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The Coming Food Catastrophe

economist.com

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Re: The Coming Food Catastrophe

#441

Post by yucky »

greenglass wrote: post #341
devit wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If they can ship the food to Odessa (presumably by truck or train), it seems like they would be able to ship it to a port in a non-blockaded foreign country instead (e.g. Turkey, Greece, Italy, Poland).

Why would they be motivated to do that? If I were Ukraine, I would do all I could to exacerbate global food shortages. If I were the United States, I might consider how massive aid packages interact with various incentives along these lines. Supposedly the aid is help get around the sea blockade. Every cost is a negotiation.

Quite the opposite. The best move for the US would be to let Ukraine fall, which would re-stabilize food and fuel prices.

Re: The Coming Food Catastrophe

#442

Post by ImPostingOnHN »

paganel wrote: post #322
namdnay wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Mostly the US, with some UK mixed in. That's the opposition to Russia? Hardly, Ukraine's neighbours are doing far more than anyone in London or Washington. > They are definitely not the same, they have obviously different values Yes one of them is democracy, the other is dictatorships. One is good, the other is bad. Refreshingly, some things in life are simple. > he's the one fighting for a multi-polar world with m…

Again, the Russians have said as much what they want. What they understand by "multi-polar world" is the US (and its allies), Russia, China, maybe India, maybe some other regional thingie, like South America/Mercosur maybe (I think by this point they're already branding the EU under "US and its allies", that wasn't always the case, especially around 2003-2005 when Germany and France were against the US intervention i…

that sounds like both a bad idea, and an unrealistic idea, most of all because in that presentation russia considers itself an equal to the others in the list, which it most certainly is not, in nearly all respects

in a more generalized sense, russia actually doesn't care about any of the countries listed but itself, except insofar as it can convince those countries to support russia

the world is already multipolar, as was pointed out – look to the UN for an example of how multiple poles interact with each other in a civilized fashion – nearly 200 of them!

russia doesn't want this, all they want is domination, and the disintegration of the multipolar world that is civilized diplomacy which might unite and thus present a united front against russian domination and genocide

Re: The Coming Food Catastrophe

#443

Post by dragonwriter »

devit wrote: post #174
bryanlarsen wrote: post #144

The article actually has four solutions at the bottom. Compared to the severity of the problem, all four solutions are surprisingly simple. Not necessarily easy, but simple and straightforward. 1. Stop using so much corn to make ethanol. 2. Stop using so much seed oil to make biodiesel. 3. Stop feeding so much food to livestock. Bonus: reducing the livestock population provides short term calories! 4. Break the Black…

If they can ship the food to Odessa (presumably by truck or train), it seems like they would be able to ship it to a port in a non-blockaded foreign country instead (e.g. Turkey, Greece, Italy, Poland).

There is work on establishing export routes.

But also, a lot of the food has been destroyed, a lot of the equipment has been destroyed in the chain of producing and delivering the food, and a lot of the people that work in that chain have been killed, displaced, or have had more pressing tasks than working in agriculture. Those problems aren't likely to be solved immediately even if new export routes are opened.

Re: The Coming Food Catastrophe

#444

Post by greggeter »

im3w1l wrote: post #437
paulryanrogers wrote: post #406

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can it be fixed and meet all the demand for beef today? And without making people poor in the process? Perhaps the solution is a mix of both: eat less meat and only eat sustainably raise meat.

Grass-fed cows use more land and water than grain-fed cows. So no.

No post body was provided.

Re: The Coming Food Catastrophe

#446

Post by thematrixturtle »

Guthur wrote: post #421
karaterobot wrote: post #417

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Russia have played this very very well as the west followed their own play book to the letter and the russians had counters planned for years, hording gold, setting up non USD financial systems. First round of The Game goes to Russia imo. I find this very hard to believe. Things are much worse in Russia and for Russia than they are in Europe or the United States right now, with the future looking bleak.

Really? can you quantify what that means, are they going hungry, short of fuel, is their currency collapsing, do they have rampant inflation? Or is just that people that got us in this mess are telling you that some how russians are suffering so much that they have to give up. Wasn't that suppose to happen immediately upon the weaponisation of the USD? When will it happen, after we all starve, after all infrastructur…

Russia's official forecasts are for inflation north of 20%, GDP down 8% in 2022, and factories are offering free plots of land so people can grow their own potatoes.

No shortage of fuel though, since they're having a hard time exporting it now. Although all industry in Russia is heavily dependent on spare parts from the West, meaning things will start breaking down quite soon.

Re: The Coming Food Catastrophe

#448

Post by greggeter »

im3w1l wrote: post #437
paulryanrogers wrote: post #406

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can it be fixed and meet all the demand for beef today? And without making people poor in the process? Perhaps the solution is a mix of both: eat less meat and only eat sustainably raise meat.

Grass-fed cows use more land and water than grain-fed cows. So no.

https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2019/08/13/746576239/is...

Re: The Coming Food Catastrophe

#449

Post by ImPostingOnHN »

Guthur wrote: post #421
karaterobot wrote: post #417

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Russia have played this very very well as the west followed their own play book to the letter and the russians had counters planned for years, hording gold, setting up non USD financial systems. First round of The Game goes to Russia imo. I find this very hard to believe. Things are much worse in Russia and for Russia than they are in Europe or the United States right now, with the future looking bleak.

Really? can you quantify what that means, are they going hungry, short of fuel, is their currency collapsing, do they have rampant inflation? Or is just that people that got us in this mess are telling you that some how russians are suffering so much that they have to give up. Wasn't that suppose to happen immediately upon the weaponisation of the USD? When will it happen, after we all starve, after all infrastructur…

the people that got "us" into this mess are the ones who initiated a genocidal war of territorial conquest in modern times (after repeatedly lying that they would)

not coincidentally, they are also the only ones who can get "us" out of it, by withdrawing – the Ukrainian people have seen the rape, torture, and executions that result from allowing genocidal russian troops to control a single square foot of Ukrainian land, and have concluded that death is a better fate than that which awaits surrendering it

tl;dr you're going to have a hard time convincing Ukrainians to trust russia, but you are sure welcome to try

Re: The Coming Food Catastrophe

#450

Post by lenkite »

pvarangot wrote: post #386
exploding_water wrote: post #363

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The third solution doesn’t make much sense since livestock consumption is mostly made up of inedible foods that we can’t eat like husks, stems, leaves, etc. of plants. Livestock is effective for up-cycling foods we can’t digest and turning it into foods that we can such as meat and dairy. Also there is a lot of food waste in the US. Good food that is suitable for livestock…

Soooooooo "Roughage Products" which is fiber, that humans also need to eat BTW, is usually something like 25% of pelleted food. The main ingredient in pelleted food is usually digestible by humans and between 6% to 15% protein, it's like 25% to 30% depending on the pelleted food. Pound by pound going by the estimates that "eat cow advocates" use you need 12 pounds of food per pound of beef produced, if half of that i…

"main ingredient in pelleted food is usually digestible by humans"

You would truly need to be starving from famine or an "Instagram Go-Green Promoter" to eat this.

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