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Skies went dark: Historians pinpoint the 'worst year' ever to be alive

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Re: Skies went dark: Historians pinpoint the 'worst year' ever to be alive

#51

Post by nkoren »

indemnity wrote: post #30
zelos wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it feasible for many countries - particularly small, densely populated ones - to be self-sufficient in food? In the UK, at least, I'm not sure there's physically enough space to farm enough food to supply the population. About 50% of food is imported and basically all the agricultural land is already used.

The Netherlands exports 10 times as much food as the UK with 1/10 of the arable land. In the event of a crisis I am sure the UK would be able to ramp up their production and become more efficient.

The amount of food that a country exports is orthogonal to its capacity for self-sufficiency. Your example of the Netherlands is a perfect illustration of this. In monetary terms it's a net exporter, but in caloric terms it's a net importer. The latter is a better metric for potential self-sufficiency, and by that measure, the Netherlands is actually the eighth least self-sufficient country in the world[1].

Yes, the UK could undoubtedly reconfigure its agricultural sector to become more self-sufficient. But even on a wartime footing, doing so would take several years. Meanwhile, the slack in food reserves is several weeks. It's that differential between weeks and years where there's the potential for malnutrition and starvation.

1: http://www.fao.org/3/i2493e/i2493e03.pdf

Re: Skies went dark: Historians pinpoint the 'worst year' ever to be alive

#52

Post by mnky9800n »

djxfade wrote: post #50
octygen wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Food... or fresh/unpolluted water. For food, I think it's a little easier but societies that have a hard time producing would have to adjust what they eat and how they eat it. Also, less meat, less red wine, more beer and more potatoes. The latter are much more sustainable. E.g., In Canada, we'll have to accept we can't have bananas, pineapple, kiwis, mangos any time. We'll have to stick to locally grown apples, way…

In Norway, there is a large import tax on foods like cheese and meat, to encourage buying locally. This seems to work, as most shops only sell Norwegian produce.

This is also motivated by local food monopolies where they don't want competition from cheaper and higher quality cheese producers in the rest of Europe.

Re: Skies went dark: Historians pinpoint the 'worst year' ever to be alive

#53

Post by samvher »

nkoren wrote: post #51
indemnity wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Netherlands exports 10 times as much food as the UK with 1/10 of the arable land. In the event of a crisis I am sure the UK would be able to ramp up their production and become more efficient.

The amount of food that a country exports is orthogonal to its capacity for self-sufficiency. Your example of the Netherlands is a perfect illustration of this. In monetary terms it's a net exporter, but in caloric terms it's a net importer. The latter is a better metric for potential self-sufficiency, and by that measure, the Netherlands is actually the eighth least self-sufficient country in the world[1]. Yes, the…

Interesting! As a Dutch person I've never heard of this before. I'm not quite sure what numbers I'm looking at though, is it just because the Netherlands mostly exports cucumbers and watery tomatoes?

Re: Skies went dark: Historians pinpoint the 'worst year' ever to be alive

#54

Post by nkoren »

vkou wrote: post #35
zelos wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it feasible for many countries - particularly small, densely populated ones - to be self-sufficient in food? In the UK, at least, I'm not sure there's physically enough space to farm enough food to supply the population. About 50% of food is imported and basically all the agricultural land is already used.

UK food production minus exports is 55% of the food consumed in the UK. [1] Turn off the exports, and you're going to get close to self-sufficient. If the EU disappeared tomorrow, I doubt the UK would starve . [1] https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/food-statistics-poc...

If people ate money, that would be true. But the important thing for self-sufficiency is not the monetary balance of trade, but the caloric value of trade. It is typical for smaller countries to export high-value refined agricultural products (wine, cheese, etc.) while importing lower-value bulk commodities (grains, oilcrops, etc.) This can cause a vast disparity between the economic and caloric balance of trade. In the case of the UK, it imports about twice as many calories as it exports, so the disappearance of trade would have a major impact. If food waste were eliminated, starvation could probably be avoided. But a few years of malnutrition, while the domestic agricultural sector reconfigured itself for self-sufficiency, would probably be unavoidable.

Re: Skies went dark: Historians pinpoint the 'worst year' ever to be alive

#55

Post by nkoren »

samvher wrote: post #53
nkoren wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The amount of food that a country exports is orthogonal to its capacity for self-sufficiency. Your example of the Netherlands is a perfect illustration of this. In monetary terms it's a net exporter, but in caloric terms it's a net importer. The latter is a better metric for potential self-sufficiency, and by that measure, the Netherlands is actually the eighth least self-sufficient country in the world[1]. Yes, the…

Interesting! As a Dutch person I've never heard of this before. I'm not quite sure what numbers I'm looking at though, is it just because the Netherlands mostly exports cucumbers and watery tomatoes?

Yep, you export a lot of nice flowers and vegetables, and import a lot of meat.

This makes fine economic sense in the context of well-functioning system of global trade. But if that system were to shut down and you had to produce all that meat locally... it wouldn't work so well. And the flowers wouldn't make a good replacement.

Re: Skies went dark: Historians pinpoint the 'worst year' ever to be alive

#56

Post by adrianN »

waihtis wrote: post #49
octygen wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Food... or fresh/unpolluted water. For food, I think it's a little easier but societies that have a hard time producing would have to adjust what they eat and how they eat it. Also, less meat, less red wine, more beer and more potatoes. The latter are much more sustainable. E.g., In Canada, we'll have to accept we can't have bananas, pineapple, kiwis, mangos any time. We'll have to stick to locally grown apples, way…

> The Nordic Diet Need to check this out. There is definitely a possibility to go much more local by just foraging. I ate probably tens of kilograms of golden chanterelle, bilberries (local equivalent of blueberry)& lingonberries last fall - the forests are spilling with food and a lot of it rots because people don't take advantage of it. Healthy, free, very tasty food - and you get exercise and fresh air while forag…

Foraging can't sustain the current population levels. People in Europe were foraging after WW2. Population was much lower than today, people still starved.

Re: Skies went dark: Historians pinpoint the 'worst year' ever to be alive

#57

Post by gambiting »

dijit wrote: post #46
CalRobert wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most of it is just a giant outdoor meat factory, though. Same for Ireland. Meat, fortunately, is unnecessary and very inefficient.

Every time this comes up I have to remind people that not all land that farms meat can be made arable. There is a lot of arable land in England itself that can be used, (and, currently used for meat production); however this is not true for many parts of wales and most of Scotland. (which combined make up a about 100,000 sqkm vs Englands 130,000 sqkm)

Cows and sheep happily graze on moors and other rocky areas that could not be suddenly used to grow any kind of plants for food.

Harry Metcalfe has a good video[0] about it - he keeps cows on the fields that are just too steep and too rocky to grow anything else - but it doesn't bother animals. Same applies to sheep. I imagine animals like chickens will have different considerations, because farm buildings do take land that can be used for something else.

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=feSBsLSRkWs

Re: Skies went dark: Historians pinpoint the 'worst year' ever to be alive

#58

Post by CalRobert »

gambiting wrote: post #57
dijit wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every time this comes up I have to remind people that not all land that farms meat can be made arable. There is a lot of arable land in England itself that can be used, (and, currently used for meat production); however this is not true for many parts of wales and most of Scotland. (which combined make up a about 100,000 sqkm vs Englands 130,000 sqkm)

Cows and sheep happily graze on moors and other rocky areas that could not be suddenly used to grow any kind of plants for food. Harry Metcalfe has a good video[0] about it - he keeps cows on the fields that are just too steep and too rocky to grow anything else - but it doesn't bother animals. Same applies to sheep. I imagine animals like chickens will have different considerations, because farm buildings do take la…

True, though in some cases (The Burren in Ireland for instance) it was sheep that stripped the land of vegetation, then topsoil, and left it rocky, in the first place. Whittled Away, by Padraic Fogarty, is a good read on this.

Re: Skies went dark: Historians pinpoint the 'worst year' ever to be alive

#59

Post by adrianN »

nkoren wrote: post #51
indemnity wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Netherlands exports 10 times as much food as the UK with 1/10 of the arable land. In the event of a crisis I am sure the UK would be able to ramp up their production and become more efficient.

The amount of food that a country exports is orthogonal to its capacity for self-sufficiency. Your example of the Netherlands is a perfect illustration of this. In monetary terms it's a net exporter, but in caloric terms it's a net importer. The latter is a better metric for potential self-sufficiency, and by that measure, the Netherlands is actually the eighth least self-sufficient country in the world[1]. Yes, the…

I wonder how much of that caloric deficit is due to economic reasons (low calorie vegetables are a lot more profitable) and how much of that is due to biological reasons (you need a lot of sunshine and land to grow calorie rich crops).

Re: Skies went dark: Historians pinpoint the 'worst year' ever to be alive

#60

Post by WrtCdEvrydy »

waihtis wrote: post #20
jbay808 wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What do you think will happen if the net exporters experience a global supply crisis? The way that countries that manufacture PPE halted exports last year is a good reminder that the same can happen with food!

I was not acutely aware of this, but is a perfect example of what will happen in severe crisis scenarios: countries will ensure their own survival over others'.

You cannot eat money therefore exporting only works for as long as those supplies are not needed.
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