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Most of the world’s grain is not eaten by humans

economist.com

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Re: Most of the world’s grain is not eaten by humans

#191

Post by ncmncm »

danielheath wrote: post #177
ncmncm wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Official US agricultural policy and habitual farming practice have made growing maize together with beans and/or squash, tomatoes, and peppers nearly impossible to do competitively. That could be fixed with policy changes that would be fought by the biggest agribusinesses. Corn is among the most efficient natural converters of sunlight into chemical energy useful to the plant (with some left over for the farmer), but…

Global PV cell production is about 1 million square meters per annum. Global farmland is about 45 million square kilometers, approx 1e10 more. Lets say the solar panels cover 10% of the field. That 10% produces 10x as much, so you've approximately doubled your fields overall productivity. We're currently a factor of 1e9 short of producing enough to do so (and it's not like PV cells are not currently produced at scale…

> 1e9 is an unfathomably large delta

It is also nonsense.

But even using the figure from a sibling reply, 1e5: so what? There is no need to put solar panels on every square km of farmland, or even on the 1/10th of it needed to fix the same calories; nor any value in trying or discussing trying.

If civilization does not collapse immediately, or even somewhat later, we will have centuries to build out solar. Future panels will last longer than today's, and be more efficient, and cheaper and lighter. Production, transport, and deployment will be increasingly automated. Today's production rate is not any kind of limit, and panels built today will not anyway evaporate next year. Build-out is cumulative.

Meanwhile, the nutritionally most valuable crops will not be displaced. Only cereal grains fed to animals are legitimate targets.

Furthermore, as I noted originally, panels placed in crop land will not displace crops, but coexist with them.

Re: Most of the world’s grain is not eaten by humans

#192

Post by roenxi »

zoomablemind wrote: post #134

> "... a Russian naval blockade has prevented past harvests from reaching their destinations. The loss of this output has caused already high grain prices to surge. The World Food Programme warns that 47m people are at risk of hunger as a result." I understand that the point of the article is about reallocating and tightening up the belts of consumption, so to speak. However, how about exerting more pressure onto the…

How will 'exerting more pressure' help? We may already be past the point where there is a good solution but the best approach so far would be de-escalation, negotiation and cooperation in an attempt to avoid all this.

Every attempt to exert pressure has put the west in a less favourable position. More pressure has built an energy crisis in Europe; rivals in Asia awash with cheap gas and contributed to a global food shortage. This was a series of own-goals.

The US should have taken a few deep breaths over the last few years and dialled back the anti-Russia sentiment rather than burning relations with Russia in an attempt to inconvenience Trump. Unless the plan is to trigger World War III the West's strategies can only be said to be failing. This could have been a 2nd Iraq invasion instead of becoming the mega-crisis that is unfolding.

Re: Most of the world’s grain is not eaten by humans

#193

Post by bayesian_horse »

donarb wrote: post #97
bayesian_horse wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As I said, there's a limit to such land, and a limit to how much cattle that can be raised on that land. There's a reason why cattle farming went from extensive to intensive methods.

Limit? The US federal government has over 100 million acres of public land for animal grazing.

If that were such a great and practical ressource, they'd be overflowing with cattle or sheep herds like in New Zealand. But it's not. Also the density of grazing isn't that great.

Re: Most of the world’s grain is not eaten by humans

#194

Post by b112 »

Retric wrote: post #154
AussieWog93 wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The whole point of GP's post is that you can't grow corn everywhere. There is some soil that only supports grass, and the most efficient way to extract nutritional value from this land is through grazing animals.

Irrigation lets you grow corn or other crops just about anywhere. The availability of irrigation is largely a solvable problem. In the US for example the east coast, Alaska etc gets plenty of fresh water which just ends up in the ocean.

Irrigation lets you grow corn or other crops just about anywhere.

No, it does not.

In this context, 'grow' means 'in a usable fashion'.

Rocky, hilly soil isn't tillable, is impossible to harvest en mass, and results in poor outcomes. It's almost like you've never farmed, and are making statements based upon theory, instead of real world usage cases.

Whatever agenda you have, please stop trying to claim that all soil is good for corn.

Even beyond that, there are places corn cannot grow. Period. Ever. For example, in many parts of Canada, the season is too short for corn to mature!

Hay and other such things grow there, and such land is good for cattle too.

Re: Most of the world’s grain is not eaten by humans

#195

Post by jhlllnd »

hristov wrote: post #49
fortysixdegrees wrote: post #24

Quoted post unavailable.

I downvoted you because doing one thing does not preclude doing the other. Using an electric car and solar panels is very good for the environment. You can also eat less/no meat in addition.

To become fully carbon neutral everyone has to go vegan eventually, no?

Re: Most of the world’s grain is not eaten by humans

#196

Post by ClumsyPilot »

wintermutestwin wrote: post #8

A staggering amount of California's water is used for alfalfa, which gets shipped to China to feed cows. In essence, we are allowing certain farmers to sell CA's water to China.

this is not business, thus is vandalism.

Its the same as if i go and rip apart public street furniture and sell them as metal scrap for profit.

Re: Most of the world’s grain is not eaten by humans

#198

Post by Elinvynia »

lvl102 wrote: post #148
wartijn_ wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That seems like a strange conclusion to draw from this article. It even says "But in fact, more than enough grain is already grown to meet humanity’s needs." Seems more like the number of people isn't the biggest problem, but the lifestyle of a part of those people is. To me it look like the problem will be solved if North America and Europe drastically reduce their meat consumption.

If we can cut our population by 1/2 or even 1/4 we would dramatically reduce pollution and increase resources per capita.

Are you volunteering to be a part of that 1/2 or 1/4/? People always talking about reducing population usually don't mean white people in the USA.

Re: Most of the world’s grain is not eaten by humans

#199

Post by konart »

orionion wrote: post #34

The grass family contains over 9,000 species distributed throughout the world. Of that, 35 have been cultivated as cereals. Of these, the following are important today: Barley, Corn, Goat grass, Millet, Oats, Rice, Sorghum, and Wheat. Of the important grains and/or cereals listed above, only corn (maize) is a New World native. Corn is an important member of the grass family. Corn (Zea mays) was domesticated from a wi…

>Of these, the following are important today: Barley, Corn, Goat grass, Millet, Oats, Rice, Sorghum, and Wheat.

What about Buckwheat

Re: Most of the world’s grain is not eaten by humans

#200

Post by morsch »

baisq wrote: post #187
codefreeordie wrote: post #2

Most of the world's grain is eaten by humans' food. We're really really good at efficiently producing grain -- especially field corn (which is not super desirable as human food without significant processing), and we grow lots of animals of all sorts. Naturally, when we can, we feed those animals on field corn -- they don't complain, and it's the cheapest food we can produce for them. In the US we also subsidize corn…

>Most of the world's grain is eaten by humans' food. Evidently. It's like when, talking about how there are too many cars, they make a separation between "cars" and "humans", as if cars weren't driven by humans. It's very basic manipulation.

You can reduce the number of cars without reducing the number of people. Human beings can, in fact, exist without a car. We can also reduce the amount of livestock we keep without reducing the number of people, by consuming less of it.

This seems really obvious. How is it manipulation?

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