[lotuseclat79]

The Economist article: How to feed the world.

Business as usual will not do it

-- Tom

[iltos]

Originally Posted by lotuseclat79

The Economist article: How to feed the world.

Business as usual will not do it

-- Tom

hmmm....the idea of "feeding the word" always seem to ignore this

Steven Earl Salmony pointed out that according to an article of Russell P. Hopfenberg,

human population dynamics are common to the population dynamics of other species. This means the world's human population growth is a rapidly cycling positive feedback loop, a relationship between food and population in which food availability drives up population numbers, and increasing population fuels the mistaken impression, the misperception, that food production needs to be evermore increased. The data make clear increasing annual global food production gives rise to growing numbers of human beings.

.....the source i took this quote from is not a good one from the standpoint of supporting it's argument....but it does sum up the arguement in a nutshell....and it was the first hit

the writings of daniel quinn were the first i read that dispelled the myth of food production as the answer to hunger.

a noble dream....to feed the world....but a dream just the same, imo

[SlackAli]

Thomas Malthus got it right in my opinion, when the world's population was about one seventh of what it is today:

The power of population is so superior to the power of the earth to produce subsistence for man, that premature death must in some shape or other visit the human race. The vices of mankind are active and able ministers of depopulation. They are the precursors in the great army of destruction, and often finish the dreadful work themselves. But should they fail in this war of extermination, sickly seasons, epidemics, pestilence, and plague advance in terrific array, and sweep off their thousands and tens of thousands. Should success be still incomplete, gigantic inevitable famine stalks in the rear, and with one mighty blow levels the population with the food of the world

The failure of politicians to address the simple fact that there are just too many people will be a source of many doctoral theses in future years - assuming that is there remains a civilisation left to debate such things

[LANMaster]

The greatest social program ever devised is a job.

[ekim68]

Maybe the greatest social program ever devised is abstenence....

[Drabdr]

In the words of the late Sam Kinison:

I’m like anyone else on this planet — I’m very moved by world hunger. I see the same commercials, with those little kids, starving, and very depressed. I watch those kids and I go, ‘man, I know the FILM crew could give this kid a sandwich!’ There’s a director five feet away going, ‘DON’T FEED HIM YET! GET THAT SANDWICH OUTTA HERE! IT DOESN’T WORK UNLESS HE LOOKS HUNGRY!!!’ But I’m not trying to make fun of world hunger. Matter of fact, I think I have the answer. You want to stop world hunger? Stop sending these people food. Don’t send these people another bite, folks. You want to send them something, you want to help? Send them U-Hauls. Send them U-Hauls, some luggage, send them a guy out there who says, ‘Hey, we been driving out here every day with your food, for, like, the last thirty or forty years, and we were driving out here today across the desert, and it occurred to us that there wouldn’t BE world hunger, if you people would LIVE WHERE THE FOOD IS! YOU LIVE IN A DESERT! YOU LIVE IN A FREAKING DESERT! NOTHING GROWS OUT HERE! NOTHING’S GONNA GROW OUT HERE! YOU SEE THIS? HUH? THIS IS SAND. KNOW WHAT IT’S GONNA BE A HUNDRED YEARS FROM NOW? IT’S GONNA BE SAND! YOU LIVE IN A FREAKING DESERT! GET YOUR STUFF, GET YOUR ****, WE’LL MAKE ONE TRIP, WE’LL TAKE YOU TO WHERE THE FOOD IS! WE HAVE DESERTS IN AMERICA — WE JUST DON’T LIVE IN THEM!”

[Drabdr]

World hunger is not just an issue of people not having food to eat. There are much larger issues of cruel Warlords, Politics, poor infrastructure, and sometimes, just an unwillingness to ask.

To me, you need to fix other problems that are greater and integral to World Hunger. Then, the hunger issue can be addressed.

Something as simple as developing the ability to irrigate and water gardens and developing potable water can be a monumental challenge, with many political, cultural, and religious barriers to cross.

[ekim68]

Sam Kinison is not funny and has never studied the encroaching desert history...A question: How are you going to irrigate when fresh water is drying up? Do you know how much of the Colorado River reaches Mexico now? It used to be a major source of their irrigation...

[Drabdr]

Originally Posted by ekim68

Sam Kinison is not funny and has never studied the encroaching desert history...A question: How are you going to irrigate when fresh water is drying up? Do you know how much of the Colorado River reaches Mexico now? It used to be a major source of their irrigation...

Which area of hunger are you speaking of? I was speaking in parts of Africa; I think you meant another. And.... we're both right.

This further illustrates the problem of fighting world hunger.

And... Sam Kinison is funny. To his point... why sit there and starve?

[buffoon]

Originally Posted by Drabdr

Which area of hunger are you speaking of? I was speaking in parts of Africa; I think you meant another. And.... we're both right.

This further illustrates the problem of fighting world hunger.

And... Sam Kinison is funny. To his point... why sit there and starve?

To his point... why sit there and starve?

Kinnison is oversimplifying but you need to do that with jokes, they get killed by complexities.

Coming back to ekim's point, there used to be a time not so long ago when even the Rio Grande wouldn't have reached the Gulf of Mexico if it hadn't been fed from the Mexican side by the Rio Concho. At El Paso it was just a trickle.

There are plenty of world hunger areas where a decent infrastructure is precluded by world bank politics and aid programmes. The down side of globalization so to speak and it's getting more and more difficult to discover any upside.

It's not 1st world politics alone by any stretch of imagination but it's not helping much either.

[TooBad]

Give a man a fish, feed him for a day. Teach him to fish, feed him for a lifetime.'

Why is that so darn difficult to understand??

Yes, buffoon, that is a simplification, but it is the bare essence of the problem. And as to Kinison, you can't fish in the desert!

[Drabdr]

Originally Posted by buffoon

Kinnison is oversimplifying but you need to do that with jokes, they get killed by complexities.

Coming back to ekim's point, there used to be a time not so long ago when even the Rio Grande wouldn't have reached the Gulf of Mexico if it hadn't been fed from the Mexican side by the Rio Concho. At El Paso it was just a trickle.

There are plenty of world hunger areas where a decent infrastructure is precluded by world bank politics and aid programmes. The down side of globalization so to speak and it's getting more and more difficult to discover any upside.

It's not 1st world politics alone by any stretch of imagination but it's not helping much either.

[buffoon]

Originally Posted by TooBad

Give a man a fish, feed him for a day. Teach him to fish, feed him for a lifetime.'

Why is that so darn difficult to understand??

Oh we understand it all right. And so do the powers that be. 'cept there we have the concept of "who do we sell the fish to if the customers can do the fishing themselves?"

Aid is business. World bank business, corporate business, government business.

Yes, buffoon, that is a simplification, but it is the bare essence of the problem. And as to Kinison, you can't fish in the desert!

It's a simplification of the sort "we have the answer to world hunger problems, just make everybody eat more".

Bedu, Tuareq et al used the desert. To trade and raid. But there are farming people on land that used to be arable and is now desert. Telling them to go elsewhere is all very well. But where?

Pointing out that we have deserts in the US and DON'T live in them makes for a sensible argument/demonstration. Trouble is that we DO (back to ekim's Colorado example, whereby we have the Baja California water supply spread in the Nevada desert).

[Paquadez]

Originally Posted by LANMaster

The greatest social program ever devised is a job.

In this context, one might suggest the greatest social program ever devised is a contraceptive......................

Having been involved in some of these issues, over the years, it is easy - far too easy! - to sit in an academic and scatter prescriptives and "Solutions".

Trouble is they tend to be simplistic; and worse holistic: a One Size Fits All philosophy.

Which never works; since different continents and discrete nation states within those continents present with wholly different sets of criteria and thus problems.

One of the main reasons for over-population of Third World countries is the absence of A PENSION.

The average person can never ever earn much more than susbsistence level income throughout their lives: thus cannot "Save for their old age".

Thus rely on multitudes of children, often from a number of wives, to provide home, fire and shelter when they are incapable of working anymore.

[iltos]

Originally Posted by Paquadez

In this context, one might suggest the greatest social program ever devised is a contraceptive......................

Having been involved in some of these issues, over the years, it is easy - far too easy! - to sit in an academic and scatter prescriptives and "Solutions".

Trouble is they tend to be simplistic; and worse holistic: a One Size Fits All philosophy.

Which never works; since different continents and discrete nation states within those continents present with wholly different sets of criteria and thus problems.

One of the main reasons for over-population of Third World countries is the absence of A PENSION.

The average person can never ever earn much more than susbsistence level income throughout their lives: thus cannot "Save for their old age".

Thus rely on multitudes of children, often from a number of wives, to provide home, fire and shelter when they are incapable of working anymore.

hmmmm.....i don't mean to sound analytic here to the point of callousness, but....
aren't you basically laying a 1st world perception onto the 3rd world?....

seems to me it's just as accurate to conclude that during "boom times", when food production and distribution flows better than usual, thoughts turn tenuously to the future.....any future, but particularly one involving kids.

population goes up, outstripping the "best laid plans" to feed everybody.....disease and starvation cycle back up again, sending everybody scrambling back to the drawing board in search of the next round of "solutions"

this myth that somehow, 1st world technology and ethics can break this pattern, works against most other solutions by actually feeding the pattern, allowing us civlized folk to keep our distance, satisfied that we are "doing all we can"

a culture truely dependant on subsistance farming (or even further back -hunting and gathering- regulates its own population for the most part, and develops its own "pension" systems to care for it's older members.

that regulation is not necessarily due to "laws" imposed by society, but is proscribed at its fundamental level by the availabilty of food.