What's also overlooked is that China went through one of the worst man made famines in history, and the government has internalized many of the lessons (paid in blood) from that affair.
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How is China able to provide enough food to feed over 1B people?
281–290 of 356 posts
Re: How is China able to provide enough food to feed over 1B people?
#282One thing that's not mentioned is that the freshness and variety of produce available in China is fantastic. There's much less refrigeration and transportation, so there's a good chance the produce you buy at the local street market came from nearby fields very recently. Seeing this as a visitor from the US is quite a revelation.
That's especially true for seafood.
Chinese love seafood and fish, they consume quite a bit of it as hinted by the article. But they usually also want to buy it alive.
Therefore in supermarkets and even restaurants you usually have tanks with live fish, crabs, etc. As fresh food as can be.
Regarding vegetables, the north is actually not that north by European standards and is sunny in winter (Beijing is at the same latitude as Ibiza...). This means that in places like Beijing they can have solar greenhouses that can produce fresh, local vegetables all year long even when it's freezing outside (winters are much colder than in Europe).
See for example: https://www.lowtechmagazine.com/2015/12/reinventing-the-gree...
Re: How is China able to provide enough food to feed over 1B people?
#283One thing that's not mentioned is that the freshness and variety of produce available in China is fantastic. There's much less refrigeration and transportation, so there's a good chance the produce you buy at the local street market came from nearby fields very recently. Seeing this as a visitor from the US is quite a revelation.
Which places did you visit, and observed this? I bet it's characteristic for large cities where the amount of produce consumed is large, and prices are higher.
The government offers subsidy to the farmers to ensure base supplies such as rice to be kept low priced. Usually the farmers in China cannot complete with the farmers in the US in terms of cost, coz the local prices are not determined by free market but by the gov. I see this as a benefit of big government (but bad for the local farmers)
Re: How is China able to provide enough food to feed over 1B people?
#284Yeah sorry - that answer is the sort that glosses over a huge amount of facts to present a clean a-b-c dependency tree along side a decent heap of sino philia. So in particular the point on fish farms- fish farms are hard , the fish need many different things to be happy and not sick or affected by parasites. This means medicines, treatment and more - further this is only viable if you have transportation, refrigerat…
> fish farms are hard
Yes and no. Some fishes are really, really hard to culture. Other are very forgiving and easy if you know what to do. Aquaculture shaped China since thousands of years. They have a lot of population in part because they have carps. Is a very efficient way to recycle waste in food.
Re: How is China able to provide enough food to feed over 1B people?
#285Earlier quoted context omitted.
What can we do as computer scientists to best militate this risk and protect human life?
Almost certainly, nothing. Wrong skill set.
Maybe not directly but software engineers are in a good position this days to find work easily and get a good salary. Maybe support financially organizations that fight global warming?
Re: How is China able to provide enough food to feed over 1B people?
#286I can’t imagine the US being as efficient at anything as China is at growing food.
What does this even mean? Almost 300 million people are agricultural workers in China, versus 6 million in the US. Despite that, we produce nearly the same quantity of food and export 140 billion dollars of food every year. The US has plenty of efficiency shortcomings, but in agriculture, the US agricultural sector is a modern marvel of engineering and efficiency.
I agree with you, the farming in the US should be much more efficient than China, the US has much much larger flat lands and modern agricultural machines.
On the other hand, there are far less flat lands but mountains and deserts here in China. But the engineering and infrastructure is getting better and better.
Re: How is China able to provide enough food to feed over 1B people?
#287Re: How is China able to provide enough food to feed over 1B people?
#288The author's answer to the question 'How do mainland Chinese feel about the protests in Hong Kong on the extradition law amendment?': https://www.quora.com/How-do-mainland-Chinese-feel-about-the...
At the very end author compares hong kong island to langkawi portraying lankgawi as some unatractive island and that hong kongers should be happy they are connected to mainland. This is where I started look more critical at the whole article having been in those islands before myself - it was a great reality check that you have read everything very critically these days.
I recommend everyone not only to check google images how langkawi look like but even more recommend to go there for a holiday [1]. It's called 'bali of malaysia' and popular tourist destination. Very close to another great malaysian island - penang.
Author says "You can rent this island for 99 years and start to develop your economy." I would happily rent it for even 10 years if the price is right!
Re: How is China able to provide enough food to feed over 1B people?
#289Earlier quoted context omitted.
China is communist in name only at this point. The government is authoritarian but the economy works in a pretty familiar way as far as business ownership and financial transactions.
Does everyone have a job, no homelessness, etc?
It's extremely easy to find a job in Chinese cities, generally speaking. There's lots of jobs for jobs sake - most restaurants have far too many staff, and there's lots of security guards everywhere who run away at the first sign of real trouble.
Regarding homelessness, it definitely exists, although differently from the US etc. If you go into a 24hr McDonalds or KFC you'll see lots of homeless people slumped over tables sleeping because nobody there will kick them out. It's also very common to see homeless people congregating in the lower levels of major railway stations at night.
Re: How is China able to provide enough food to feed over 1B people?
#290The author's answer to the question 'How do mainland Chinese feel about the protests in Hong Kong on the extradition law amendment?': https://www.quora.com/How-do-mainland-Chinese-feel-about-the...
Oh my. That post is drooling of authotarianism and disgust for individuality and freedom, and it has an alarming amount of nationalism and militarism. If this is how the Chinese government is thinking and working, then we are in for a bad time.
Just a typical middle class Chinese.