Global food costs hit record

naturelover · #21 02/04/11, 04:40 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by farmergirl

MO cows,
I believe fishhead was referring to the human race as a whole, not specifically to members of this board.

Globally, we are taxing the world's resources. What people don't seem to be able to digest is that resources are finite.

What farmergirl said.

Quote:

Originally Posted by MO_cows

World population growth is a very acceptable term. Telling the good readers of this board they are breeding like insects/animals is not. Let's talk about population growth without throwing around personal insults, what say you?

What say I? I'd say that world population "explosion" is a more appropriate term than "growth", and it's the reason why global food prices are going up. I'd also say that this topic is not directed at you or about you, nor at or about the good readers of this board. So maybe you shouldn't take it upon yourself to be personally insulted on behalf of other readers and get so sensitive and affronted by such a simple generalization.

Quote:

Originally Posted by SquashNut

What is it, we are using up all the resources or we cann't afford them?

It's both. Over population is causing resources to be used up faster than they can be replaced or renewed and that's causing remaining resources to become less affordable.

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sheepish · #22 02/04/11, 05:33 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by naturelover

HIGHLIGHTS IN WORLD POPULATION GROWTH

1 billion in 1804, 2 billion in 1927 (123 years later), 3 billion in 1960 (33 years later), 4 billion in 1974 (14 years later), 5 billion in 1987 (13 years later), 6 billion in 1999 (12 years later). It will be 7 billion in 2011 (12 years later).

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It sounds to me that the rate of increase is slowing: from 3 to 4 billion - a 33 % increase took 14 years, from 4 to 5 - a 25% increase took 13 years, the next 20% happened in 12 years, but 12 years later the increase will only be 17%.

naturelover · #23 02/04/11, 06:29 AM

Sheepish, I suspect China's one child per family policy has had some influence on paving the way for reduced birth rates. That policy was introduced in 1978 and has prevented half a billion births in China from 1979 to 2010. Most first world countries have also had decreases in birth rates in the past 20 years or so but that's been by choice, not by implementation of any policies. Even those urban Chinese immigrants who moved away to first world countries are not having large families. Certainly not here in Canada anyway, the norm seems to be 2 children per Chinese family on average. Same average with Indo immigrants to North America.

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fishhead · #24 02/04/11, 09:37 AM

Glaciers that supply the irrigation water that grows food for a billion people are going to disappear in the next few decades. The same thing for some important aquifers.

Those people are still going to want to eat and will raise demand on existing food supplies.

To make it worse we are adding a billion mouths every 12 years at the current rate.

This equates to less food for a lot more people and that's only one of the factors that I think is going to force a population correction on the human population.

Farmergirl was right about my use of "we" behaving like locusts and I include myself in that "we" even though I got snipped in my early 20's because I could see what was in our future.

fishhead · #25 02/04/11, 10:59 AM

More disturbing news on our food supply.

http://www.startribune.com/world/115241859.html

"A severe drought in northern China has badly damaged the winter wheat crop and left the ground very dry for the spring planting, fueling inflation and alarming China's leaders."

"Food prices have been rising around the world, a result of weather problems in many countries like the unusual heat wave in Russia last summer."

"…and unusually widespread frost has hurt the vegetable crop in southern China."

Bearfootfarm · #26 02/04/11, 11:18 AM

Quote:

Glaciers that supply the irrigation water that grows food for a billion people are going to disappear in the next few decades.

No, they aren't

fishhead · #27 02/04/11, 11:29 AM

Yes those glaciers are receding and at the current rate will disappear in our lifetime taking with them the food supply they produce.

Just because there are a few glaciers on the planet that are growing and others that are receding at a slower pace is irrelevant. The ones that really matter are disappearing at a rate that is going to mean a huge disruption in the global food supply.

Bearfootfarm · #28 02/04/11, 11:34 AM

Quote:

Yes those glaciers are receding and at the current rate will disappear in our lifetime taking with them the food supply they produce.

Repeating it doesn't make it true

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/new...cle7009081.ece

Quote:

The chairman of the leading climate change watchdog was informed that claims about melting Himalayan glaciers were false before the Copenhagen summit,

Quote:

The Himalayan glaciers are so thick and at such high altitude that most glaciologists believe they would take several hundred years to melt at the present rate. Some are growing and many show little sign of change.

oldasrocks · #29 02/04/11, 11:36 AM

Unfortunely fishhead is right. The world is breeding like rabbits. When we send food to areas in need of food we end up feeding them forever. The UN establishes camps which grow in population. We need to educate these people to grow their own food. The camps have increased population from 1 million to 10 million in ten yrs. All these people have to do is eat sleep and breed.

I asked a preacher once. It is better to feed everyone than let a million starve or feed everyone for 10 yrs and let 10 million starve later? He said its natural selection- if an area can't afford to grow the food to feed the people they die off.

We think that we need to save everyone from dying of something be it food or disease. That won't work. It will get to the point we can't feed everyone. It boils down to population control.

Somebody put 50 rats in a cage with all the food they could eat. Soon they overpopulated so much they started eating each other even though there was plenty of normal food to eat.

fishhead · #30 02/04/11, 12:27 PM

bff,

I just read some of those articles. Evidently my initial source was wrong about the timing of the glacial melt. That glaciers are still disappearing albeit at a slower rate. That amounts to spending the capital instead of living on the interest.

That said it still doesn't change the fact that we are breeding like locusts and that our food supply is already tight.

Gabriel · #31 02/04/11, 01:13 PM

"Much food is in the fallow ground of the poor." Solomon

Wags · #32 02/04/11, 02:49 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by fishhead

I think most people value their children a lot and wish them the best future they can but a planet with finite resources can only be cut into so many pieces before people start to suffer from lack of basic needs.

Your world view is flawed - children are not valued in every culture. The poor and uneducated - i.e. the least able to provide for their families - are the ones having the most children. They have been suffering from a lack of basic needs for hundreds of generations but that has not changed their reproductive behavior in the slightest.

Jena · #33 02/04/11, 03:00 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Wags

Your world view is flawed - children are not valued in every culture. The poor and uneducated - i.e. the least able to provide for their families - are the ones having the most children. They have been suffering from a lack of basic needs for hundreds of generations but that has not changed their reproductive behavior in the slightest.

That is because they see kids as their lottery ticket, their chance for family success. They have as many as they can,struggle to keep them alive with the hopes that at least one of them will "make it" and bring the entire family up to a better standard of living.

Give people other opportunities and birth rates decrease.

MO_cows · #34 02/04/11, 04:03 PM

Birth rates seem to be lower in countries where women have rights and are valued. If the status of women could be improved worldwide, birth rates should drop.

fishhead · #35 02/06/11, 12:29 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by MO_cows

Birth rates seem to be lower in countries where women have rights and are valued. If the status of women could be improved worldwide, birth rates should drop.

That's right. A key part of the puzzle of reducing poverty and overpopulation is to give women the right to control their reproduction. This has been shown to be true in multiple countries.

There's a new biocide being developed that destroys the aids virus and can be combined with a spermicide. I believe it's pretty cheap too. If we could get it in the hands of willing women we could get ahead of a lot of misery and prevent it. Hopefully the misguided won't fight it like they did condom distribution in Africa.

NJ Rich · #36 02/07/11, 04:10 PM

WOW

Some one on here forgot their flameproof undies

when coming to General Chat.
How sensative some one is but not above insulting others I guess. croc: