Monday, Nov 26, 2007
Malthus may have been right after all
The Telegraph: Biofuel and diet sow seeds of farm crunch
Mankind is outrunning its food supplies. Hunger - if not yet famine - is a looming danger for a long list of countries that are both poor and heavily reliant on farm imports, according to the Food Outlook of the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO).
Posted by sold 2 rent 1 @ 09:52 AM (383 views) Add Comment
4 Comments
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1. stillthinking said...
Unlike other more sensible countries, who allow limited immigration to skilled workers typically with children at or below replacement level, the UK supports immigration of unskilled labour that typically have large families. Fortunately this article implies that we will be able to import cheap food for ever.
The hpc currently in action is really only going to benefit the average income buyer currently priced out, and will not help those on lower incomes. People on lower incomes are affected by immigration as they are competing for the same, limited band of housing. All of the talk that 3 million + people over the last decade doesn't matter against a population of 60 million misses the point that they need the housing currently used by the lowest earning 5 million of the group (the bottom 25% of tax payers). This is an enormous impact.
Similarly, given that we only grow 30-40% of our food, in terms of our own food supply, there is also an enormous impact. Put it another way, generously call our own food 50% of our requirements and the impact of the immigrant population on domestic food is effectively that of double their population should external food sources become more expensive. As they, in fact, are.
2. sold 2 rent 1 said...
"Rich countries will not starve. But as Japan's Marubeni Institute warns, they may face a return to post-War food rationing long before the world population peaks in the middle of the century."
The problem is the banking system, which relies on perpetually increasing debt, has managed to survive with the occasional depression or 2, mainly through continuous population expansion. Peak population spells the end of our debt-based banking system.
With peak oil, peak food, peak water and peak debt; I can't see the population waiting until 2050 before it peaks.
Things are looking very serious for the immediate future.
3. shipbuilder said...
Stillthinking - I don't think this should be looked at as a national problem, which is why i've always thought that the whole immigration nonsense is a red herring and unnecessarily devisive - we are facing an international problem here with resources which needs to be looked at from an international standpoint. The fundamental cause of it, as S2R1 says, is an economic and monetary system that relys on constant growth to survive. We're way beyond 'send the immigrants back home and look after ourselves'.
The UK produces nowhere near enough food to look after ourselves and our expectations borne of a priveleged western lifestyle. Concentrating on immigration is simplistic and gives an impression of an easy solution.
Neither will the reality be as pleasant as these reports make out - can you really see westerners tolerating food rationing? The third world will starve, and we will be complicit in it - wars will be fought and laws brought into being to protect our lifestyle at all costs - THEN any threats you currently see will be magnified beyond belief.
Unless we completely change our way of thinking, we will be like a gated community with supplies brought in by armed guard. Who wants that?
4. Tom101 said...
War. No other way out is there really?!!?