How To Feed The World

Dr. Norman Borlaug, who helped create wheat strains in the 1960s that increased the production of farms throughout the world by ten fold, turned 90 last week. This "food hacker", and his fellow agricultural researchers, by launching the "Green Revolution", have done more to feed the world than anyone else before or since. He recently published an essay on the future of the world food supply entitled We can feed the world. Here's how.

Comments

make 10 times more food

[Anonymous Coward]

make 10 times more food and you'll have 10 times more people. Personally I think there is no moral obligation to turn every acre of land over to food production.

The food shortages in the world today have very little to do an overall lack of food.

Re:make 10 times more food

[eglamkowski]

Huh? Today, in 2004, the USA alone has the potential to grow more than enough food to feed every single person on the planet. The problem is one of distribution.

Distribution problems are 100% unrelated to destruction of wildlife and forest, either as cause or effect.

Re:make 10 times more food

[PainKilleR-CE]

make 10 times more food and you'll have 10 times more people.

However (and as was partially stated in the article), in countries with modern food production (which yeilded the 10-fold increase 50 years ago) population growth has generally levelled off to a sustaining rate, rather than increasing the population 10-fold.

Personally I think there is no moral obligation to turn every acre of land over to food production.

The moral obligation referred to in the article is that of reducing or maintaining the amount of land needed for food production in order to preserve as many acres of land not currently used for this purpose as possible. In other words, there is a moral obligation NOT to turn every acre of land over to food production.

The food shortages in the world today have very little to do an overall lack of food.

You're right, they have little to do with an overall lack of food, but rather with a localized lack of food in third world countries. Mexico, much of South America, and much of Africa are seeing more and more land cleared for farms because they do not have modern food production. They also aren't using proper crop rotations, so the land is losing most of its nutrients. In other worlds, areas in which people are already starving are also moving rapidly towards their own equivalent of the US' dust-bowl.

The US and other high-yield countries can continue sending food to these countries, or we can give them the means to use their own farmland to produce more food of their own. As long as they're not paying for the food we ship to them now (which most aren't), the long-term costs of improving their farming methods is significantly lower than sending them food every year. The added benefit is that better farm yields can lead to economic improvements, which lead to more imports of other goods and possibly, eventually, improvements in other areas of production within those countries, pulling them out of third world status.

Re:make 10 times more food

[eglamkowski]

All of them.

Even if we did send it, there's no guanatee it would reach those who need it. Look at Somalia. We tried and failed because local warlords wanted to control the distribution, and they absolutely did not want the US to get the food to everybody.

The problem, again, is distribution. Frequently for political reasons. If they would clean up their own politics so delivery was possible then we might just send more to them. But as long as their governments seek to control distribution for political reasons, there's just no point.

And it's not just Africa - look at Iraq or North Korea, where food was sent, but the leaders hoarded it and used it to reward loyalty and punish disloyalty. Food as a weapon! And you want we should just blindly send more food to such reigmes? I don't think so...

Re:make 10 times more food

[jonadab]

> and how many of the people starving in africa are you going to tell that we
> have the food we just don't send it?

It's true; we have extra food, more than we can possibly use. It sits around
and rots because the supermarkets don't buy it all up in time, and the food the
supermarkets do buy up, a significant portion of *that* sits there (mostly in
their back rooms, but sometimes out in the consumer areas even) until it rots,
because people don't buy it fast enough, and the food that people do buy, more
than half of it doesn't end up going into anyone's stomach, for one reason or
another -- it doesn't get prepared before it goes bad, or once it's prepared
there's more than enough and it doesn't all get put on a plate, or it does get
put on a plate but then it's not all eaten. The *poor* people in Ohio throw
away almost as much food as they eat, and that's just what gets all the way to
the consumer before it gets thrown out.

Restaurants waste even more food than supermarkets. School cafeterias,
*especially* college cafeterias, waste even more than restaurants.

We have plenty of food. More food than we know what to do with. Who do you
know who, if a clearly emaciated person obviously starving came to the door,
would *for lack of extra food* turn the person away? (Some people would turn
them away for other reasons (fear of criminal activity, annoyance at being
interrupted by a total stranger, a dislike for the poor, a worldview that
considers handouts not to be doing the recipient any favors, or cetera), but
here I'm talking about turning them away for lack of any food to spare.)

Further, there are lots of people in the USA who would be happy to donate
food, even purchase food just to donate it, for the warm fuzzy feelings they
get from it. When the public library offers "Food for Fines", wherein people
can pay their fines with the equivalent amount of food, which is then donated
to some community action group, people come out of the woodwork to pay off
fines that they've let stand for months or years. McDonald's would be
pleased (if they were approached correctly) to donate a hundred thousand
Extra Value Meals toward a Solving World Hunger initiative just for the PR
value, and they're not alone.

But shipping donated food to where the starving people are is less than
altogether practicable (much less practical). If the recipients can't afford
food, they *certainly* can't afford the international shipping. On a small
scale, the cost of the international shipping positively *dwarfs* the cost
of the food, so that you feel like you're mostly giving your money to the
shipping company, not to the starving people. On a large scale, the
ecconomics of the shipping would be somewhat less unfavourable, but getting
the scale large enough would almost certainly require government involvement
(which raises budget issues and can upset taxpayers) or a large corporation
(which by the time you consider shipping and organizational overhead can
probably get a larger PR kick by doing something domestically).) And the
problems don't stop when you drop the shipment of food onto the docks. The
starving people are mostly inland, and the transportation infrastructure is
somewhat less developed[1] than around here. So you're looking at probably
using choppers half the time... it gets expensive fast.

Then with any large-scale food import operation there's the issue of making
sure the starving people get to eat the food; in a lot of places this would
require a significant long-term military presence, lest the local thugs[2]
take the food to make feeding their armies a little easier. Of course, a
significant long-term military presence has serious political ramifications;
Various nations (mostly Europe) would not be keen to allow us to keep armed
forces all over Africa on a more-or-less permanent basis. They would make
a big deal publically abo

Uh...

[ichimunki]

Did he ever really answer the question?

All he seems to be doing in this essay is advocating that farmers use modern farming techniques (i.e. synthetic fertilizers and pesticides, mostly). So fine. That's not all that controversial is it? But how does that ensure that the food actually gets to people? How does that ensure efficient use of resources?

Where's the sensible criticism of the bizarre government involvement in the U.S. food supply? Why does he not take issue with price supports and all the other nonsense that makes a gallon of milk cost more here in the heart of dairyland than any two gallons of gas? Why does he not mention vegetarianism, which is far more energy efficient than processing vegetable matter through cows and chickens and pigs? Why does he not talk about the problems that foreign aid and the drug trade produce in many countries, where farmers find it more profitable to be on the dole or to grow drug crops than they do to grow food crops that could feed their coutnrymen?

If the answer were as simple as "use synthetic fertilizer and pesticides", don't you think we would have solved all of this by now?

Re:Uh...

[PainKilleR-CE]

All he seems to be doing in this essay is advocating that farmers use modern farming techniques (i.e. synthetic fertilizers and pesticides, mostly). So fine. That's not all that controversial is it?

Remember a few months ago when a handful of countries were refusing food shipments for fear that some percentage of the crops were genetically engineered? Those are the types of controversies that come from modern farming techniques (though most of what he's talking about is 50+-year old techniques, he does discuss food adapted for the environments). Beyond that, he also points out how much misinformation is widely believed about increasing food production, and the issues with local crops and people wanting to preserve those crops rather than plant higher-yield crops.

But how does that ensure that the food actually gets to people? How does that ensure efficient use of resources?

He is talking specifically about increasing production on land already in use, in third world nations. This gets food to the people specifically by making the production point closer to the people, and by increasing the yields of those local points of production already being used, and depleted, by these people. The efficient use of resources comes from increasing the yields of these farms and decreasing deforestation and other problems (like stripping the nutrients from the soil) that could eventually lead to the farms not producing at all.

Where's the sensible criticism of the bizarre government involvement in the U.S. food supply? Why does he not take issue with price supports and all the other nonsense that makes a gallon of milk cost more here in the heart of dairyland than any two gallons of gas?

Much of that is not needed when you consider that he was addressing part of the reason for the government's involvment in that food supply. If the US weren't supplying food to half the world, we would have little need to have so much involvment in securing that supply. On the other hand, some level of involvment tends to be good to secure our own supply. There's a lot of weird crap going on with that whole system, and pulling the burden off of that system would help with reforms.

Why does he not mention vegetarianism, which is far more energy efficient than processing vegetable matter through cows and chickens and pigs?

Probably because cows, chickens, and pigs are somewhat less likely to be used as large controlled food sources in third world countries, but will instead be used to supplement the diet, being kept by families or communities and allowed much less land than they would be in the US. Vegetarian diets themselves lend problems, as most people that make that choice need to keep a strict eye (at least moreso than someone with a more balanced diet, though it seems most people in the US would be better served seeing a nutritionist regularly) on their own health and diet to prevent malnutrition. Besides, what good is a vegitarian diet in a country where you can not get the vegetables in the first place, even to feed your starving chickens?

Why does he not talk about the problems that foreign aid and the drug trade produce in many countries, where farmers find it more profitable to be on the dole or to grow drug crops than they do to grow food crops that could feed their coutnrymen?

I think you might find that most of those farmers choose to grow drug crops because they find it to be the only way they can keep their farms and their lives, rather than because it's more profitable. Dealing with those situations is often a matter of politics, trying to handle not only the politicians in government, but the real power in those countries, which often lies in the hands of men that will kill farmers that grow food crops until the land falls into their hands.

Most of your questions seem to fall into the realm of politics. The point was simply that, despite how simple it seems to "use synthetic fertilizer and pesticieds", there is a sig

Over-population is real but it begs the question..

[Captain Kirk]

...how come sub-Saharan Africa is almost a desert in terms of people per square mile yet we still talk about over-population? Its because uneducated people need a lot more space to feed themselves than weducated people.

The article addresses one part of a bigger problem. A man who who can't read is unlikely to be a productive farmer, let alone care about the environment. So the West ends up making grants and loans to make up for entire countries of uneducated folk in Africa.

Most of Africa's problem could be eased by education. An educated farmer goes out looking for good seed - you have to stop him from being productive. Its a proven fact that female literacy is THE most effective form of birth control in poor countries. I wish we could see grants towards rural schools in Africa instead of dealing with the symptoms of a poorly educated society, namely low productivity, high birth rates and high environmental degradation.

sustainable?

[Hard_Code]

What about the high cost of advanced pesticides and genetically engineered seeds (especially the ones which produce sterile plants, or for which it is illegal to reuse the seeds from)? Are poor nations supposed to magically get money to pay for this advanced agriculture, or are they supposed to take further loans, or rely on charity? If we really want to help out the third world I think we should exempt them from enforcement of pharmaceutical, pesticide, and bioengineering patents, so they don't have to mortgage decade after decade of their future not to starve now simply to meet some international patent treaty. Is this really a technological problem?

Feed the world?

[TwistedGreen]

Can't the world feed itself?

The real problem with poverty and starvation can't be solved by sending a starving family your leftovers. Sending food their way is just going to alleviate hunger for a few days. This is a band-aid solution that simply isn't sustainable.

The real problem is infrastructure. When a country is constantly in a state of war, when its government is controlled by a dictator who doesn't give a damn about his people, there obviously isn't going to be enough food. People can sustain themselves if they are left alone: people can easily be self-sufficient. But when they are exploited and oppressed in the name of greed and lust for power, when the knowledge of how to be self-sufficient is obliterated, people starve.

We can't feed the world, but we can free the world to feed itself.

Re:Overpopulation is a myth

[Martin Blank]

Politics are the prime reason that proper levels of food don't get produced. If a government wishes to maintain control over its people by keeping them too weak and dependent to overturn the government (either via ballot or gun), it controls the food distribution, and if much of the food comes from outside of the country and is delivered to the government for distribution, then they have a much easier time of it.

They can also go the other way and damage the ability to produce local food, as was done in Zimbabwe, where President Robert Mugabe kicked many of the white farm owners off of their land, turning them over to local blacks who had little or no idea of how to run a farm (including many prime farms that ended up in the hands of relatives and cronies), under the guise of a fair "redistribution" of the land. He has since demanded that the white farmers (many of whom lost virtually everything) assist in the transition, but many of them have basically flipped him the bird and moved to Britain to live with families of their own. Zimbabwe was a food exporter only a few years ago; now millions depend on food handouts because the farmlands lie poorly maintained (if they're used at all), and many are afraid of voting against Mugabe (ignoring the probably rigged elections) for fear of him punishing their regions.

Providing more food may not be the answer

[glawrie]

The general observation that there is sufficient food to feed the current population, if only we could find a equitable way of distributing it, is one thing. But you need to factor in the impact of better food production on future demands too.

Recently there was a TV documentary in the UK to commemorate 20 years since the 'Band Aid' / 'Live Aid' events triggered by famines in Ethiopia. This insightful program (Ethiopia: A Journey with Michael Buerk) by the original reporter who broke news of the famine observed that prior to the famine, the country was able to feed itself (provided the rains came). Twenty years of food aid and the ensuing population explosion later, Ethiopia remains the largest receipient of food aid in Africa, and no longer can produce enough to feed itself even in a year with good rains. There is also apparently an increasing problem with fresh water supplies in the country.

So more food may be part of the answer, but simply providing more food to hungry people does not appear to be the solution. As always, it seems to be much more complex than that.

Remember "We are the world"...

[JGski]

Do you remember the big to-do with the "We are the world", "FoodAid" and all the starving people in Africa back in the 1980s. What most people don't know is that less than 10 miles away from where all the news pictures came from there were government warehouses filled with enough 10x the number of people afflicted.

The only problem was that those starving were either disfavored ethnic minorities/races or innocent civilians living in territory occupied by anti-government guerilla. Food was a weapon, nothing more. The same story continues today.

Green Revolution is Not Sustainable

[iriemon]

The problem with industrial agriculture is that it is reliant on petrochemicals to provide the synthetic fertilizer. It's energy and resource intensive. The fuel is not going to last forever, and the creation of the fertilizer is causing direct harm to the biosphere, which will prevent crop growth no matter how much fertilizer you put on it.

Re:or maybe not

[Kobal]

We do know about it. It's usually called acidification.
It's actually a loss in cation exchange capacity. Along with the exports of vegetable matter out of the growing area goes a lot of Ca and Mg (useful for plants), thus raising the Al+++:[basic cations] in the ground, and incidentally acidity. This directly leads to lowered fertility and even to aluminium toxicity and lateritisation in extreme cases.
The only way to counteract it is to add lime to the ground, which is disruptive to ground microfauna, hence to soil structure.
There are simple solutions, though, letting cattle graze on site instead of exporting fodder out of the fields. Unfortunately, it's not "productive" enough for the modern farmer. In the meanwhile, soil fertility and overall quality is dropping at an alarming rate, with an ever increased use of lime and fertilizers to keep that bloody productivity high.
To sum up with an ugly buzzword, modern farming isn't sustainable.