For a minute there I thought I had to get off my couch, when all the while the fact is we don't have to do anything much but keep things afloat for just a few decades more! In fact, we'd best shut up about PO, because if our offspring finds out we knew about it all along, they'll turn and wring our necks come 2036!
Ok, that was not the original name of the FAO report but I like my title better.
Why the increased prices of grains over the last few years when, as has been demonstrated on earlier pages, the actual calorie per capita has gone up? We are using that increase to make meat, eggs and milk.
Pork has around a 6:1 conversion ratio (I will assume that the developing nations producing most of this meat are getting the same results as their American counterparts):
Chicken, when producing broilers, has ~2:1 ration
Eggs and milk are a little harder to figure. In 2003 the USDA reported (on average) that 51 pounds of grain were used to produce every 100 eggs and 69 pounds were required to produce 100 pounds (~11.5 gallons) of milk.
So what does all of this mean for grain usage for animal feed?
So while grain production has gone up 1,500 tonnes over the last few decades,
only about 1/2 of this increase is available for human consumption (~600 million tonnes) all of this during a time when population has doubled.
So doing the math quickly and in my head this translates into treading water since the 1960's, no improvement, no loss in respect to grain available per person.
If we are to in anyway "blame" corn based ethanol it really seems to be a secondary problem since so little is used compared to how much the world puts into the production of meat as to make it a small portion of overall usage.
Part Two:
So the question remains, while there were famines in the past, is there anything different about today, in respect to that ability of people to purchase from the pie of food that is available?
The purchasing power of the top 2 Billion has gone up compared to the middle and lower 2 Billion. That increased purchasing power has a number of effects. Among them,
Conclusion:
I have already been too brief and cursury. I expect and hope for some useful additions and corrections in response, but let me add just a few more thoughts.
1. Most of the concepts that we use for Oil production and consumption apply to food and grain production and consumption. Jeavon's Paradox, for example, goes a long way to explain why the excess grain production has been eaten up by increased meat production and human population expansion. Export Land Model is helpful in thinking about how things will unfold as time goes on.
So I'm sure I have over simplified or forgotten something. Have at it! _________________ "Against stupidity the gods themselves contend in vain."
-Friedrich von Schiller
Posted: Wed Aug 06, 2008 4:52 am Post subject: Re: The Spreading World Food Crisis (2)
wisconsin_cur,
I think the plateau in food production will last about as long as the means to perpetuate the Green Revolution. That is, I expect fertilizer use to decline from cost and availability before the soil depletion takes hold as the major effect. Then, the downslope of "Peak Food" will be steeper than the upslope was due to soil depletion, along with climate change, and lack of fertilizers.
I think we are seeing the leading edge of that in the rice growing areas now. Just my gut feeling, but I'd bet the farm on it. _________________ Local fix-it guy..
Posted: Wed Aug 06, 2008 5:01 am Post subject: Re: The Spreading World Food Crisis (2)
Interesting attempt to find parallels between hydrocarbon depletion and agricultural resource depletion (water, soil nutrients, soil structure, etc...).
I think the parallels are valid. E.g. Hydrocarbons took millions of years to form. Soils did so too. The global decline of SOM in soils is staggering.
But I would add a few differences:
1. Nutrient cycling in the biosphere is basically a closed system and the cycles are relatively short. (Whereas there is no "oil" or "coal" cycle, or if there is one, it takes extremely long time-scales). We do put in external nutrients, but these are nowhere near depletion.
2. In contrast with Peak Oil, we haven't reached "Peak Land" or "Peak Water" anywhere near.
3. There are environmentally smart ways to restore soil health and the nutrient balance (e.g. working with nitrogen-fixing crops, amending soils with biochar, etc...)
4. There are vast agricultural "provinces" that haven't been "explored" or "exploited" yet - e.g. 95% of all African farmers use no modern inputs. None of these inputs are anywhere near depletion (some never will out and can be made entirely from renewable energy, such as nitrogenous fertilizers). Meat production is still very extensive today (grazing animals that take up hundreds of millions of hectares of land); there's enormous room for intensive production, which would free up gigantic quantities of land.
5. Cynical as it may sound: climate change will open up vast new areas for cultivation. (Potatoes already growing back in Greenland nowadays).
6. Peak Oil will happen *before* we reach our demographic maximum (9 billion people by 2050); there will never be "Peak Food" because the resources stretch enough forward in time. With today's techniques, we can produce food for an estimated 40 billion people. Population levels plateau at 9 billion in 2050/2075 for a few decades, after which they decline.
7. Most importantly: scientific advances allow us to intervene directly in the productive mechanisms of biology - i.e. we can design crops which tolerate drought, pests, diseases. So we can influence their productive capacity and adapt them to environmental circumstances. This can't be said of oil, which just sits there in the ground.
The race is on to influence the photosynthetic efficiency of crops. If the scientists do what they say can be done (boosting photosynthetic efficiency from 0.7 to its near-theoretical maximum: 3%), then we're in a whole new ball game.
Interesting discussion in any case. _________________ The Beginning is Near!
Posted: Wed Aug 06, 2008 9:03 am Post subject: Re: The Spreading World Food Crisis (2)
lorenzo wrote:
Interesting attempt to find parallels between hydrocarbon depletion and agricultural resource depletion (water, soil nutrients, soil structure, etc...). I think the parallels are valid. E.g. Hydrocarbons took millions of years to form. Soils did so too. The global decline of SOM in soils is staggering.
But I would add a few differences: -snip- Interesting discussion in any case.
I do not necessarily agree with everything, however the theme seems logical. I am a Lacto-ovo vegetarian and really feel that if people gave up half the animal meat they eat it would go a long way. You only pass 10% of the energy from one level of the food chain to the next. So If you can cut out some of those levels the saving is massive
Posted: Wed Aug 06, 2008 10:28 am Post subject: Re: The Spreading World Food Crisis (2)
Quote:
5. Cynical as it may sound: climate change will open up vast new areas for cultivation. (Potatoes already growing back in Greenland nowadays).
That argument goes both ways, climate change is shutting down many now well used areas for food production. _________________ "Life is merely an orderly decay of energy states, and survival requires the continual discovery of new energy to pump into the system. He who controls the sources of energy controls the means of survival. "
Joined: Sep 16, 2007 Posts: 1120 Location: Oklahoma City, USA
Posted: Wed Aug 06, 2008 12:30 pm Post subject: Re: The Spreading World Food Crisis (2)
The only rationale I can see for using grain in feeding animals like cows, chickens, and pigs, which can eat many other things, is that of profit. Grain makes those animals weigh more, thereby bringing more money at market.
Which is fine in a world with cheap grain and everyone fed, but we've moved way out of that paradigm. Instead of looking at CAFO's and seeing what a horror that has turned out to be, other countries are imitating it, thinking it's "modern", I guess. Sort of like "let's starve ourselves so we can be cool like everyone else". _________________ What, so I'm in no end game
Move my piece right off the board
Posted: Wed Aug 06, 2008 12:44 pm Post subject: Re: The Spreading World Food Crisis (2)
lorenzo wrote:
5. Cynical as it may sound: climate change will open up vast new areas for cultivation. (Potatoes already growing back in Greenland nowadays). Interesting discussion in any case.
Interesting indeed. As potatoes were unknown in europe before 1492 coming from Peru via the Conquistadors, if they are growing in Greenland now it must be for the first time.
Posted: Wed Aug 06, 2008 1:05 pm Post subject: Re: The Spreading World Food Crisis (2)
wisconsin_cur wrote:
Previous Thread Found Here
Part One: World Protein Consumption and the use of grain feeds
]Eggs and milk are a little harder to figure. In 2003 the USDA reported (on average) that 51 pounds of grain were used to produce every 100 eggs and 69 pounds were required to produce 100 pounds (~11.5 gallons) of milk.
So I'm sure I have over simplified or forgotten something. Have at it!
OK I will. A good, I mean really good,cow makes 100lbs of milk each day of her lactation. She dose not eat anywhere near 69 lbs of grain in a day. She gets a combination of grass or hay and corn silage which is field corn plants chopped up stalk cob husks and all then packed in a bunker or silo where it ferments which improves its digestability ,and she gets a good charge of grain, but 20 lbs would be a lot closer than 69. Now a human could eat the grain to his advantage but he would not do so well on the grass or the silage. Similarly beef cattle spend most of their lives eating grass and hay and are only finished(Fattened) on grain. The only thing that eats straight grain all its life as a rule are commercialy raised chickens.
So your numbers may be just a little bit off. But of course they were compiled by bureaucrats that havent been on a farm in a while.
Cattle are not a waste of the worlds grain supply. They are instead a way to convert undigestable (to us) grasses and corn stalks into meat and milk, grasses that often grow on land to steep or dry to grow grain on.
Posted: Wed Aug 06, 2008 5:23 pm Post subject: Re: The Spreading World Food Crisis (2)
Troyboy1208 wrote:
I am a Lacto-ovo vegetarian and really feel that if people gave up half the animal meat they eat it would go a long way. You only pass 10% of the energy from one level of the food chain to the next. So If you can cut out some of those levels the saving is massive
Mmm, difficult discussion. The all-out vegetarian diet is not the most efficient one. There is some scientific evidence that eating small amounts of meat and dairy products is the best overall choice when it comes to rational land use.
Check: Christian J. Peters, Jennifer L. Wilkins and Gary W. Fick, "Testing a complete-diet model for estimating the land resource requirements of food consumption and agricultural carrying capacity: The New York State example", Renewable Agriculture and Food Systems (2007), 22: 145-153, doi:10.1017/S1742170507001767
link
Cornell Chronicles: Diet for small planet may be most efficient if it includes dairy and a little meat, Cornell researchers report - 4 Oct 2007. link
A still more efficient way to distribute proteins, nutrients and biomass, and to tap their energy in an efficient way, is the following, rather funny proposition: breed tasty animals that provide traction, and which can be consumed after their useful life.
You would consider the animal as an efficient solar energy converter capable of digesting cellulose. You would feed it well to perform certain key tasks (e.g. in agriculture) so that you make the most of its energy. And when it is old but still tasty, you eat it. During its lifetime, you use its manure to fertilize its fodder crops.
There is some evidence that a full animal-traction based farming system is only slightly less efficient than a fully mechanised one (analysis of modern Mormon farming systems), but obviously much more sustainable because more efficient at using inputs (requires less synthetic inputs too). _________________ The Beginning is Near!
Joined: Jun 15, 2007 Posts: 556 Location: St.Albert, AB
Posted: Wed Aug 06, 2008 6:20 pm Post subject: Re: The Spreading World Food Crisis (2)
OMG, it's almost as if our carrying capacity was momentarily expanded due to the exploitation of millions of years of accumulated energy in the form of fossil fuels. I wonder what will happen once these sources of excessive growth go into rapid depletion? ....wait...that's a shitty ending....LOL....seriously, people are going to die.....lots of them....especially the old men reading this post....
Joined: May 10, 2007 Posts: 2729 Location: The Entropisphere
Posted: Wed Aug 06, 2008 6:32 pm Post subject: Re: The Spreading World Food Crisis (2)
vtsnowedin wrote:
wisconsin_cur wrote:
Previous Thread Found Here
Part One: World Protein Consumption and the use of grain feeds
]Eggs and milk are a little harder to figure. In 2003 the USDA reported (on average) that 51 pounds of grain were used to produce every 100 eggs and 69 pounds were required to produce 100 pounds (~11.5 gallons) of milk. So I'm sure I have over simplified or forgotten something. Have at it!
OK I will. A good, I mean really good,cow makes 100lbs of milk each day of her lactation. She does not eat anywhere near 69 lbs of grain in a day. She gets a combination of grass or hay and corn silage which is field corn plants chopped up stalk cob husks and all then packed in a bunker or silo where it ferments which improves its digestability ,and she gets a good charge of grain, but 20 lbs would be a lot closer than 69. ... Similarly beef cattle spend most of their lives eating grass and hay and are only finished(Fattened) on grain. -snip- Cattle are not a waste of the worlds grain supply. They are instead a way to convert undigestable (to us) grasses and corn stalks into meat and milk, grasses that often grow on land to steep or dry to grow grain on.
This includes all "dairy cattle" dry animals, those whose milk you cannot keep (because they are being treated), heifers and bulls. Since the average productive life of a Holstein in a modern dairy is somewhere around 27 months you can see why the number gets skewed.
We need to know how much grain the cow ate, over its lifetime, to produce every pound of milk. _________________ "Against stupidity the gods themselves contend in vain."
-Friedrich von Schiller
Food price inflation has surged to a record 9.5 per cent in the year to July as supermarkets pass on higher energy and transport costs to their customers. The British Retail Consortium (BRC) today said that shop prices rose by 3.2 per cent across the high street in July — the highest rate since it started the index two years ago and up from 2.5 per cent in June.
Food prices were 9.5 per cent higher compared with July last year, against 7 per cent in June. Experts said the figures would put more pressure on the Bank of England to control inflation. The Bank's Monetary Policy Committee, which begins its two-day rate setting meeting today, is widely expected to keep borrowing costs on hold at 5 per cent.
Howard Archer, chief UK and European economist at Global Insight, said a rate cut may not be possible until 2009 because of the fear that a reduction would fuel yet more inflationary pressure in the economy. He said: “The Bank of England remains tightly trapped between the rock of rising inflation and the hard place of markedly slowing economic activity.
“Going forward, we expect muted consumer spending to increasingly dilute retailers’ pricing power and ultimately facilitate interest rate cuts.”
_________________ "Against stupidity the gods themselves contend in vain."
-Friedrich von Schiller
Joined: Mar 26, 2008 Posts: 1027 Location: Seattle
Posted: Wed Aug 06, 2008 7:39 pm Post subject: Re: The Spreading World Food Crisis (2)
What was wrong with the other thread? Was it just too long? At any rate . . . Corn, wheat and soybean prices continue to fall.
Reuters <--
Quote:
U.S. corn drops 3 percent on big crop ideas Wed Aug 6, 2008 By Sam Nelson:
CHICAGO (Reuters) - U.S. corn prices on Wednesday shed another 3 percent on ideal crop weather in the U.S., forecasts for big yields, falling crude oil and a firmer dollar.
Soybean prices slipped over 4 percent as weather remained excellent for the crop that is now setting pods and is poised for a satisfactory production year. Wheat also tumbled over 3 percent on prospects for a huge global crop and following corn and soy lower.
[...] Corn prices have now fallen over $2.50 per bushel, roughly a third of its record high $7.65 per bushel set in late June, soy is over $4.00 per bushel lower or down 25 percent from the record $16.63 notched on July 3. And the wheat market is down a huge 44 percent or nearly $6.00 per bushel below the record $13.34-1/2 set in late February. [...]
Joined: May 10, 2007 Posts: 2729 Location: The Entropisphere
Posted: Wed Aug 06, 2008 8:06 pm Post subject: Re: The Spreading World Food Crisis (2)
The longer the thread gets the harder it gets to moderate due to some of the things that a home computer needs to do... esp when splitting threads. _________________ "Against stupidity the gods themselves contend in vain."
-Friedrich von Schiller
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