How We Gonna Feed All Of These People? Domino’s?

Well, that one sentence ( the one about the pizza delivery, not the dead children’s pet, which was just a catchy title to get you to read this part) takes us to one of our new burgeoning problems, one that has the ultimate power of limiting our population far beyond anything else we can do environmentally. How are we supposed to feed all of these people?
Let’s say for the sake of visualization (and because it’s kinda fun) that an outdoor barbeque is symbolic of the Earth’s population. You have a few countries at the table already hogging the potato salad and the hot dogs. You have a few countries that have enough money to pay someone to bring them a plate of food. You have a few guests who are WAYYYY over there with no access to the food, and you have some who bought nuclear weapons to get some burgers. New guests keep showing up at the party, and the amount of hot dogs on the grill is still keeping up, but Momma is hollering for someone to go to the store and get some more potato salad just in case. Sounds like a typical barbeque, except for the nuclear weapons thing, but we will get to that in a second.
With the world’s current economic crisis as well as a redirection of land use for biofuel instead of food crops, this market situation has become critically unstable, particularly in Africa, where 21 out of the 30 critical-level countries are rapidly running out of food and currency to purchase more. Where other countries used to export grains, more and more countries are opting to freeze exports and hoard grains, pushing the market price for a bushel of wheat over $20 in some cases. With developed and developing nations reluctant to remove grain subsidies, the price of food as a commodity is rising quickly out of the purchasing range of the poorest countries. Even in the United States, where we waste about 20% of everything we buy just out of sheer bloody-mindedness, food prices are starting to become an economic hardship. What we have here is a perfect storm, an odd confluence of events that will resonate through the next 100 years of population growth and global economy.

Now, Let’s Go Back To The Hamster

The wheel is still turning, which is symbolic of the basic human need for food. Food, water, shelter, our basic needs as human beings, are not guarantees. A great deal of survival is mostly location and luck, not planning, and nation states take advantage of this. Take a random poor state in Africa, for example. It has teeming fish reserves, a little arable land, and some iron ore. The sensible plan would be to use the fish and land to nurture its population and sell the iron ore. Nah, that would make too much sense. Why not sell the fishing rights of the territorial waters to developed nations, sell the fish at the markets to wealthy countries, and import cheap food and force the farmers out of business instead? That is a much greater challenge than doing it the easy way, and it is also why a lot of countries are facing a food crises now. The only market in the world that makes absolutely no sense whatsoever is the international market for cereal grains. The market leaders in production are interested in padding their profits on top of the substantial government subsidies they already have built into their nation’s budgets, which are financed by selling bonds to developing countries that rely on grain imports for survival. Countries like China and India have the most need for food, and the least amount of arable land. Africa is located perfectly between the huge wheat fields of the Ukraine and the breadbasket of the US, but China pays more for the wheat, so Africa gets the short end of the stick yet again. Toss in Australia’s drought and wildfire problems and Argentina and Kazakhstan hoarding their grain reserves and you have a world wide food shortage. The dead hamster in the room was killed by horrible short term government level economic decisions.

So, What Can I Do To Help?

In all honesty, this problem is one of allocation and planning outside of the market base. What is needed is a world wide food plan that covers everything from fuel crops to oceanic protein harvesting to resource allocation to seed banks. This is not a hard problem to solve on the surface; however, as soon as someone finds a way to screw someone else out of a loaf of bread, then it is over. Remember that family at the barbeque with the nuclear weapons, right? 1/4 of the world’s hungry population lives in India, China, and Pakistan, all of which have nuclear weapons, and if their government feels like they aren’t getting enough potato salad, they might decide to use them. The good news is that we can actually do something about this, the bad news is that we probably won’t. Until our intelligent elected officials decide to do something about it, here are a few things we can do:

* Corn based ethanol is actually just as harmful to the atmosphere as petroleum based fuel when it comes to greenhouse gas emissions. Buy regular gas instead, or purchase a hybrid fuel cell automobile.
* Go grocery shopping, and buy in bulk. Americans are finally headed in the right direction, and we need to keep heading that way. Stay out of restaurants.
* Hearken back to World War One, and remember the Victory Garden. If you can, plant a small garden and grow your own vegetables and fruits.
* Take part in a day of fasting to recognize world hunger. While you may experience a little discomfort, feel better in the fact that the 24 hours you spent without food was a day where over 100,000 children died of starvation.
* The next time you feel an urge to lose weight, do it and keep it off. You owe the rest of the world that much respect.
* Quit smoking. Take the money you save every day from NOT smoking and make a check out to Oxfam, the Salvation Army, Child’s Fund International, or any other charity that can help alleviate hunger.
*The next time a community group or a church has a food drive, participate. Remember: if not for your location and some luck, you might be the one who needs the food.

video :http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=euMG40c4dsE
embed:

video : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pFKhRTC8rI8

embed :