (Member # 10298) on :
Food prices haven't risen much -- a little, which is more than usual -- but I did hear about rising prices elsewhere on NPR yesterday.
Posted by Noemon (Member # 1115) on :
I expect that somewhere, Amelia Earhart is delighted with all of the new books and cooking equipment she has recently acquired.
Posted by Tstorm (Member # 1871) on :
quote:And I agree with fugu. At the very least, politically the sort of thing he is referring to is exactly why the massively bloated Farm Bill will never die. Too much power in the farm belt, plus too much money in the argibusinesses, plus how easily it is to play politics with the farmers, to say nothing of the fact that no presidential candidate can advocate slashing subsidies and still win the Iowa caucus has kept them in force.
Finally, someone has highlighted a benefit of the Iowa caucus for me.
I don't know how much of a difference the farm bill makes to the economy of northern Kansas. I doubt any of ya'll know, either. Speaking as a native and current inhabitant, I truly hope I never have to find out. My guess would be on the negative side.
In other news, the ethanol refinery nearby has reportedly (from the rumor mill) gone belly up because of a frightened investor. Apparently, the ethanol market isn't behaving properly. There was another refinery in this area that never got built, either, due to the same reason. Market glut, anyone?
Posted by Lyrhawn (Member # 7039) on :
There's massive, massive bloat and overspeculation on the ethanol market right now. Too many unsustainable refineries were built or planned to be built that were never going to make it in the long term.
I suspect as technologies come out that cheapen the process and make it more efficient, you'll see things settle down, the market will settle, the best refineries will succeed and the ones that were never going to cut it anyways will fold. Bit it'll take 10 years, and it'll depend on how the government reacts. Refineries are also closing because of a lack of corn to feed into them to make the fuel, also due to the fact that there's just too many refineries.
Posted by Tatiana (Member # 6776) on :
quote:Originally posted by Noemon: I expect that somewhere, Amelia Earhart is delighted with all of the new books and cooking equipment she has recently acquired.
It took me a second, but Posted by The Rabbit (Member # 671) on :
quote:I expect that somewhere, Amelia Earhart is delighted with all of the new books and cooking equipment she has recently acquired.
I'm personally expecting to see my stuff start showing up in lost episodes. I wonder how Kate will look in my red silk dress.
Posted by ElJay (Member # 6358) on :
quote:I once heard that some large number (40%?) of American crops go to making alcoholic beverages. Has anyone heard that?
The idea seems absolutely ridiculous to me. Some googling didn't turn up anything talking about percentage of crops used, but I did find sales numbers for the 90s in how much Americans spent on food and alcohol. These numbers include domestic production and imports, and don't include exports, but I think they still show that a percentage like that is highly unlikely. In 1999 Americans spent $92 billion on alcohol and $756 billion on food. That includes money spent in restaurants, where a glass of wine frequently costs 75% of what the entire bottle would cost you at a liquor store.
The current global food crisis, makes it very clear (at least to me) how truly delusional the developed world is in its approach to peak oil and climate change.
I keep thinking about Swartzeneggers fleet of Hummers he's trying to convert to fuel cells and Bush Sr. famous statement that "The American Lifestyle is not negotiable". People seem primarily concerned about whether or not they will be able to continue to get the latest plasma TV or whether fluorescent bulbs will emit the right color light.
It makes me want to scream. Our life style is not sustainable!!! If we don't start negotiating we are apt to loose the most important things. Who will care about getting the latest iPod if they can't afford to eat. We need to get serious about identifying what parts of our lifestyle are most important (like food) and start planning so that we don't loose those.
quote: Things which matter most must never be at the mercy of things which matter least.
-Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Posted by MightyCow (Member # 9253) on :
Isn't that fairly self-correcting though? People who have to make a choice between an iPod and food will choose food. If they don't have to make the choice, they won't.
Are we really approaching peak oil? Haven't various experts been saying that for 20 years? I know that oil supplies aren't limitless, but we aren't exactly on fumes yet either.
Posted by rivka (Member # 4859) on :
quote:Originally posted by MightyCow: People who have to make a choice between an iPod and food will choose food. If they don't have to make the choice, they won't.
But the choice is between them having an ipod and someone else having food.
Posted by fugu13 (Member # 2859) on :
It isn't at all clear that is or will be the choice, though (and I'm not taking 'iPod' simplistically).
Posted by The Rabbit (Member # 671) on :
quote:Are we really approaching peak oil? Haven't various experts been saying that for 20 years? I know that oil supplies aren't limitless, but we aren't exactly on fumes yet either.
Peak oil doesn't mean we are running on fumes. It simply means that oil production has reached its maximum and will begin to decline. Its not like we will be able to produce oil at whatever rate we want it until the last drop is gone and then suddenly -- boom no more oil. As we use up more and more of the earths petroleum, it gets harder and harder to find and harder and harder to get. As a result, we reach a point at which we simply can't get the oil out of the ground as fast as people want to use it.
We are now in a situation where the global demand for oil in increasing faster than production has been able to increase. That's why prices have been climbing for the past 7 years.
All though it is highly controversial, there is a growing belief that we are now at that peak. World oil production has reached a plateau over the past 4 - 5 years. Its still possible that new discoveries or technologies could lead to an increase in the future, but it is more likely that production will begin declining slowly. We won't really know whether we are really at the peak until the peak is past.
Posted by Sterling (Member # 8096) on :
An interesting effect of my time in New Zealand- I was mostly subsisting on American news from the Internet, with occasional bits from the BBC and Stratos (an apparently German news agency that offers a channel to some NZ markets)... I didn't really start hearing about food shortages (specifically, rice shortages) until I spent some time in Fiji. But then, New Zealand is a lot more self-sufficient than poor Fiji.
Regarding the "x% of American crops go to alcoholic beverages", I can't confirm or deny, but I can note anecdotally that a friend who bartends at a brewpub notes they've had to stop carrying hefeweitzen because the price of hops has recently skyrocketed.
As far as
quote:Originally posted by The Rabbit: Of all the disastrous policies promoted by the Bush administration, the ethanol subsidies may turn out to be the very worst.
I agree that while ethanol continues to be produced largely of food crops, the policy may be very damaging indeed; however, I think unlike some of our dear president's policies, this one might not be as difficult to reverse.
Posted by Lyrhawn (Member # 7039) on :
I think that with the ice caps melting, they'll find billions of gallons. I've heard estimates of there being a field larger than the biggest filed in Saudi Arabia (I can't remember the name of the field).
But even if there is, I think we're still close to peak oil. Demand from India, China, and other places is skyrocketing, to the point where a vastly increased supply still won't make up for it. Peak oil, as I've often heard it referred to, is about when the replacement rate of oil can't keep up with increased demand, which I personally think is a more significant number, but either way it's troubling.
As prices start to explode in the United States, which WILL happen at an accelerated pace over the next decade, innovation will pave the way for oil replacements, be it algae biofuel, electric cars, or a combination of the two, I think in the United States, oil will start to take a back seat in a 30 - 40 years. But it'll be a generation or more before we're really on our way off of oil, and it's going to be a painful transition.
Posted by luthe (Member # 1601) on :
quote:Originally posted by rivka:
quote:Originally posted by MightyCow: People who have to make a choice between an iPod and food will choose food. If they don't have to make the choice, they won't.
But the choice is between them having an ipod and someone else having food.
The world doesn't function on altruism, people will choose the iPod.
Posted by MightyCow (Member # 9253) on :
While I agree that we live in a global economy, I don't think it's so tightly interconnected that my iPod is literally taking the food off of anyone's table.
Posted by luthe (Member # 1601) on :
quote:Originally posted by MightyCow: While I agree that we live in a global economy, I don't think it's so tightly interconnected that my iPod is literally taking the food off of anyone's table.
Indeed it is not. The whole point of that claim is to make you feel guilty, in an attempt to get you to reduce your consuption.
Posted by Juxtapose (Member # 8837) on :
quote:Peak oil, as I've often heard it referred to, is about when the replacement rate of oil can't keep up with increased demand, which I personally think is a more significant number, but either way it's troubling.
Rabbit has the right definition. The "peak" refers to production, after which it must decline.
I think you're right about the significance in that we'll start to feel the effects of what you're talking about much sooner (as in six years ago). But we're still in a place where production is increasing.
You'll know when peak oil hits because the rate of price increase will go from linear to geometric*. Assuming we take no steps to wean ourselves, of course.
*I realize this may not be strictly accurate, mathematically speaking. I mean that the graph of the function will begin to curve upward, and that's the best word I know to describe it.
Posted by aspectre (Member # 2222) on :
"I am a bit tight with money...But so what? If I start to acquire luxurious things then this will only incite others to follow suit. It's important that leaders set an example. I look at the money I'm about to spend on myself and ask if Ikea's customers could afford it. From time to time I like to buy a nice shirt and cravat - and eat Swedish fish roe."
Posted by aspectre (Member # 2222) on :
quote:
quote:While I agree that we live in a global economy, I don't think it's so tightly interconnected that my iPod is literally taking the food off of anyone's table.
Indeed it is not. The whole point of that claim is to make you feel guilty, in an attempt to get you to reduce your consuption.
As I said before, nobody fights a war unless there is MAJOR profit for the already wealthy. Bullets for an assault rifle cost over US$0.25 per roundon the legal market. RocketPropelledGrenades cost US$50toUS$200 per round on the legal market. A lot more is paid to blackmarket arms dealers.
The average*Congolese makes ~US$2 per day: ie GrossDomesticProduct divided by the total population. The median*income per person is less than US$O.80 per day: ie over half the people are living on less than 80cents per day. Probably considerably less: I've seen estimates of the median being as low as 33cents per day.
Being able to buy 4bullets IF ya starve yourself for 3days ain't exactly conducive to warfare. Then of course, ya'd hafta starve yerself for a year to be able to afford the rifle to fire the darn things. (Thanks to free enterprise and the NRA, old assault rifles are cheap on the world blackmarket.)
quote:But the choice is between them having an ipod and someone else having food.
quote:The world doesn't function on altruism, people will choose the iPod.
So you were correct the first time around. People are more willing to pay LOTS of money for distractions (such as the iPod) to maintain their state of guilt-free ignorance.
[ April 15, 2008, 11:06 AM: Message edited by: aspectre ]
Posted by aspectre (Member # 2222) on :
Warlords who force their poor to fight don't care if I bought an iPod or not. 1) They're already rich, my consumption of consumer products doesn't make a difference. 2) They don't care if their people fight with tanks or AK-47s or swords or pointy sticks, and one iPod buys infinitely many pointy sticks.
There are bad people the world over, who will do what they do no matter how meager my income or how controlled my spending. I still think it's misplaced guilt.
I don't need any electronics to both feel bad for people in a horrible situation, and at the same time to realize that my life doesn't directly impact them.
Posted by Mucus (Member # 9735) on :
Not to mention that American consumption of goods made in the developing world is probably the number one factor in reducing global poverty. Buy your iPod with neutral pride, while one can definitely argue that the proceeds could be distributed much more fairly, you're still indirectly giving a Chinese/Indian factory worker the opportunity to earn much more than they would farming.
Posted by Lyrhawn (Member # 7039) on :
I read an article this morning that said Brazil has a potential new oil find, possibly as much as 33 BILLION barrels, which is more than the entire US proven reserve, and would I think make it bigger than Ghawar, the big Saudi oil field that's been their bread and butter for five decades. Champions of oil are hailing it as the silver bullet to the world's oil problems, but even if it's real, it'll be ten years before any of it gets out of the ground, and demand will balloon by then.
Posted by aspectre (Member # 2222) on :
[ April 18, 2008, 07:01 PM: Message edited by: aspectre ]
Posted by Morbo (Member # 5309) on :
Are you really using consumer electronics to take us to task about our consumer electronics? Bravo for the involuted hypocrisy.
Posted by lem (Member # 6914) on :
About peak oil:
I am in the camp that believes oil is made from an abiotic source and is probably percolating through the crust and refilling the fields--albeit at a slower rate then consumption, making peak oil still a probability. However I have read that we currently have plenty of oil to meet demand. What we don't have is increased refining capacity to make gasoline.
In the US we are experiencing "peak refining capacity" coupled with a declining dollar. Add in to the mix our dependency on oil in countries that are looking to be increasingly unstable and we still have a nightmare scenario.
When oil gets too expensive I see us moving to shale. Utah's and Colorado's economy will do quite nicely.
Posted by The Rabbit (Member # 671) on :
quote:I am in the camp that believes oil is made from an abiotic source and is probably percolating through the crust and refilling the fields--albeit at a slower rate then consumption, making peak oil still a probability. However I have read that we currently have plenty of oil to meet demand. What we don't have is increased refining capacity to make gasoline.
You do realize that there is at best minimal evidence to support this idea and that in fact the carbon isotope ratio and the traces of biological organism found in all know oil and coal reserves are better explained by biological organism than abiogenesis.
Posted by Morbo (Member # 5309) on :
The Economist has a sobering article that states "The era of cheap food is over." In addition to the biofuels mess, they point to the economic success of China and India as a big factor driving increased demand.
Posted by BlackBlade (Member # 8376) on :
quote:Originally posted by The Rabbit:
quote:I am in the camp that believes oil is made from an abiotic source and is probably percolating through the crust and refilling the fields--albeit at a slower rate then consumption, making peak oil still a probability. However I have read that we currently have plenty of oil to meet demand. What we don't have is increased refining capacity to make gasoline.
You do realize that there is at best minimal evidence to support this idea and that in fact the carbon isotope ratio and the traces of biological organism found in all know oil and coal reserves are better explained by biological organism than abiogenesis.
If rotting meat can spawn flies then surely something else can create oil! Posted by scholarette (Member # 11540) on :
It's hard to imagine buying more than eighty pounds of rice at a time unless one runs a restaurant.
Posted by aspectre (Member # 2222) on :
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-rice24apr24,0,3320375.story Family of four, half pound of rice per day per person, 80pounds of rice per 20days. The price of rice has tripled from last year, with most of that rise still to come since ya last bought rice due to storage lag between producer price and consumer cost. Put in the perspective of a more typically American diet... It takes ~80pounds of grain to produce 8pounds of beef. The cost of beef is gonna triple. Will you ignore that tripling the next time you go shopping? Possibly, cuz of a lack of freezer space. But ya don't need a special storage facility for rice. Possibly, cuz ya can give up beef for rice. But ya can't give up rice for something cheaper.
[ April 25, 2008, 01:46 PM: Message edited by: aspectre ]
Posted by mr_porteiro_head (Member # 4644) on :
quote:But ya can't give up rice for something cheaper.
I seem to recall in one of Kurosawa's films (Yojimbo?) the peasants who went out to hire a Samurai gave up all their rice to give to the Samurai and lived off of something cheaper -- millet, I think it was.
Nevertheless, this nitpick doesn't in any way invalidate your point.
Posted by Godric 2.0 (Member # 11443) on :
quote:Originally posted by Lyrhawn: I read an article this morning that said Brazil has a potential new oil find, possibly as much as 33 BILLION barrels, which is more than the entire US proven reserve, and would I think make it bigger than Ghawar, the big Saudi oil field that's been their bread and butter for five decades. Champions of oil are hailing it as the silver bullet to the world's oil problems, but even if it's real, it'll be ten years before any of it gets out of the ground, and demand will balloon by then.
Where's Daniel Plainview when you need him?
Seriously, though, why as much as 10 years?
Posted by Morbo (Member # 5309) on :
quote: But ya can't give up rice for something cheaper.
Let them eat mud. That's one of the saddest things I've ever read: the poor in Haiti are eating mud with oil and salt.
Posted by Lyrhawn (Member # 7039) on :
quote:Originally posted by Godric 2.0:
quote:Originally posted by Lyrhawn: I read an article this morning that said Brazil has a potential new oil find, possibly as much as 33 BILLION barrels, which is more than the entire US proven reserve, and would I think make it bigger than Ghawar, the big Saudi oil field that's been their bread and butter for five decades. Champions of oil are hailing it as the silver bullet to the world's oil problems, but even if it's real, it'll be ten years before any of it gets out of the ground, and demand will balloon by then.
Where's Daniel Plainview when you need him?
Seriously, though, why as much as 10 years?
Several reasons. It's deep sea drilling, in that, this is expensive to reach oil. You need special platforms to get to it, they have to be built, moved into place, you have to drill test beds, you have to build undersea pipelines back to the mainland, you have to do tests on it. And even when you get it out of the ground, it's still not going to be coming out in very large numbers until you get more wells drilled and more platforms in place.
It's a similar argument with ANWR, only possibly worst because of permafrost issues thanks to a warming local environment. We've already gotten to all the easy oil. All the oil we're getting now is the expensive harder to reach stuff.
Posted by Lyrhawn (Member # 7039) on :
quote:Originally posted by lem:
However I have read that we currently have plenty of oil to meet demand. What we don't have is increased refining capacity to make gasoline.
In the US we are experiencing "peak refining capacity" coupled with a declining dollar. Add in to the mix our dependency on oil in countries that are looking to be increasingly unstable and we still have a nightmare scenario.
When oil gets too expensive I see us moving to shale. Utah's and Colorado's economy will do quite nicely.
We currently have oil to meet demand, I'd say we even have enough to flood the market and bottom out the price, but OPEC won't do that. It's in none of their interests to do so. There is no alternative to oil currently, so lowering the price has no advantage to them so long as they have a monopoly on a fuel source that is irreplaceable. But it won't be that forever. A lot of Saudi oil fields are returning more water than oil. Water was injected into some of the fields to speed output to pump it out faster, but they're returning more water than oil now. When you look at the speed in the increase of demand for oil, the price is only going to steadily increase, until we reach a breaking point. I think long before we actually run out of oil, we'll reach a point where oil is just too expensive to use. I think market forces and technology will make it so we never actually run out, at least not for a long time, and by the time we do we'll have plenty of replacements. I'm not worried, so long as we start the ball rolling on the next generation, and we are.
There's a bit of a myth out there that there hasn't been any new refinery capacity added since that last brand new refinery was built all those years ago. Refineries have been steadily adding capacity, by building additions to current facilities that for all and intents and purposes are new refineries. We've drastically increased our refining capability over the years. But demand needs to taper off. I'm okay with not building more refineries, just like I'm okay with a raised gas tax, because we need to force reductions in useage if we're ever going to dig ourselves out of this hole.
Shale isn't quite ready yet. Economically it's pretty much there. World oil prices under $80 a barrel don't really make it viable, but with oil consistantly over $100, you'll start to see a major push for it, but it won't be so easy perhaps. There are major environmental concerns about shale, and the massive shale deposits in Utah, Colorado, Montana etc out west almost all sit on Federal land. The government has let several large oil companies like Shell and Exxon test technologies at small sites, and it looks like Shell is the furthest along, but it's a complicated procss that is expensive and fraught with potential danger. First they have to insert rods into the ground to freeze the ground underneath the shale. This is done so oil can't leech into the groundwater supply. Then they have to insert rods into the shale itself to basically cook it, then extract it. Shale is just oil a few millions years too young, it hasn't turned to light sweet crude yet, so they bump the process along, suck it out and send it off to be refined. Before this process I believe that removed the rock, refined it into oil and then refined it again into fuel, which made it considerably more expensive.
The process devastates the environment above it too. You can't just dig a well and suck it up. Vast swaths of forested land would have to be dug up, with displaced native species and huge old growth forests destroyed. Any plan would of course have to include land reclamation after they are done with it (also adding to the cost) but I'm guessing that won't make any environmentalists satisfied considering the initial damage done. I think shale is a few years away yet, and I think Congress could still block the leasing of Federal land to do it.
I'm not even sure how necessary it'll be. Less destructive forms of biofuel will probably be well ahead of cost parity with oil by the time shale becomes viable, and they'll be far less destructive to the environment and to our health.
Posted by The Rabbit (Member # 671) on :
quote:I read an article this morning that said Brazil has a potential new oil find, possibly as much as 33 BILLION barrels.
I'll believe it when the oil starts flowing. I have yet to see an oil discovery that began with "potential new find of XX Billion barrels" to pan out to be anything like the original estimates. What this means is that the initial geological surveys have located a geological formation that might contain some amount of oil. Since this is a deep sea location, it is unlikely that they have even drilled one test hole yet which means that it might not contain a single drop oil. The initial estimates for this things are always extremely optimistic in part because they are trying to attract investors.
Posted by Lyrhawn (Member # 7039) on :
::shrug:: Just relaying what the article said, it wasn't a big deal to me one way or the other. I don't think, even if it were true, that it'd be anywhere near the salvation some are claiming.
Posted by aspectre (Member # 2222) on :
[ April 27, 2008, 08:23 AM: Message edited by: aspectre ]
Posted by aspectre (Member # 2222) on :
"This is a basic problem, to feed 6.6 billion people. Without chemical fertilizer, forget it. The game is over."
Posted by aspectre (Member # 2222) on :
"Americans eat an average of 3,770 calories per capita a day...compared to 2,440 calories in India. They are also the largest per capita consumers in any major economy of beef, the most energy-intensive common food source....The United States and Canada top the world in oil consumption per person..."
Posted by Adam_S (Member # 9695) on :
it's not ethanol, although the correlation is there it's not the cause, but because ethanol is the new factor it gets the blame. It's actually a complex relationship of factors driving up the price of food in which ethanol has a relatively minor role. Primarily the cost of fuel has the largest impact, when most of your fruit and vegetables travel at least three thousand miles to reach your grocery store you've got significant transportation costs involved, additionally most processed foods travel extensively as well. There's really only five major dairy conglomerates in the United States anymore so most of those products are traveling a great distance as well. When fuel was cheap the distance food had to travel didn't matter and economies of scale could consolidate production to a few localities, now that strategy is backfiring, and the lack of local production of dairy, meat, grains and produce is finally biting us in the behind.
Furthermore, corn based ethanol only processes the carbohydrate portion of the grain, the protein portion is then returned to the food supply as Distiller's Grain a high quality protein feed in strong demand (meaning corn would be processed into this grain anyway and the carbohydrate portion probably discarded as waste). On top of this plants are coming online that can also process cellulosic ethanol, meaning the corn cobs, stalks and leaves--along with other possibilities such as switchgrass--will also be processed into ethanol.
The price of fuel will also cause increases in the price of corn due to the increased transportation costs of fertilizer, delivering crops, operation of farm machinery etc, farmers will have to pass on those costs.
Additionally we're experiencing the Bush administration's policy to have a weak dollar affecting commodity prices. Thank goodness the fed is done with rate cuts, or so they say. http://tinyurl.com/5h2owo (Forbes link)
There has also been a surge of speculators now investing in the commodities market and they're driving up prices faster than prices might otherwise rise. however it's probably not a good idea to shut them out of the market, India tried it and it hasn't helped and if anything worsened the situation. http://marketplace.publicradio.org/display/web/2008/05/08/india_commodities/
on top of that demand for food is increasing as countries such as China, India, Brazil, and African nations such as Kenya are demanding higher quality and greater quantity of food, essentially a higher standard of living, and they're willing to pay for it.
But really it's all just due to ethanol subsidies. Posted by fugu13 (Member # 2859) on :
Just? No, but they are a component, and they are having an effect. Corn is heavily consumed by large parts of the world's poorest populations, and even a slight drop in production going towards corn-based food (animal feed yields far fewer calories for the same input) creates a huge burden on those consuming corn as a large part of their diets.
Posted by scholarette (Member # 11540) on :
quote:Originally posted by aspectre: "Americans eat an average of 3,770 calories per capita a day...compared to 2,440 calories in India. They are also the largest per capita consumers in any major economy of beef, the most energy-intensive common food source....The United States and Canada top the world in oil consumption per person..."
3770 calories? How is that possible?
Posted by aspectre (Member # 2222) on :
Up until about five months ago I lived in rural Southeastern Idaho. The rise in wheat costs has very little to do with "ethanol corn". Does anyone remember all the devastating floods our nation experienced last year? The wheat crop in our country took a HUGE toll. Also, other areas experienced severe drought. These natural occurances weren't only in our country. Look it up. Our wheat supply is simply much smaller than it used to be. Last I heard, the market price for wheat was somewhere near $14 a bushel for last year's crop. This year's crop is expected to at least meet that, even with all the farmers that are taking advantage of the market. Around here, at least, we're expecting other crop prices (specifically potatoes) to go up as the wheat slowly comes down simply because everyone around here is planting wheat .
Posted by aspectre (Member # 2222) on :
Could be counting the calories needed to produce the excess meat that Americans consume. Then again, Americans are rather rotund.
Posted by aspectre (Member # 2222) on :
And hovering over it all are the same vultures who created the CreditCrunch, bidding up grain and oil futures using cheap loans that were supposed to be used to clean up their mortgage mess.
[ June 10, 2008, 10:01 AM: Message edited by: aspectre ]
Posted by Juxtapose (Member # 8837) on :
quote:Originally posted by aspectre: "Americans eat an average of 3,770 calories per capita a day...compared to 2,440 calories in India. They are also the largest per capita consumers in any major economy of beef, the most energy-intensive common food source....The United States and Canada top the world in oil consumption per person..."
EDIT - to make things easy, the USDA number is 2757, which while still high, is not quite as obscene.
Posted by The Rabbit (Member # 671) on :
The USDA number is adjusted to exclude food waste. I wonder if the UN numbers are for total consumption, that is everything that is wasted as well as what is eaten.
We waste an enormous amount of food in the US. It wouldn't surprise me at all if we were wasting 1/4 of total food consumption.
Posted by Wendybird (Member # 84) on :
A lot of people eat more calories then they suspect. For instance a McDonalds Big Mac, large fries and large coke contains 1420 calories - in just one meal! If you look at averages I would suspect the real number is somewhere between the USDA and the UN. Its only been in the last few years that there has been more of a push toward healthier eating.
Posted by aspectre (Member # 2222) on :
So what are people doing to help the global food crisis? I haven't come up with a good response really. I gave extra to the church's humanitarian fund emergency relief fund, but that's really for the Myanmar cyclone and China earthquake. I have been doing more kiva lending, particularly food production businesses, but that's only helping those who can work and earn a return on the investment.
What about people who are just plain hungry? Like little kids and old people and sick people? How can I help them get through this bad time? I'm wanting to pare down my life and do more for people who need it more than me. What are some of the ways I can do that?
Posted by quidscribis (Member # 5124) on :
Tatiana, I have no answers for you. For me, I'm starting a container garden using rice bags for containers (recycling and reusing), and once I have a handle on it, I'm planning on approaching the Relief Society president at church about teaching a class on composting (I do this already anyway) and gardening to help the other women learn how to do this for themselves. Spread the word on how easy it is to grow a container garden and the benefits of doing such.
The rice bag gardens are on the rise here anyway. Our next door neighbor has two dozen rice bags with stuff growing in them, still in their very early stages. But if I can help spread the goodness of growing as much as you can or is suitable for your own circumstances, then I'm happy. It won't mean spending no money at the grocery shops and stalls, but it might make enough of a difference that more people can survive better.
Posted by aspectre (Member # 2222) on :
The US has similar regulations that serve absolutely no purpose whatsoever other than to drive up the price of food.
Posted by TL (Member # 8124) on :
We need, in this world, to seriously begin to think about population control. It seems clear to me that the world can only bear so much human consumption, and we may be nearing the point where we finally exceed our capacity to feed ourselves.
Posted by Lyrhawn (Member # 7039) on :
Eliminate third world nation status and get everyone on a first world level and you'll see birth rates around the world drop. A lot more people that generally die would survive, but families would have dramatically fewer children.
Studies have shown that as nations become more wealthy, they have smaller families on average.
Posted by TL (Member # 8124) on :
Sounds good to me. So... How? Or the better question might be: How can I help?
Posted by maui babe (Member # 1894) on :
quid - I'm planning on starting a container garden on my Lanai this weekend. I'm interested in your rice bag idea. Can you give a link or more information on how that works?
Posted by ketchupqueen (Member # 6877) on :
I don't think population control is the problem. I think that consuming wisely and using resources wisely is the problem.
Posted by ketchupqueen (Member # 6877) on :
(As for what I'm doing-- I sometimes volunteer with an organization that makes and distributes meals for the homeless and hungry. I try to consume ethically when I can-- even if it means paying more for a product that was produced by people paid a living wage. I have participated in Great American Bake Sale efforts. I have contributed to Heifer Int'l every year since I turned 18, and ask for gifts to them instead of gifts to me. These are not new things, though. I don't know what else to do that I'm not doing, other than continually make choices toward sustainability and responsibility and taking every opportunity I can to put my money where my mouth is.)
Posted by ketchupqueen (Member # 6877) on :
Oh, and I put my couponing to good use-- when I have an opportunity to buy something at a very low price, with coupons and sales, that is something we won't eat or don't like, or I have enough coupons to buy more of it than we'll use, I buy it anyway, and donate it to a food bank. Someone out there likes it, or is hungry enough to eat it if they don't.
Posted by MightyCow (Member # 9253) on :
I can understand the urge to have a large family, but population control IS a problem. It's simple math - having lots of kids means lots of consumption, and once they have kids the problem only multiplies.
We can all have 5 or 6 kids, and in a few generations everyone will be living elbow to elbow, drinking their fair trade coffee and eating their organic cheese.
Posted by Glenn Arnold (Member # 3192) on :
quote:Studies have shown that as nations become more wealthy, they have smaller families on average.
I don't know that it's necessarily wealth. As I understand it, the biggest factors are child mortality rates and availability of birth control to women.
There's an article on cnn.com about growing food in your backyard. It amazes me that they didn't even bother comparing it to Victory Gardens. During WWII as much as 40% of vegetables consumed in the U.S. were grown in victory gardens. I also think that kids today definitely need to see where food comes from. Kids are so consumption oriented that they don't really think about where things come from.
Then there are community supported agriculture like in this thread. To save the world we've got to take control of food production.
Posted by ketchupqueen (Member # 6877) on :
quote:We can all have 5 or 6 kids, and in a few generations everyone will be living elbow to elbow, drinking their fair trade coffee and eating their organic cheese.
But MightyCow, not everyone feels the urge to have 5 or 6 kids. It doesn't happen that way. I'm not saying everyone has to have lots of kids-- just that telling them they can't isn't the answer.
There are large families, some I know personally, which consume and pollute at a much lesser rate than families of 2 or 3 people (no kids or onlies.) In fact, I've heard the sentiment expressed many times that people limit the number of children they have in order to be able to consume more. (I am not, of course, saying that all people who have few or no children by choice do it for this reason. Just that it's something that is not uncommonly expressed.) They want their kids to "have the best" or "have what I didn't growing up." They end up consuming at a higher rate than families with more kids but mindful of lowering their consumption. Many of the large families I know grow part of their own food, cloth diaper, some use cloth pads, dry clothes on a line instead of in the dryer, things that many people used to do but most are moving away from in this country, or just returning to. It is very possible to consume less as a large family than as a smaller family, it depends on the way you consume.
Posted by Glenn Arnold (Member # 3192) on :
KQ,
"Population Control" is an extrinsic sounding term. It brings on visions of the Chinese one child law, and the rather barbaric means that they've used to enforce it.
Notice what Lyrhawn suggests, which has no externally defined mechanism to limit family size, but rather changes the environment in such a way as to give families the opportunity to decide for themselves how large their family should be. The evidence indicates that under certain circumstances, the average family size will be low enough that population will actually drop. In some countries, this is already happening. I'm not sure, but I think I may have heard that if you exclude immigration in the United States (and birth rates of recent immigrants), the reproduction rate of American families is below the replacement rate. In other words if it were not for immigration, our population would be declining. So no one really needs to be "told" how many children they should have in order to reduce population.
Unfortunately, a predominant economic model assumes that a growing population is necessary for economic strength. Vladimir Putin is actively promoting large families in Russia for this reason. But when you think of it, telling people they should have more children is just as much extrinsic control as telling them how many children they are limited to. More directly, the use of rape as a means of ethnic cleansing is a form of population control that is explicitly designed to provide a class of outcasts that will provide labor to the ruling culture with a minimum of cultural integrity, thereby minimizing the threat of an uprising.
The point I'm trying to make is that population control can go either way.
Likewise, when we hear the suggestion that we need to reduce population, we tend to think that we need to increase the death rate. Of course, there is a one to one ratio of births to deaths. Everybody dies. And large scale events that could be thought of as bringing down the population generally work in reverse. WWII gave us the "baby boom" and historically, periods of war, famine and disease are usually followed by a net increase in population. People tend to have more children when they don't feel secure that their genes will be passed down, and vice versa.
So the real solution to the population problem is to provide real security against premature mortality. That combined with the availability of birth control allows individual families the ability to control population based on their own intrinsic motivation.
Posted by Lyrhawn (Member # 7039) on :
Yeah maybe wealth is the wrong word, but I think a lot of those things are tied together. As nations become more wealthy, they are better able to afford the healthcare, education etc that allows them to step from third to second to first world status.
I've read numerous studies and seen some pretty impressive presentations that chart the growth of national economies and how that correlates pretty strongly with a drop in family size.
The reasons are much like what Glenn suggests, and all of it has to do with personal choice. When your nation moves closer to what first world nations are like, there are more jobs, both parents might start working and women might choose to have children increasingly later in life, which biologically will give greater odds towards the family being smaller anyways, and they may choose to have smaller families as a result of career driven options, or just because they don't want a bigger family, and education and medical advances allow them to make those choices. Also, first world living is expensive, as is raising kids, providing for them, and educating them. I don't necessarily think that's the best idea, as far as latching on to first world consumerism, but it happens. As a result families tend to shrink as nations become wealthier, even as the live birth rate increases and life spans increase as well.
If everyone in the world had the security of choice that most Americans have, I think the world population growth rate would dramatically decrease. It'll be a long time before that happens though.
However, I think the growth rate is headed for a fall anyway, for a variety of reasons. One is that it's really just about time, historically, for a major epidemic. I know medical science has vastly increased in its potency in the last 100 years, but where's the influenza bug that kills a few million people? We're due for a plague, and it may already be out there in the form of MRSA or something similar. But it's bound to happen. And if it isn't that, it'll be a collapse in the way the global food network works. Petroleum is the reason we have as much food as we have, by and large. That and refrigeration. As costs for electricity and especially for oil skyrocket, these things will become increasingly hard to move around the world effectively. Combine that with the drought that is persistant and ever spreading and you get a decrease in farmland that'll be farmable, and less fertilizers from less oil as well, until we can create alternates through responsible farming practices. This stuff is going to come to a head in the next couple decades, and outside of the US you're going to see rampant starvation in the third world, and water wars. Frankly I still think the US would be fine. We export prodigious sums of food, and even if we had to curtail all exports, I still think we'd find a way to feed ourselves. With very few exceptions, Americans have always been impressively adept (sometimes too much) at feeding ourselves.
I grow leery of population laws. I think responsible living and planning can make it possible for anyone to have as many kids as they want. We certainly have the space, it's more about the space that it takes to keep us fed and happy than it is about wondering where to put all the people. Just look at home much land is taken up by cities and how much is taken up by farms. If we ever truly run out of room, then we head into space. I think that's just in our blood.
Posted by MightyCow (Member # 9253) on :
KQ: That's a nice thought, but I simply don't believe that 16 grandchildren can consume less than 4 grandchildren. If those 4 grandchildren are trying to conserve as much as the 16 grand children, it's no contest.
Don't even get me started on the 16 vs. 64 great grandchildren.
Lyrhawn: Again, space is a nice idea, but I don't see it being a viable alternative to any meaningful portion of the world's population for a minimum of 200 years. If everyone has as many children as they want, we'll be in big trouble much sooner than that.
Posted by quidscribis (Member # 5124) on :
quote:Originally posted by maui babe: quid - I'm planning on starting a container garden on my Lanai this weekend. I'm interested in your rice bag idea. Can you give a link or more information on how that works?
What link? I got my information from my mother in law and from looking over the wall at our next door neighbor's yard where she's got a couple of dozen rice bags filled with dirt and plants lined up against her house, two deep.
Fill rice bag with dirt, insert plant, water. Okay, seriously. The rice bag material is porous enough that it gets enough drainage. Plus here, because of the heat, we have to water more frequently, so we use sandier soil so it drains faster so we don't get root rot. I've read online that because of the weave of the rice bag, the roots get more oxygen, so that promotes root growth, but I have no idea how valid that is.
A typical family of four here will go through a 10kg bag of rice in about a week and a half, so can plant a new bag about that often.
Really, I don't know that much about it other than it's just a different type of container for container gardening. The appeal here is that it's using materials that most people would have access to anyway, so there's no additional expenditure - it's a practical solution for this kind of cultural.
Posted by scholarette (Member # 11540) on :
quote:Originally posted by MightyCow: If everyone has as many children as they want, we'll be in big trouble much sooner than that.
I don't know about this. In my field, 2 children get the response "wow, you have a huge family!" I don't think any of my colleagues is having only one child out of concerns for limiting their consumption. I am not sure how many kids I want, but I can see the appeal in just having one. A lot of people want one or zero kids.
Posted by MightyCow (Member # 9253) on :
scholarette: As has been suggested before, it's not necessarily the people who work within a "field" who are averaging a lot of kids. Nonetheless, the world population keeps going up at a fantastic pace. So when I say "everyone" having as many children as they want, clearly it's the people who are having 3+ kids who are the ones causing the trouble.
Again, I'm not saying anyone's a bad person for having 3 or more kids, but it's an inescapable fact that increased population leads to increased consumption.
Posted by scholarette (Member # 11540) on :
But what percent of the population actually want a large number of kids? A lot of people end up with x kids, when they only really would want one or two. If people had reliable birth control, the population would probably self limit itself without any problems.
Posted by Lyrhawn (Member # 7039) on :
MC -
If everyone has as many and AS FEW as they want, we'd be better off than you think.
Posted by MightyCow (Member # 9253) on :
scholarette and Lyrhawn: I agree on both points - neither of which really go against what I've been saying. We need global population control, whatever form that comes in, including available birth control and education and institutions stopping telling people that they should keep having children until their body gives out.
Posted by aspectre (Member # 2222) on :
"When you change a resource in the environment...you are going to...favor the weed over the crop. There is always going to be a weed poised genetically to benefit from almost any change."
Editing in for my own future googling: Lewis Ziska with the Agriculture Research Service of the U.S. Department of Agriculture Andrew MacDougall of the University of Guelph
[ June 29, 2008, 10:35 AM: Message edited by: aspectre ]
Posted by aspectre (Member # 2222) on :
What a crock. In the '60s, the US government spent billions to screw up the Everglades to give growers plantations upon which to grow sugarcane. Then made American consumers pay ~5times the world price for sugar; essentially using import taxes as a form of welfare payment to sugar producers. Now it's paying those same parasites ~$94hundred dollars per acre to return that gift of land while spending billions more to try to restore the Everglades to its previous condition.
[ June 29, 2008, 09:51 AM: Message edited by: aspectre ]
Posted by Lyrhawn (Member # 7039) on :
It needed to be done. You might not like the price or the history of the thing, but, it needed to be done.
Posted by aspectre (Member # 2222) on :
Oh the Everglades needs restoration. But this "Once some malicious politicians give something away, the government can't take it back." tilts everything in favor of those who choose to be crooked.
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
Even assuming your account is accurate - which I doubt, given your history in these things - the property belonged to the growers. The government can't take it without just compensation.
It's called the fifth amendment.
Posted by aspectre (Member # 2222) on :
I'm just wondering if something similar happened to my garden this year. The plants were straggly and the yields were low. Plus the average sizes&shapes of the fruits&vegetables appeared to be more like the outliers of previous seasons.
Posted by aspectre (Member # 2222) on :
"People in low-income countries...directly consume nearly 200 kilograms of grain per year. In affluent countries...annual grain consumption per person is close to 800 kilograms, but about 90 percent of that* is consumed indirectly as meat, milk, and eggs."
"After nearly tripling from 94 million hectares in 1950 to 276 million hectares in 2000, the world's irrigated area abruptly stopped growing. For the world's farmers, peak water apparently has arrived."
"Worldwide, the average grainland per person shrank from 2.4 hectares in 1950 to well below 1.2 hectares in 2007."
"...the shrinking backlog of unused agricultural**technology is slowing the rise in land productivity. Between 1950 and 1990, the world's farmers raised grain yield per hectare by more than two percent a year, exceeding the growth of population. But since then yield growth has slowed to just over one percent a year, scarcely half the earlier rate." "...new harvest-expanding technologies are ever more difficult to come by as crop yields move closer to the inherent limits of photosynthetic efficiency."
"After declining for several decades, the number of chronically hungry and malnourished people in developing countries bottomed out in 1996 at 800 million and has been climbing since. In 2006 it exceeded 850 million and in 2007 it climbed to over 980 million. The US Department of Agriculture projects the number will reach 1.2 billion by 2017."
"...China...now holds well over one trillion US dollars. Like it or not, US consumers will share their grain with Chinese consumers regardless of how high food prices rise."
* I'd assume that the writer and/or the (re)translator meant 90% of the difference in average grain consumption per person between 200kilogram for low-income nations and 800kilogram for high-income nations is used for production of the extra meat, milk, and eggs consumed by FirstWorlders. Feed conversion of grain into meat has an extremely low efficiency ranging from ~2to1 for fish to ~10to1 for beef (if I remember correctly).
** Most improvements in agricultural technology are due to mechanization, man-made fertilizers, and irrigation: all currently HIGHly dependent on fossil fuels.
[ February 22, 2009, 01:33 AM: Message edited by: aspectre ]
Posted by PSI Teleport (Member # 5545) on :
Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhh! Zombie thread!
Posted by aspectre (Member # 2222) on :
Punjab is considered to be [India]’s breadbasket, producing about 1 percent of the world’s rice and 2 percent of its wheat...But... ...Haryana, Punjab, and Rajasthan lost about 109 cubic kilometers of groundwater between 2002 and 2008, or about three times the capacity of Lake Mead, the largest reservoir in the United States.
http://www.sciencealert.com.au/opinions/20092809-19879.html "If you added together all the world’s cities and town you’d cover an area of soil half the size of China or the USA with concrete and asphalt. At current rates of growth, the footprint of the ‘world city’ will be larger than either the US or China by 2040. Since cities are, for the most part, located (for historical reasons) in fertile river valleys, it follows they permanently eliminate some of the world’s richest soils."
"...we needn’t even bother to try to settle Mars. For all intents and purposes, Mars will come to us."
Posted by Mucus (Member # 9735) on :
I wondered why if the economy was so lousy everything seemed to cost as much as it always had. About the only thing I'm picking up cheap is clothes. I hope Goldman Sacs doesn't find out about that. It'll be the new frontier.
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Okay, seriously.