Food production over time

[doom&gloom]

Re: Food inflation

I think you might find it valuable to revisit the parties behind the Club of Rome's "Limits to Growth" and their respective goals.

what does that have to do with the HERE & NOW? Reproductive rates in 1st world countries are low compared to third world, with I believe Japan being the lowest.

I asked you to prove your statement and you come back with the Limits to Growth.

I am aware of the 'Limits to Growth', had listened to Ugi Bardi interviews, et al. That is the FUTURE, not the here and now...

[reggie]

Re: Food inflation

what does that have to do with the HERE & NOW? Reproductive rates in 1st world countries are low compared to third world, with I believe Japan being the lowest. I asked you to prove your statement and you come back with the Limits to Growth. I am aware of the 'Limits to Growth', had listened to Ugi Bardi interviews, et al. That is the FUTURE, not the here and now...

The Club of Rome and the forces behind it are the ones that wish to totally change all our systems of humanity, is it not their, and it's followers, obligation to "prove" it's assertions and claims? By the way, the models are completely unreliable and hence impossible to prove such claims. For example, it's already been shown that models can be devised that create known ourtputs irrespective of the input data. Bottom line, it's not possible to prove any of the assertions being made. So, how do you just the changes that are sought?

[BadJuju]

Re: Food inflation

Mr. Reggie, I am not sure where you are going with this 'Club of Rome' thing. The earth is a finite system. It can only support a certain amount of consumption before it reaches a point where it cannot support any further consumption.

[reggie]

Re: Food inflation

Mr. Reggie, I am not sure where you are going with this 'Club of Rome' thing. The earth is a finite system. It can only support a certain amount of consumption before it reaches a point where its 'patterns' shift.

We don't know this.... and there is simply no way to know this, as science is not a complete & consistent frawework from which to make such sweeping and absolutely predictions. Further, even if such limits existed, we have no idea where such limits might be. One cannot read the material and the pronouncements being made by people who support this view and simultaneously divorce the their goals and the ends that they seek.

Here's a peek into the origination of a Xenophane "convenient fictions", as reflected in the Club of Rome's 1991 First Global Revolution...

In searching for a new enemy to unite us, we came up with the idea that pollution, the threat of global warming, water shortages, famine and the like would fit the bill. All these dangers are caused by human intervention, and it is only through changed attitudes and behavior that they can be overcome.The real enemy then, is humanity itself.”

Or, here's the quote from another version of the same report...

In searching for a common enemy against whom we can unite, we came up with the idea that pollution, the threat of global warming, water shortages, famine and the like, would fit the bill. In their totality and their interactions these phenomena do constitute a common threat which must be confronted by everyone together. But in designating these dangers as the enemy, we fall into the trap, which we have already warned readers about, namely mistaking symptoms for causes. All these dangers are caused by human intervention in natural processes, and it is only through changed attitudes and behaviour that they can be overcome. The real enemy then is humanity itself.”

As Khalid Bey likes to point out, there is one tell tale sign of a perfect hoax – not only non falsifiability, but non verifiability.

[doom&gloom]

Re: Food inflation

I feel like reggie is having a Club for Growth conversation with himself and the rest of us are trying to figure it out.

[cjppjc]

Re: Food inflation

I feel like reggie is having a Club for Growth conversation with himself and the rest of us are trying to figure it out.

Ya think?

[Ellen Z]

Re: Food production over time

What book is that, if you don't mind my asking. I would have never believed it myself a few years ago. I shudder to think how much purslane I ripped out. Its like a magnificent relish when pickled.

I've been growing Golden Purslane from Territorial Seeds for several years. I like it in stir-fries; real enthusiasts chop it up and put it in salads. You can save your own seed. However, I'm cautious about sharing seeds with people, because it IS a weed... you need to keep an eye on it, not let it scatter seeds widely, just stay aware of where it is and where you want it to be. It grows about 18" tall, unlike common purslane that stays low to the ground.
http://www.territorialseed.com/produ...uropean_greens

You might also be interested in
http://www.horizonherbs.com/
which offers seeds of many medicinal herbs as well as cultivated varieties of wild plants...

[Chris Coles]

Re: Food production over time

Just found this thread. Last year I picked 40 lbs of wild Blackberry and 16 lbs of Cob nuts and Hazelnuts. Though with the cold wet spring and summer, not likely to get such a good yield this autumn.

[globaleconomicollaps]

Re: Food inflation

As Khalid Bey likes to point out, there is one tell tale sign of a perfect hoax – not only non falsifiability, but non verifiability.

I'm on the fence about this. On the one hand Club Of Rome, Paul Ehrlich, et. al. are clearly shooting out chemically pure pseudoscience, on the other hand I just posted a nicely thought out piece on energy per capita which clicks pretty well with C.O.R. models. The Club of Rome is clearly motivated by geopolitical self interest. After the failure of their first prediction, I was appalled that the press gave their second book a hearing. The greens and the conservatives can make common cause against the third world, so nobody objects too much at transparently fabricated models.

It seems likely to me that the Club of Rome was put together to whitewash genocide against the "third world".

[Ghent12]

Re: Food production over time

In point of fact, supply and demand as a concept does not include the effects of affordability and distribution. It assumes a perfectly elastic demand and supply curve - neither of which are reality. Affordability for example is a step function, while distribution is a friction function.

The example you offer is flawed because every single one of those locations and prices are first world. In the first world, affordability of food is not a great issue and no one starves to death. The prices you quote are a function of convenience and monopoly. The latter is a form of supply and demand, but clearly demand exerts zero effect on monopoly supply.

In the 3rd world, however, affordability is. People can and do starve even if food is actually available. Distribution also is a real world issue: food may not get to where it is needed for political/racial as well as cost reasons.

Every thing that you said was not a function of supply or demand is, in fact, part of the supply and demand equation or an influence into it. Convenience is a key factor in both demand and supply, for example. Why is Wal-Mart willing to supply 20oz bottles of Pepsi inside refrigerators close to the check-out lines? Because that is where demand for cold beverages is highest, and people are willing to pay far higher unit prices for that convenience. It's raw supply and demand, influenced of course by innumerable factors; but it is still a matter of supply, demand, and their coordination via prices.

The "monopoly" factor does not really account for the prices inside a stadium either. Why else would both Coke and Pepsi be sold at identical (yet high compared to supermarket) unit prices, from multiple different vendors ran by different companies? This happens over and over again at stadiums, fairs, zoos, and other locations. Monopoly may or may not exist, but monopoly pricing? I hardly think so. The core reason for such high unit prices in those locations is the differential between supply and very high demand. Simple fact; when tens of thousands of people flock to a concentrated location, both demand and costs go up. How much does it cost to rent out a booth at a fair or stadium? Such places have very limited real estate compared to their (temporary) population density, hence demand forces prices way up above "normal" that we are used to.

This is universal. It's not limited to the first world; supply and demand tend to coordinate prices everywhere where prices are allowed.

The example was precisely to show how limited the concept of supply and demand is. The other 8 people working is irrelevant if all of the supply in only enough for 10 people, and 8 people's worth of grain is turned into steaks for one.

Your is perfectly applicable for a small group in the context of a world economy, but this is not the same situation as was posited.

If in fact supply is insufficient worldwide, then it doesn't matter how much the poor people work. They're going to starve.

I will definitely agree that distribution is a critical issue when it comes to feeding the world, but distribution is a key supply issue and falls well within the general supply/demand theory.

The small scenario you posit is unrealistic. First and fundamentally, that the supply of food is constrained to feed the exact number of people that there are, that is clearly not the case in reality. Farmland is cleared all over the world constantly, just as some farmland is "returned to nature" somewhere in the world. This is typically due to the price signal of food encouraging people (farmers) to supply more food, or running them out of business. Politics is definitely linked to both farmland clearance and reclamation, but as with most matters in fairly open economies it is the price signal that determines where and how scare resources will be utilized. You are right that farmland (and hence food) is scarce, but in the scenario you postulate, it is entirely plausible that the increased demand for meat will be met with an increase in farmland acreage or efficiency, so long as you do not artificially constrain its creation. Europe had long enjoyed the higher farm outputs on a per acre basis, while America typically has greater output per farmer. This is principally due to the availability of land, which is substantially less in Europe than in America. If the demand for food goes up, there is very little to stop American farms as well as European farms and all farms around the world from increasing their per acre efficiency, leave alone the possibility of increasing acreage.

[doom&gloom]

Food Report: One Harvest Away from a Catastrophe

http://www.financialsense.com/contri...-a-catastrophe

Lots of good stuff and indents and all in there, just hit the link for a good read.

[coolhand]

Re: Food production over time

Couple thoughts I'd add: 1st - what are the calories coming from - if from beef/milk/poultry, there are MASSIVE calories of food going to feed those animals to produce some significantly smaller # of calories. That is changeable, but not immediately.

Secondly - there are a significant # of calories (estimated 10+ calories) of oil in every 10 calories of food in the US.

Any discussion of food availability by nature must include energy - it is a reflexive discussion, Leibig's law of the minimum, etc.

[BadJuju]

Re: Food production over time

Couple thoughts I'd add: 1st - what are the calories coming from - if from beef/milk/poultry, there are MASSIVE calories of food going to feed those animals to produce some significantly smaller # of calories. That is changeable, but not immediately.

Secondly - there are a significant # of calories (estimated 10+ calories) of oil in every 10 calories of food in the US.

Any discussion of food availability by nature must include energy - it is a reflexive discussion, Leibig's law of the minimum, etc.

Actually, the calories of fuel energy for grains generally hovers around 3. It is much, much higher for meat. A whole order of magnitude higher. That is where the distortion comes from. Agriculture really isn't as fuel intensive as some would have you to believe.

[c1ue]

Re: Food production over time

Every thing that you said was not a function of supply or demand is, in fact, part of the supply and demand equation or an influence into it.

I heard this many times, but what it boils down to is: if there are major other factors than demand or supply, then the supply/demand curve is a false reference.

Or put in other terms, if you try to abstract down from 'supply' and 'demand' as the top level abstractions into the components; if said lower level components are not in fact dominated by supply and demand, then the top level names are wrong.

The "monopoly" factor does not really account for the prices inside a stadium either. Why else would both Coke and Pepsi be sold at identical (yet high compared to supermarket) unit prices, from multiple different vendors ran by different companies? This happens over and over again at stadiums, fairs, zoos, and other locations. Monopoly may or may not exist, but monopoly pricing?

You've completely missed the boat here, my friend. Yes, Coke and Pepsi are monopoly (technically an oligopoly) in soft drinks. But the monopoly I referred to wasn't Coke and Pepsi - it was the stadium. In the stadium - it is extremely difficult if not impossible to shop for a soda anywhere but the stadium vendors. Hence the prices charged by the vendors can be very high, and in part because the stadium charges high rent to the vendors. Whatever the precise breakdown, ultimately the cause is monopoly. I say so because there is no lack of supply nor is there exorbitant demand.

This is universal. It's not limited to the first world; supply and demand tend to coordinate prices everywhere where prices are allowed.

...

I will definitely agree that distribution is a critical issue when it comes to feeding the world, but distribution is a key supply issue and falls well within the general supply/demand theory.

You're still treating supply and demand as impersonal forces of reality.

Distribution, monopoly, and so forth are not a function of impersonal forces of reality, there are a function of business (or greed, in many situations).

The 'face of poverty' in Somalia isn't due to food production, it is due to war and displacement from farms/property. Where do political, ideological, and similar prerogatives exist in the 'supply and demand' space?

To bring this closer to home - we can look instead at corn ethanol. Corn prices - far from being objectively valued for their worth in ethanol vs. food export, were driven by massive subsidies both direct and indirect.

Is this then 'supply and demand'?

[reggie]

Re: Food production over time

I'm on the fence about this. On the one hand Club Of Rome, Paul Ehrlich, et. al. are clearly shooting out chemically pure pseudoscience, on the other hand I just posted a nicely thought out piece on energy per capita which clicks pretty well with C.O.R. models. The Club of Rome is clearly motivated by geopolitical self interest. After the failure of their first prediction, I was appalled that the press gave their second book a hearing. The greens and the conservatives can make common cause against the third world, so nobody objects too much at transparently fabricated models. It seems likely to me that the Club of Rome was put together to whitewash genocide against the "third world".

CoR's "Revolution" is Global, they even clearly tell us so. Hence, while the genocide may have started in the "third world", by leveraging the first, the genocide is most certainly targeted at the "first world" as well. The primary difference is one of technique, where the attack on the "third world" is more visible to the common man, the attack on the "first world" employs scientific techniques unfamiliar to all but those trained in them. A walk thru any US grocery store can reveal the depth and breath of the attack.

I feel like reggie is having a Club for Growth conversation with himself and the rest of us are trying to figure it out.

I'm not sure what in the previous post caused you to hit the eject button, but I was only quoting from CoR publications. However, I do realize that I've been given the opportunity to rewire my brain, and have taken full advantage of that gift. I seem to now have more in common with the average homeless man on the street than I do with others. Sorry, sometimes it's hard to me to relate.