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The Coming Food Catastrophe

economist.com

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Re: The Coming Food Catastrophe

#261

Post by Kerrick »

namdnay wrote: post #206
wyager wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Depends whether you're gardening for a global food shortage, or to supplement your own use No, the effect on supply is the same. > A home garden can supply a significant fraction of your food It takes 5+ acres in a decently arable region with fertilizer to feed one person. By the time you're providing for a significant fraction of your caloric intake, it ceases to be a "garden". > an amount equal to all commercial…

> It takes 5+ acres in a decently arable region with fertilizer to feed one person. By the time you're providing for a significant fraction of your caloric intake, it ceases to be a "garden". I'm sorry, but I just can't believe that. Is that fudged to account for livestock or waste or something? A single acre is what, 40*100m? That's huge, you could feed a whole family all year on potatoes, peanuts, greens, squash et…

Here’s a good guide from 1917 — after the Haber process was invented, but before its widespread use in the Green Revolution. https://naldc.nal.usda.gov/download/ORC00000242/PDF

Re: The Coming Food Catastrophe

#262

Post by jandrese »

tut-urut-utut wrote: post #253
namdnay wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is "the west" exactly? Japan? New Zealand? Finland? Tunisia? A better term would be liberal democracies, but that wouldn't have quite the same "both sides are the same" ring to it, would it? Russia isn't waging an economic war against anyone. A dictator tried to invade his democratic neighbour, he failed, and now the other democraties are cutting him out of their club

I agree Putin is some kind of dictator, but are you really calling Ukraine democracy? Then you can also call North Korea democracy.

There is some speculation that the liberal democratic rumblings from Zelenski are what forced Putin to act. I have no illusions that a country with deeply rooted corruption issues like Ukraine can turn on a dime, but he was at least voicing support for the idea. If he managed to root out some of the corruption then Putin would lose the ability to puppet the state entirely, and that's a slippery slope to becoming part of Europe and being lost to Russia forever.

Re: The Coming Food Catastrophe

#263

Post by filoleg »

paganel wrote: post #203
namdnay wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is "the west" exactly? Japan? New Zealand? Finland? Tunisia? A better term would be liberal democracies, but that wouldn't have quite the same "both sides are the same" ring to it, would it? Russia isn't waging an economic war against anyone. A dictator tried to invade his democratic neighbour, he failed, and now the other democraties are cutting him out of their club

Mostly the US, with some UK mixed in. > A better term would be liberal democracies If you think "liberal democracies" still carries the same positive vibe across the world that it used to some years ago you are in for a big surprise. > "both sides are the same" ring to it They are definitely not the same, they have obviously different values. Again, Putin has said as much, he's the one fighting for a multi-polar worl…

> If you think "liberal democracies" still carries the same positive vibe across the world that it used to some years ago you are in for a big surprise.

I mean, I agree that it doesn't carry the same positive vibes that it used to, but it still carries much better vibes than "corrupt authoritarian semi-dictatorships".

To those who might try going "muh western propaganda" on this, save your time. I am speaking as someone who grew up in one of those "corrupt authoritarian semi-dictatorships" and eventually immigrated to a "liberal democracy".

Re: The Coming Food Catastrophe

#264

Post by HappyDreamer »

mmarq wrote: post #244
paganel wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Re 4., that's doable if the West renounces some of its existing economic sanctions against Russia, the Russians themselves have said as much recently. It probably won't happen because the West doesn't like to see itself as being involved in the war (in a way similar to what Russia thinks about itself) and will try to resort to "Russia should unlock the blockade purely on humanitarian grounds!", which, of course, is t…

The Russian government has demonstrated beyond any reasonable doubt that it is not a good faith interlocutor. Nobody should take anything they say seriously.

> Nobody should take anything they say seriously

It's almost amazing that the newspapers reprint what Putin says, as if it was something to take seriously. Without explaining to the readers that Putin is trying to manipulate them. -- They're sometimes letting themselves be a megaphone he can use, I think.

Re: The Coming Food Catastrophe

#265

Post by countvonbalzac »

BigBubbleButt wrote: post #138
dang wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> one of the neighborhood Karens Please keep that sort of slur off HN. We don't need it here, and you don't need it to make your substantive points.

I don't know if the comment was edited or not, but I hope you're not claiming "vigilante" is a slur. I looked up the definition of slur just to be sure and you are technically correct, but I'd say you're abusing language far more than the person you're responding to.

No post body was provided.

Re: The Coming Food Catastrophe

#266

Post by TaylorAlexander »

lazide wrote: post #258
TaylorAlexander wrote: post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was just researching this and the new Enphase IQ8 microinverters will run without grid power. You are correct though it is common for microinverters to require grid power to operate, which seems pretty surprising!

It's usually a safety feature. If there is a downed power line and you lose grid connection, energizing your (otherwise dead) side of the downed lines could easily kill the lineman who comes to fix it.

Oh certainly it is important to have some kind of cut-off to prevent back-feeding the power lines, but I thought that would just be part of the system design.

Re: The Coming Food Catastrophe

#267

Post by giantg2 »

corrral wrote: post #175
mbg721 wrote: post #91

If you're in the West, it doesn't hurt to buy a couple big bags of rice from the local Indian market, and have some dried or canned beans handy, and cycle through them as you cook. A pallet of bottled water and a bag of charcoal don't hurt either. A dumb power outage or a downed wire or a tornado or something is much more likely than Red Dawn, but you'll still be happy to have all that.

Rice will be full of pest insect eggs. They'll hatch after a while (smallish count of months, likely). You've got to freeze it (to kill the eggs) and then seal it (to keep more pests from getting in) and/or add stuff that'll kill anything that hatches very fast (IIRC diatomaceous earth is popular for this) Other grains have similar pest problems, plus if it's wheat or similar and ground into flour (not e.g. whole whe…

"diatomaceous earth"

This is also a suspected carcinogen. I'd be careful about putting it on food, even if you do wash it.

Re: The Coming Food Catastrophe

#268

Post by jaegerpicker »

ceejayoz wrote: post #118
thangalin wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> well over an acre to support a single person Source? https://www.thespruce.com/how-many-vegetables-per-person-in-... > To grow all the food for one person's needs for the whole year requires, for most people, at least 4,000 square feet—though some diet designs are possible that can use a smaller area. https://permaculturism.com/how-much-land-does-it-take-to-fee... > A 0.44 acre of land can produce enough vegetables…

https://www.huffpost.com/archive/ca/entry/local-farming-hurt... > The minimum amount of agricultural land necessary for sustainable food security, with a diversified diet similar to those of North America and Western Europe (hence including meat), is 0.5 of a hectare per person. This does not allow for any land degradation such as soil erosion, and it assumes adequate water supplies. Cut out meat and it gets better,…

Only if you use traditional farming. Hydroponics, Aeroponics, and Aquaponics use far less resources (more startup capital but far less inputs), can grow year round (assuming indoor grows), and has 5-10x the yield per sq ft.

Re: The Coming Food Catastrophe

#269

Post by spywaregorilla »

giantg2 wrote: post #259
spywaregorilla wrote: post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This doesn't really make any sense though. It changes nothing about the geopolitical reality of what's going on. If the US sends a merchant ship and a cruiser, what is russia going to do exactly? Try to bomb the ships? They will lose, and get shot down. Why would it suddenly be WWIII? Is russia really going to say "Well, they shot down our plane so its global thermonuclear war time".

"Is russia really going to say "Well, they shot down our plane so its global thermonuclear war time"." That is what they have been threatening...

They threaten everyone and change their mind all the time. It's mostly irrelevant to what they actually do.

Re: The Coming Food Catastrophe

#270

Post by MrFantastic »

sva_ wrote: post #190
mbg721 wrote: post #91

If you're in the West, it doesn't hurt to buy a couple big bags of rice from the local Indian market, and have some dried or canned beans handy, and cycle through them as you cook. A pallet of bottled water and a bag of charcoal don't hurt either. A dumb power outage or a downed wire or a tornado or something is much more likely than Red Dawn, but you'll still be happy to have all that.

I recently looked into how much rice I'd need to survive for a year. The results were fairly surprising. A kilogram of uncooked rice only provide you with about 3500 kcal, less than you'd use in 2 days of time (for the average human). So you'd need quite a lot of rice. Beans are similar, they just have more protein (not a complete protein though). I concluded that while it is definitely advisable to have some number…

My friends were talking about his. If a food shortage hits the plan is to consume the perishable stuff while massively cutting calories.

The goal is to reduce excess muscle and reduce the metabolism.

Rip off the bandaid and then the food rationing won't be as uncomfortable.

After a few days of fasting you lose a lot of your hunger.

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