Malthus Redux?
Back in March, I posed the question of whether the growth of a new middle class in the developing world was going to stress the world's capacity to provide food and fuel. At that time Light crude was selling for $85 a barrel and there were no food riots in Egypt, Pakistan, India, Thailand and Sudan. Yesterday, The New York Times weighed in on this question. They presented a balanced view on both sides of the story, concentrating more on the food issue than the fuel.
The whole world has never come close to outpacing its ability to produce food. Right now, there is enough grain grown on earth to feed 10 billion vegetarians, said Joel E. Cohen, professor of populations at Rockefeller University and the author of "How Many People Can the Earth Support?" But much of it is being fed to cattle, the S.U.V.'s of the protein world, which are in turn guzzled by the world's wealthy.
This is all very comforting, but are we all going to turn into vegetarians?
So they try another angle, which sounds more reasonable: plant more land.
Anyone who has ever flown across the United States can see how that's possible: there's a lot of empty land down there. The world's entire population, with 1,000 square feet of living space each, could fit into Texas. Pile people atop each other like Manhattanites, and they get even more elbow room.Water? When it hits $150 a barrel, it will be worth building pipes from the melting polar icecaps, or desalinating the sea as the Saudis do.
On the other side of the issue are agronomists like Dr. Harriet Friedman who say our industrial food system is part of the problem, not part of the solution.
Dr. Friedmann argues that there is a Malthusian unsustainability to the way big agriculture is practiced, that it degrades genetic diversity and the environment so much that it will eventually reach a tipping point and hunger will spread.
There are three part of the U.S. food business, I think we really need to look at. First we have to stop subsidizing our agriculture. By pouring billions into the pockets of Cargill and Archer Daniels, we distort the world price of Wheat, Corn, Soy, Rice and Cotton and we make it impossible for farmers in the developing world to compete or grow more than subsistence crops. Second, as the cost of oil rises, big industrial farming that needs lots of oil inputs not only for machinery but for fertilizers, will have less of an advantage over smaller scale organic farming, especially in the fruits and vegetables categories. Where I live, the local farmers markets, three times a week are very popular and clearly the value for what you pay is outstanding.
Finally, I think we really do need to look at the role commodity speculation is playing in price distortion. We have known of the developing world's need for more food and fuel for years. Why did the commodities charts develop the hockey stick only in the last six months? Because as the stock market fell, there were $trillions looking for a new rising market and that market was commodities. The defenders of speculation say the huge new capital flows into the commodity markets are making them more liquid and therefore it is a plus for the airline that needs to hedge fuel prices or the farmer who needs to hedge corn prices. The problem is that as the dollar falls, most of this new money is flowing into the "buy-side" contracts of which there is a limited supply. Like any Econ 101 student, we know what happens in that situation. I think the solution is that if you are not willing to take possession of a commodity, you shouldn't be able to play in the futures market.
Ultimately this whole issue is one of the most vexing ones we will face in the next half century. We clearly have a lot more land that could be planted to feed the world. As to oil, I think the Peak Oil theorists are right. For Americans, we are going to have to live a more frugal and less wasteful lifestyle. We have to raise the urgency of moving to alternative fuel sources like wind, solar, and even nuclear if we are to avoid a Malthusian doomsday scenario.
I find it interesting that this article, and others on the population and food crisis, look to the short end of the stick e.g. producing more, better foodstuffs and increasing the supply of potable water.
An expanding population puts pressure on every resource, energy, minerals not just food, and water. While crops are a renewable resource, oil and minerals are not. You talk of subsidies to agribusiness in the US, but not to family child tax deductions. The big end of the stick is indeed an expanding population clambering for reduced resources: so what ever happened to zero population growth? Few if any articles are written on ZPG and no government I’m aware of, except the Peoples Republic of China has instituted a ZPG program. The worlds population needs to change the definition of family and worth and realize the dim future of an overpopulated earth.
June 16, 2008 12:47 PM | Reply | Permalink
so what ever happened to zero population growth? Few if any articles are written on ZPG and no government I’m aware of, except the Peoples Republic of China has instituted a ZPG program.
Most of the developed world already has sub-replacement birth rates, so ZPG is their de facto policy.
The US would have near ZPG if it weren't for immigration, so we're already pretty well covered there.
It's the developing world where ZPG is an issue.
June 17, 2008 9:31 PM | Reply | Permalink
I'd urge people to step into the world of the dystopian future history and have a look at John Brunner's The Sheep Look Up for a preview of the next couple decades.
Not pretty, really, for anyone with the capacity for visualization.
June 16, 2008 1:16 PM | Reply | Permalink
A Baltimore Sun report on Cuba's "urban farms" instituted during the 'Special Period" following the fall of the Soviet Union and the end of its subsidies to the Cuban economy.
June 16, 2008 2:06 PM | Reply | Permalink
Cubans also spend 2/3 of their income on food. Only in America is their food situation seen as some sort of utopia. If given the choice between cheaper food and forcibly imposed organic produce, which do you think Cubans would choose? Heck, if you were struggling to get by, which would you choose?
June 16, 2008 2:41 PM | Reply | Permalink
You missed the point, though given your other contributions I'm not surprised.
The point is simply that when faced with food shortages the Cubans figured out that just about all of the fruits and vegetables consumed in a city could be produced their.
Your whole "utopia" nonsense is an irrelevant, ideological red herring.
June 16, 2008 2:47 PM | Reply | Permalink
I was referring to a bit more than what was covered in that article. Cuba is often pointed to by environmentalists as a utopia because they feed their population organically, but what I'm pointing out is that it's imposed due to extreme circumstances and the cost results in a far less than utopian experience for the Cuban consumer. And the same goes for urban farming, which is happening (and is economically viable) in a completely rigged and dire system that is not necessarily easily reproduced in the rest of the world, despite the cool factor inherent in urban farming.
June 16, 2008 3:10 PM | Reply | Permalink
I think the Cuban model is easily reproduced elsewhere, even here in the USA. I just recently read an article of how some fellow in some suburb somewhere had enraged his neighbors by cultivating his lawn area, and those of some of his neighbors, to plant food producing crops. Not only producing locally grown food but reducing the amount of weed and feed, and other such chemical lawn care products, poisoning the environment.
Folks in USA suburbs, it seems, could produce and preserve all of the fruits and vegetables (and even chickens and rabbits) they would need for a year if they felt the economic necessity to do so.
You're right, Cubans are producing food in their cities out of economic necessity but the benefit has not only been an increase in daily caloric consumption. It has also raised the standard of living of the 350,000 working the urban farms.
June 16, 2008 3:34 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yes, regionalism and farmer's markets are good in a lot of ways. It encourages eating quality rather than quantity. Regional produce, cheeses, and such are almost universally far higher quality and more flavorful.
For example, the tomatoes from most supermarkets are horribly bland and flavorless. They're bred to be mass produced and shipped, sacrificing nutrients and flavor. Truly awful. Sour, bland, antiseptic smelling, rubbery. They almost have to be covered in condiments to be edible.
One doesn't realize how bad they are until you eat an organic locally produced tomato, of a variety actually bred for flavor and ripened properly. A good tomato is so flavorful you can bite right into it and eat like a peach, or plan a lite and simple healthy meal around it. Which is hard for people used to bad tomatoes to believe.
Take for example the traditional Neapolitan pizza margherita vs a typical American pizza.
For a margherita you have a thin crust. The cheese is high quality mozzarella made from buffalo's milk, very flavorful and fresh, locally produced. The tomatoes are locally grown in fertile soil and also very flavorful. Add some basil, that's all it takes. Still fairly healthy for pizza, still delicious, regionally produced.
On a typical American pizza the ingredients are low quality and bland flavored, mass produced, processed, filled with preservatives for shipping and shelf life. So you have to heap them on to maximize what little flavors there is. Bland flavorless cheese excessively heaped on. Low quality and greasy salami and sausage. Low quality tomatoes with little tomato flavor that requires a lot of salt.
**
Economically and culturally regional farming is a lot better too. It connects farmers directly to consumers through farmers markets, encourages awareness of growing seasons, and more of the purchase price goes directly to the farmer and then back into the local community.
June 16, 2008 8:56 PM | Reply | Permalink
btw, these microwavable "food products" like "pocket pizzas" and shit like that, are like the crack cocaine of the suburbs.
Horribly low in nutrients, fiber, or anything a body needs to be healthy. Filled with the worst fats, sugar, salt, and everything you'd give a kid if you were intentionally trying to kill him or her slowly. May as well dip a loaf of wonderbread in a vat of melted processed cheese, and feed that to a kid, since its basically the same thing.
How many parents stock the fridge with them so the kids can quickly eat one (or several) over a commercial break, without hardly having to leave the sofa?
It's disgusting.
June 16, 2008 9:25 PM | Reply | Permalink
btw, the food "manufacturing" industry, as well as the food retailing industry, are also to blame for our dilemma, and heavily lobbies Washington to maintain the status quo.
The basic problem is that large corporate food manufacturing conglomerates seek profits by doing everything in top-down manner and in a highly standardized manner.
They purchase fungible "foodstuff" commodities like corn syrup, develop recipes in corporate labs, and ultimately turn out highly profitable processed foods like "pocket pizzas" manufactured in vast quantity in factories, and then shipped across the country to regional distribution hubs that sell to vast supermarket conglomerates who buy these products in lots of millions of units at a time.
You can't do that with high quality produce, because it's seasonal and not durable enough to withstand the shipping.
The same problem exists with large producers of meats and poultry.
Large food conglomerates are only profitable and justifiable when producing food on an industrial level which makes high quality all but impossible. They rely on durable, processed, fungible "foodstuff" commodities like corn syrup to churn out foodproducts millions of units at a time.
June 16, 2008 11:27 PM | Reply | Permalink
So the solution to our food problems is to end subsidies for US agriculture to allow countries halfway around the world to ship their agriculture to us on oil-guzzling ships while taking advantage of dubious labor and environmental laws and who turn around and slap tariffs on US agriculture to support their own agricultural industries?
Um, no thanks.
Sometimes there's something to be said for the status quo. It's absurdly popular for urban wonks to make sweeping statements like "end the subsidies!" when the EU and Japan has even more subsidies than we do, and while the third world distorts their own markets with robust tariff and foodstock hoarding.
The subsidy system is imperfect and needs to be fixed, but to just wave your hand and say "end subisidies" without any more specificity is the type of urban CW that is dying to be punctured.
June 16, 2008 2:09 PM | Reply | Permalink
I forgot to mention the appalling contradiction in your article between angst about the price of food and the idea that the solution in America is high-priced locally grown organic produce.
Shades of Marie Antoinette. Let them eat at farmer's markets!
June 16, 2008 2:11 PM | Reply | Permalink
Why shouldn't farmers live and die with the market, without subsidies (especially since subsidies are paid primarily to rich "farmers"); and why shouldn't consumers pay the true cost of the food they consume?
June 16, 2008 2:17 PM | Reply | Permalink
You mean like the oil companies and the airlines and all of the million other industries that are directly and indirectly subsidized by governments around the world?
But aside from that schoolyard argument, I think it depends on what world you want to live in. If you're comfortable with a country like China decimating the environment and its workers to produce very cheap food of questionable quality, sure, let the market run rabid. Because except for the lucky people who eat at farmer's markets and choose organic produce, the entire rest of the world chooses their food based on price. And countries that didn't give a crap about labor and environmental laws would inevitably be the ones who won in a non-rigged playing field.
I'd rather have a situation where American farmers, who obey the strictest environmental laws in the world, are supported to some degree. The subsidy program has manifold flaws, but I think we all benefit from the strength of US agriculture and the laws we have here.
June 16, 2008 2:29 PM | Reply | Permalink
I think your argument is incomprehensible. Farmers in poorer nations, other than the rich exporters, generally engage in much more environmentally friendly farming practices than do subsidized USA farms.
USA subsidies, as an example, are forcing local, corn growing Mexican farmers out of their subsistence employment, as they can't afford to produce corn as cheaply as Cargill et al can grown subsidized corn in the USA and ship it to Mexico. Many of those Mexicans left for the USA. Though perhaps the increasing fuel prices may change the situation.
If there were no subsidies for industrial farming of, particularly, grain and legume crops for export, perhaps the land used to grow such would be used to grow fruits, vegetables, and meat for more local consumption.
Additionally, if the food markets weren't perverted by subsidies farmers would respond to market demands rather than to their desire for subsidies.
June 16, 2008 2:45 PM | Reply | Permalink
No need to get all pissy, goodness.
I think we're talking about several different things here. You're right that cheap and industrial food is forcing out subsistence farmers who are organic because they can't afford pesticides, and that's a shame for those individuals, but that is not necessarily something that's solely because of subsidies. Even if there were not subsidies industrial farmers would still be largely able to undercut because of scale (just as a factory can undercut an artisan), and there's still some benefit overall to low food prices created by industrial farming -- the recent food shock notwithstanding, the world is more hunger free than it ever has been.
And maybe we'll see more of a shift to more locally grown produce in the era of expensive oil since there will be a new economic edge as a result of shipping costs. But for the foreseeable future, in order to feed the world we're going to increasingly be relying on industrial agriculture, and I still think the US has a better system in place than others, and that US agriculture should be protected to some degree. On the industrial level we have the best laws and most protections in place, and that's what I was referring to in my earlier post.
June 16, 2008 3:05 PM | Reply | Permalink
I see nothing "pissy" about my post to which you responded. However, you're response above with its gratuitous Cuba as "utopia" cliche is ample reason to get pissy.
June 16, 2008 3:18 PM | Reply | Permalink
Is that so? Care to name a few examples? The old (poorer) Soviet Union was said to be a poster enviromental sisaster.
June 16, 2008 3:47 PM | Reply | Permalink
I live in Mexico and have spent lots of time in Cuba.
Local small farmers in both places, and presumably in other similarly economically situated places, utilize animal power and animal manure and compost as fertilizer, rather than fuel consuming equipment and chemical fertilizers.
Traditional Mexica coffee growers, in Veracruz, Oaxaca, and Chaipas, (as elsewhere in Latin America) typically grow coffee as an understory crop, below the forest canopy, often interspersed with banana trees. The coffee berry pulp is often composted and used to fertilize the coffee bushes.
Coffee grown in Vietnam (lower quality Robusta beans), at the encouragement of the IMF and WB, is grown in lowland plantation from which the forest has been removed; and, since the coffee bushes do not benefit from the nutrients contained in the falling tree leaves, more chemical soil supplements are required.
The birds and soil prefer the Latin American coffee growing model.
Then there was the Cuban farmer I met who tended his bean plot by hand, producing 200 kilos of beans from 20 kilos of seed, and threshing the beans from their pods by hand.
There are just a few examples. By the way Russia and the erstwhile Soviet Union are not included in my definition of poor nations.
June 16, 2008 4:11 PM | Reply | Permalink
"utilize animal power"
What is it about poverty that is so attractive? Crops produced with mussle power are costly to the point of virtually ensuring poverty. Poverty is not environmentally friendly.
June 16, 2008 5:09 PM | Reply | Permalink
June 16, 2008 5:50 PM | Reply | Permalink
(this should have appeared in the previous comment)
When compared to agribusiness practices?
Diesel, ethylene glycol, brake fluid, hydraulic fluid, RoundUp, dieldrin, pollen that kills beneficial insects ...
June 16, 2008 5:52 PM | Reply | Permalink
You asked for examples of "environmentally friendly farming practices". That's what I gave you.
If you wanted to discuss poverty you should have asked.
You have used a very common, and dishonest, discussion technique. That is, arguing with an answer by changing the subject.
June 16, 2008 6:13 PM | Reply | Permalink
I wouldn't get too excited about the Son of the Prophet, although he cannot spell 'muscle' at least he has desisted from putting his little ditty 'the Son of the Prophet is noble and brave....' on every post.
Clearly, the 'poverty' stricken muscle driven Mexican farmer will be less impacted by the rise in oil/transportation costs than we will with our industrialized food production/distribution system in the USA.
June 16, 2008 9:04 PM | Reply | Permalink
As a matter of fact, poverty is very much more environmentally friendly than is USA and Western European consumerism.
The fact you would assert otherwise indicates you you're just looking for an argument.
Just go look at fuel per capita consumption rates or garbage production rates, or any number of other indicators of environmental impact indicators.
June 16, 2008 6:20 PM | Reply | Permalink
I woudn't say poverty is environmentally friendly or infer from that we should be more impoverished to be more environmentally friendly. That's rather obtuse and a non sequitur, to say the least.
Africans decimating species and ecosystems, such as bush meat and over fishing, as well as developing unsustainable export products typically higher in the food chain, due to poverty and population growth, is hardly environmentally sound. In the long term it's suicidal for them as they devastate ecosystems they're heading towards am ecological collapse and famine.
Having said that, we're making many of the same mistakes in the wealthy developed world but using unsustainable practices, and have much less of an excuse considering we've moch more education and choice in the matter, and setting a poor example.
By decimating fish stocks and destroying ecosystems, while becoming increasingly reliant on subsidized cash crops such as nutrient poor corn, which then makes our entire food supply of meats and poultry (all corn fed) vulnerable to disaster and nutrient poor.
France and Germany are some of the better examples of government and cultural support of sustainably produced meats, produce, and dairy, often organic, free range, and local. Though they're far from perfect either.
June 16, 2008 10:40 PM | Reply | Permalink
Chris Brown,
I agree. I also know what you're saying is true having looked into those issues myself. The people arguing with you don't know what they're talking about.
The main problem with so much of the existing agribusiness (but not all) and cash crops for export, is they often focus on producing a high yield, but terribly low quality crop, relying on the ignorance of the buyer, as well as the marketing power of the parent corporation to place products in large corporate owned market chains.
For example, as you cite, often forests will be cleared in some regions to produce a cash crop like coffee. The coffee itself is unavoidably of a of a lower quality. That's because most crops thrive in diverse ecosystems maintaining the entire ecology of the forest, wildlife, birds, insects, etc. All of which combine to produce nutrient rich soils and are more sustainable.
The crops designed to exist in entirely homogeneous regions tend to be designed first and foremost for that purpose, sacrificing other qualities like flavor and nutrition.
Large agribusiness favors these crops because they're easily commodified and placed in chain stores in large scale scale deals. Ironically, it's the large yield of low quality product that makes them so popular from a business perspective, on the supply and distribution side.
June 16, 2008 10:24 PM | Reply | Permalink
Nonsense. I lived in China for 6 months and found the food of excellent quality. Their chicken is clearly superior to American chicken (they never abandoned 'free range' rearing practices). They did not have the variety that we have, but what they had was quite good.
June 16, 2008 4:11 PM | Reply | Permalink
Speaking of chickens, the eggs in Mexico, which come in a carton at the grocery store, are far superior than those in the cartons at USA grocery stores. They have much darker, richer yolks.
Additionally, in general the fruits and vegetables available here, from any of the local mom and pop type storefronts every block or two here(access to which requires no driving)are of better quality than those found in USA grocery stores.
June 16, 2008 6:26 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yep. Like I was saying in the thread, the corn we subsidize is a shitty variety designed for large quantities of starch (sugar) and low in nutrients. It's totally different from the sweet yellow variety we think of as corn, and is basically inedible. It has to be processed into corn syrup or feedstock.
It's also horribly low in nutrients.
Chickens raised on low grade corn feedstock are themselves unhealthy, and both their meat and eggs are also nutrient deficient.
That's why so much of the eggs we produce are a lousy pale yellow color and have none of that good, custardy, egg flavor. A chicken raised on a "free range" diet of bugs, seeds, and the things ground birds normally eat, are much higher in nutrients and have yolks a darker orange color.
June 16, 2008 9:30 PM | Reply | Permalink
Why should Egypt be importing US Wheat? I doubt the Egyptians will get to the point that they will cost effectively be able to export wheat. But at least the local farmers can make a living off their domestic market
June 16, 2008 2:46 PM | Reply | Permalink
Beef production does use an inordinate amount of grains, that are edible as is, by humans. Remember, bread is the staff of life. However, beef isn't the only meat that is edible by humans. And, humans don't require meat with every meal to be healthy.
Population growth is certainly a big part of the food shortage problem, but much of the rise in population occurs as health care improves. You can depress population growth either by lowering the birth rate or by reducing the life span. Nature does both, but we interfere with that process. Of course I'm not opposed to doing that.
As far as growing food on a lot more of our vast empty tracts of land goes, farming is only practical on arable land, which is almost entirely in use in the world. If water costs $150 a gallon we would certainly have more water, but that wouldn't translate into more food. Who could buy a $500 potato?
June 16, 2008 2:35 PM | Reply | Permalink
I think, and I'm certainly no authority on the subject, the most significant causes of hunger are political, such as civil wars and other civil tumult which disrupt the ability of farmers to ply their trade.
June 16, 2008 3:21 PM | Reply | Permalink
Actually, the "corn" fed to cows is basically inedible. It's all processed into "foodstuffs" like corn syrup of corn based feedstock for livestock. It's very different from sweet corn, or other forms of corn intended for direct consumption.
The vast majority of corn grown (and subsidized) in the US, is a GMO variety to engineer huge yields of starch (sugar) but which is otherwise basically inedible. It's also terribly nutrient poor.
And has a cascade effect in our food supply as we feed cows nutrient poor feed produced from this nutrient poor crappy corn. It makes for very unhealthy and obese cows who would soon die a premature death if they weren't slaughtered. the meat is also low in nutrients and high in the worst fats. Also, because cows aren't evolved to eat corn it gives them horrible digestive problems which cause them to be diseased and require enormous amounts of antibiotics just to stay alive long enough to be slaughtered.
Then, people who eat large quantities of this nutrient poor meat, high in the worst sorts of fats, also become nutrient impoverished and put on large quantities of fat.
The corn we're subsidizing is truly awful. Most everything we eat is high in calories coming from corn syrup and other processed "foodstuffs" derivative of corn, and consequently high in the worst ingredients like bad fats and cholesterol, while being nutrient deficient.
It really is tragic. A large part of the obesity epidemic is due to large quantities of crappy corn based "foodstuffs."
June 16, 2008 9:16 PM | Reply | Permalink
Chris: Food is absolutely vital to human existance; it only takes a few days without it to have disastrous effects. Could it be that governments around the globe don't really trust nor can they count on a totally free market for food. It might cause wildly fluctuating supplies and prices (because of bad weather or speculation for example)which could lead to shortages and or unaffordable prices for the masses and that would lead to massive social unrest (to put it mildly). Hungry/starving people have a tendancy to become violent.
June 16, 2008 2:47 PM | Reply | Permalink
I believe, in general, subsidies, as they certainly are in the USA, are aimed at increasing exports, not at ensuring a local food supply. And subsides of grain and pulse exports displace local farmers from their lands who move to the cities, or immigrate, in search of employment.
USA corn subsidies have certainly so displaced many Mexican farmers.
June 16, 2008 2:55 PM | Reply | Permalink
Chris: Government subsidies of agriculture seems to be a woldwide practice. Do you also believe that governments around the world have the same export motive?
June 16, 2008 3:02 PM | Reply | Permalink
I'd also like to hear Chris' perspective on the export restrictions imposed by countries like India, China, and Vietnam.
June 16, 2008 3:13 PM | Reply | Permalink
As I indicated elsewhere here I am no authority on this subject. However, I suppose in many cases subsidies are intended to protect local producers and markets.
Export restrictions, it seems, are intended to ensure that locally produced food needed to feed the nation's population is not exported. Such I think is now occurring in some rice producing nations, such as Vier Nam.
June 16, 2008 3:26 PM | Reply | Permalink
I am no authority in this area either but this subsidies business is interesting.
The author states that "First we have to stop subsidizing our agriculture.By pouring billions into the pockets of Cargill and Archer Daniels, we distort the world price of Wheat, Corn, Soy, Rice and Cotton and we make it impossible for farmers in the developing world to compete or grow more than subsistence crops."
What kind of subsidies is he referring to?
(1) If it is payments not to grow crops, thereby restricting supply and causing a price increase, then there will be less to export, (unless there is so much grown even with the restrictions, that there will still be enough to export at a price so low that foreign farmers cannot compete).
(2) The other possiblilty I see is that the government tells the domestic growers to go ahead and grow as much as they can and the government guarantees a price high enough to make it profitable, in which case there will be a overabudance grown and we can flood the world market and crush the farmers in the developoing world.
It seems that type (2) would be more successful. You have more knowledge on the type of scheme(s) the govt and big ag have got going.
I puposely did not address export restrictions; that is for another day.
June 16, 2008 6:35 PM | Reply | Permalink
It's number 2.
The US government has served to protect and promote the profits of its businesses since the inception of our nation. Agricultural subsidies further that service.
The first use of USA military forces was to dispatch marines to defeat the Barbary Pirates who were hijacking shipments of USA products.
As President Wilson put it:
and
June 16, 2008 10:10 PM | Reply | Permalink
I ran across this web sitewhich addresses the issue of subsidies, though I haven't looked through it.
June 16, 2008 10:20 PM | Reply | Permalink
Subsidies and regulation can accomplish very different goals.
US subsidy of low quality, inedible, nutrient deficient corn, which is then processed into corn syrup and corn feed for animals, is all about corporate agribusiness profits. It's very difficult to make a large profitable corporate business out of heirloom tomatoes, despite their being very flavorful and nutritious. It's much easier to do so from an inedible starch like commercial corn, which is then processed into syrup that can be sold on the market to make various "foodstuffs." These corporate interests lobby Wasington to keep subsidies flowing.
By comparison, France and Germany tend to regulate food standards more for nutrition, and also for impact on communities. For example, French governmental policies encourage the production of small scale and local farming of organic produce, fresh cheeses made locally, etc. These policies have a several positive effects:
1) There is less corporate overhead and middle men. Profits go directly to local farmers who then reinvest directly in their local economy.
2) Foods produced in this way are much higher in nutrients, of a higher quality, and more flavorful. This has positive effects on regional diet and health as people generally eat less, though enjoy more, when eating higher quality foods.
3) Foods produced locally are easier on the environment. They require less fuel to transport. Unlike monoculture farming of commercial cash crops, they end to be more sustainable by preserving a diversity of crops and an entire ecosystem, using old ways of crop rotation and using natural means such as symbiotic bugs to control pests, hence they also have less pesticides.
Wikipedias sustainable farming page, which lays out some of the basic concepts:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sustainable_farming
June 16, 2008 10:56 PM | Reply | Permalink
It's not just exports, though that's part of it. It's primarily for corporate agribusiness profits in the domestic market. Keep in mind that the US is so large, state to state shipping within the US requires a product robust enough to be transported a distance that would qualify as an "export" in Western Europe.
The primary goal of large scale US agribusiness is that a homogeneous product like corn and soy based "foodstuffs" are commodifiable and fungible in ways a locally produced product, like a local heirloom tomato or fresh milk cheese, can never be. They'd never survive the shipping and it would be too tempting to cut quality.
Scale and quality are usually mutually exclusive when it comes to cash crops. And corporate agribusiness profits are, presently, derived entirely from scale.
Large scale, high profit, low quality.
That's the main thing to understand about why our food is so lacking in quality and nutrition.
June 16, 2008 11:07 PM | Reply | Permalink
After further thought I would also indicate that food production that is dispersed amongst many small producers would, it seems, be less susceptible to the disruptions such as bad weather or disease, and certainly less so than disruptions by speculation since small producers don't vend through commodities markets, such as does ADM et al.
June 16, 2008 6:29 PM | Reply | Permalink
Right. Let's not forget Cuba's worst food crisis came about as a top-down communist policy to overly specialize their food and cane production.
Ireland's potato crisis came about as a result of growing too much potatoes, a highly transportable cash crop, which ironically created a huge export market leaving Irish unable to afford their own potatoes during a contraction in supply. Ireland was exporting potatoes throughout the famine.
Regional diversity is far more robust and disaster resistant for a number of reasons. For one thing, local production and consumption keeps it in the community. Also, regional crops tend to be less commodified to a singular market demand, such as corn syrup. Hence crops are more biologically diverse and rotated in a manner which is also good for local ecology, taking advantage of crop rotation strategies and naturally occuring symbiotic insects which control posts, reducing the need for artificial fertilizers and pesticides.
Sustainable farming and regionalism is actually far ahead of industrial farming. Industrial farming and narrowing of crops was in some regards one of the great movements backwards in civilization.
June 16, 2008 10:00 PM | Reply | Permalink
Kozmik: you and Chris Brown make the same point regarding the benfit of food production being dispersed and it seems to make sense.
China has historically, and maybe even to this day, been a land of samll farmers spread throughout there domain but they seem to suffer terrible famines from time to time. It must be because they don't have a diversity of crops so if the rice crop fails, they starve. So diversity of what is grown may just as important as the dispersal of farming. Very similar to the Irish example without the export feature.
June 17, 2008 6:35 PM | Reply | Permalink
China has historically, and maybe even to this day, been a land of samll farmers spread throughout there domain but they seem to suffer terrible famines from time to time. It must be because they don't have a diversity of crops so if the rice crop fails, they starve.
It is also because traditionally Chinese girls married young and the Chinese had large families, bringing their population up to the carrying capacity during good times, so that when bad times came around, everyone starved.
England avoided this problem to some extent by the strong social pressure against having children until you could afford a middle class lifestyle (enforced by the combination of a strong stigma against illegitimacy and a tradition of not marrying until one could afford to). This prevented such large swings in population.
June 17, 2008 9:35 PM | Reply | Permalink
Not me. Unrepentant omnivore here.
But, I have found a more sustainable diet, low on red meat, is a lot better for health and fitness, digestion and energy levels. And, by maintaining health and scarcity of rich fatty foods in my diet, the pleasure from an occasional rich/fatty meal is highly magnified.
I have a good grass fed steak about twice a month. The rest of the time I eat a lot of salads, vegetables, vegetable based soups, hummus, whole grains like wild rice, sustainable seafoods low on the food chain like mussels and clams, etc. I also eat lots of lean poultry (like turkey) and whey + cassein based protein.
Japanese cuisine is especially good because many foods are very healthy (if you keep sodium down) while also containing umami flavors (often from kelp) which are very satisfying like meat flavors, but also very healthy.
It's all about finding an optimal balance.
We're evolved for meat to be scarce and that's why we crave it. Eating meat all the time unbalances that.
Eat too much of one kind of food, regardless of activity, and it gets boring. People who eat too much heavy food become junkies. Food addiction to salt, fat, and sugar, leaves one unable to really enjoy it, much like the addiction to heroine or other dopamine releasing drugs. Yypical addict behavior is to continually increase dosage while losing the ability to get high. Just like common eating problems.
The best meals I've ever had come after a day of strenuous activity, because dopamine levels are already high, one feels awake and energized, and muscles are really craving nutrients. After a long hike, camp mac&cheese tastes great, but a four star meal is incredible. However, after a day in a chair, a heavy meal just feels gross.
June 16, 2008 8:32 PM | Reply | Permalink
Re: government I’m aware of, except the Peoples Republic of China has instituted a ZPG program.
Many governments do not need such programs because their population fertility rate is at or below replacement. The population bomb is turning into a fizzle. (Yes, I know the Middle East, Africa, and India aren't in that category-- but give them time and they too will be).
Re: As a matter of fact, poverty is very much more environmentally friendly than is USA and Western European consumerism.
This is bullshit of a high order. A visit to any poor or even not-so-rich country is in order if you believe that. China's environmental problems, for example, are appalling.
Re: This prevented such large swings in population [in England].
This is only true if you ignore a rather large chunk of history, from about 1000 to 1700 when the population of all Western Europe surged then fell darstically, reciovered partially, then declined again before beginning the rise that led to the current population levels.
June 17, 2008 9:52 PM | Reply | Permalink