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On Thursday, July 6, 2023 at 12:03:16?PM UTC-4, Anthony William Sloman wrote:
On Friday, July 7, 2023 at 12:55:29?AM UTC+10, Fred Bloggs wrote:
On Thursday, July 6, 2023 at 2:02:53?AM UTC-4, Anthony William Sloman wrote:
On Thursday, July 6, 2023 at 5:31:22?AM UTC+10, John Larkin wrote:
On Wed, 5 Jul 2023 11:54:36 -0700 (PDT), whit3rd <whi...@gmail.com
wrote:
On Wednesday, July 5, 2023 at 9:18:49?AM UTC-7, John Larkin wrote:
On Wed, 5 Jul 2023 08:49:08 -0700 (PDT), Fred Bloggs
bloggs.fred...@gmail.com> wrote:
All they know for sure is their current crop of models are oversimplified and dangerously useless for predicting the kind of extreme events coming their way. ( But I bet the graphics are real impressive.)
https://www.sciencealert.com/researchers-weve-underestimated-the-risk-of-simultaneous-crop-failures-worldwide
Crop production is way above what it was decades ago, and still
increasing.
So, John Larkin is a fan of underestimation.
No, I\'m a fan of feeding the poorest people on the planet.
That\'s what he likes to claim. Sadly, he doesn\'t have a clue how this might be done, but sustained doses of climate change denials propaganda have convinced him that burning more fossil carbon as fuel is a necessary part of the process. The Agricultural Revolution got going in Eng;land from 1700. before the Industrial Revolution and without burning any coal.
Feed them, educate them: that\'s the path to progress and general happiness and, indeed, to population control.
All true, and all quite independent of burning fossil carbon. Use solar cells to charge the batteries that let the school children stays in the evening. Burning the midnight oil was never good for the atmosphere, and it was bad for the lungs of the students.
Mankind\'s agricultural output was outright paltry until mechanization came along.
The Agricultural Revolution meant that half the population could feed the other half. That\'s paltry compared with mechanised agriculture, but it was enough allow the industrial revolution, and Russia industrialised without doing much better.
Don\'t know about other places, but U.S. was just starting total mechanization in the 1940s. The result was acres in cultivation per farmer took off exponentially. And this is gas/ diesel combustion engine mechanization. There was steam powered mechanization around in the mid-19th century, but it wasn\'t in wide use and ordinary farmers weren\'t using it.
It made a great deal of difference, but the third world doesn\'t need to get that far to do much better than it is doing at the moment
The problem with primitives in the third world is farming practices are more of a cultural tradition than anything else, and they don\'t want to be told to change. You can give them a bunch of state of the art farm equipment and they let it sit idle and rust.
There may have been other limitations that made steam impractical, like all these machines weighed 20 tons and the engines were weak. I saw a steam powered machine designed to lay drainage tile. Looked like something from a Jules Verne story. Tires were out of the question, they used big heavy wheels, with spikes for traction.
Solar and windmill powered mechanisation is quite a enough get beyond the original Agricultural revolution. The world isn\'t required to recapitulate the European industrialisation of agriculture to get to European agricultural outputs, and the third world doesn\'t need to eat as much meat as Americans do - in fact it should eat rather less (and so should Americans).
There are other aspects to farming. It\'s estimated that without modern herbicide and pesticide application, modern output would decline by 70%.
On Thu, 6 Jul 2023 13:47:08 -0700 (PDT), Fred Bloggs
bloggs.fred...@gmail.com> wrote:
https://www.sciencealert.com/researchers-weve-underestimated-the-risk-of-simultaneous-crop-failures-worldwide
There are other aspects to farming. It\'s estimated that without modern herbicide and pesticide application, modern output would decline by 70%.
Nitrogen is a big deal, and synthetic fertilizers make a huge
difference. Crop rotation is very inefficient.
On Thursday, July 6, 2023 at 12:03:16â¯PM UTC-4, Anthony William Sloman wrote:
On Friday, July 7, 2023 at 12:55:29â¯AM UTC+10, Fred Bloggs wrote:
On Thursday, July 6, 2023 at 2:02:53â¯AM UTC-4, Anthony William Sloman wrote:
On Thursday, July 6, 2023 at 5:31:22â¯AM UTC+10, John Larkin wrote:
On Wed, 5 Jul 2023 11:54:36 -0700 (PDT), whit3rd <whi...@gmail.com
wrote:
On Wednesday, July 5, 2023 at 9:18:49?AM UTC-7, John Larkin wrote:
On Wed, 5 Jul 2023 08:49:08 -0700 (PDT), Fred Bloggs
bloggs.fred...@gmail.com> wrote:
All they know for sure is their current crop of models are oversimplified and dangerously useless for predicting the kind of extreme events coming their way. ( But I bet the graphics are real impressive.)
https://www.sciencealert.com/researchers-weve-underestimated-the-risk-of-simultaneous-crop-failures-worldwide
Crop production is way above what it was decades ago, and still
increasing.
So, John Larkin is a fan of underestimation.
No, I\'m a fan of feeding the poorest people on the planet.
That\'s what he likes to claim. Sadly, he doesn\'t have a clue how this might be done, but sustained doses of climate change denials propaganda have convinced him that burning more fossil carbon as fuel is a necessary part of the process. The Agricultural Revolution got going in Eng;land from 1700. before the Industrial Revolution and without burning any coal.
Feed them, educate them: that\'s the path to progress and general happiness and, indeed, to population control.
All true, and all quite independent of burning fossil carbon. Use solar cells to charge the batteries that let the school children stays in the evening. Burning the midnight oil was never good for the atmosphere, and it was bad for the lungs of the students.
Mankind\'s agricultural output was outright paltry until mechanization came along.
The Agricultural Revolution meant that half the population could feed the other half. That\'s paltry compared with mechanised agriculture, but it was enough allow the industrial revolution, and Russia industrialised without doing much better.
Don\'t know about other places, but U.S. was just starting total mechanization in the 1940s. The result was acres in cultivation per farmer took off exponentially. And this is gas/ diesel combustion engine mechanization. There was steam powered mechanization around in the mid-19th century, but it wasn\'t in wide use and ordinary farmers weren\'t using it.
It made a great deal of difference, but the third world doesn\'t need to get that far to do much better than it is doing at the moment.
The problem with primitives in the third world is farming practices are more of a cultural tradition than anything else, and they don\'t want to be told to change. You can give them a bunch of state of the art farm equipment and they let it sit idle and rust.
There may have been other limitations that made steam impractical, like all these machines weighed 20 tons and the engines were weak. I saw a steam powered machine designed to lay drainage tile. Looked like something from a Jules Verne story. Tires were out of the question, they used big heavy wheels, with spikes for traction.
Solar and windmill powered mechanisation is quite a enough get beyond the original Agricultural revolution. The world isn\'t required to recapitulate the European industrialisation of agriculture to get to European agricultural outputs, and the third world doesn\'t need to eat as much meat as Americans do - in fact it should eat rather less (and so should Americans).
There are other aspects to farming. It\'s estimated that without modern herbicide and pesticide application, modern output would decline by 70%.
On Thu, 6 Jul 2023 13:47:08 -0700 (PDT), Fred Bloggs <bloggs.fred...@gmail.com> wrote:
On Thursday, July 6, 2023 at 12:03:16?PM UTC-4, Anthony William Sloman wrote:
On Friday, July 7, 2023 at 12:55:29?AM UTC+10, Fred Bloggs wrote:
On Thursday, July 6, 2023 at 2:02:53?AM UTC-4, Anthony William Sloman wrote:
On Thursday, July 6, 2023 at 5:31:22?AM UTC+10, John Larkin wrote:
On Wed, 5 Jul 2023 11:54:36 -0700 (PDT), whit3rd <whi...@gmail.com> wrote:
On Wednesday, July 5, 2023 at 9:18:49?AM UTC-7, John Larkin wrote:
On Wed, 5 Jul 2023 08:49:08 -0700 (PDT), Fred Bloggs <bloggs..fred...@gmail.com> wrote:
There are other aspects to farming. It\'s estimated that without modern herbicide and pesticide application, modern output would decline by 70%.
Nitrogen is a big deal, and synthetic fertilizers make a huge difference.. Crop rotation is very inefficient.
On Thu, 6 Jul 2023 13:47:08 -0700 (PDT), Fred Bloggs
bloggs.fred...@gmail.com> wrote:
On Thursday, July 6, 2023 at 12:03:16?PM UTC-4, Anthony William Sloman wrote:
On Friday, July 7, 2023 at 12:55:29?AM UTC+10, Fred Bloggs wrote:
On Thursday, July 6, 2023 at 2:02:53?AM UTC-4, Anthony William Sloman wrote:
On Thursday, July 6, 2023 at 5:31:22?AM UTC+10, John Larkin wrote:
On Wed, 5 Jul 2023 11:54:36 -0700 (PDT), whit3rd <whi...@gmail.com
wrote:
On Wednesday, July 5, 2023 at 9:18:49?AM UTC-7, John Larkin wrote:
On Wed, 5 Jul 2023 08:49:08 -0700 (PDT), Fred Bloggs
bloggs.fred...@gmail.com> wrote:
All they know for sure is their current crop of models are oversimplified and dangerously useless for predicting the kind of extreme events coming their way. ( But I bet the graphics are real impressive.)
https://www.sciencealert.com/researchers-weve-underestimated-the-risk-of-simultaneous-crop-failures-worldwide
Crop production is way above what it was decades ago, and still
increasing.
So, John Larkin is a fan of underestimation.
No, I\'m a fan of feeding the poorest people on the planet.
That\'s what he likes to claim. Sadly, he doesn\'t have a clue how this might be done, but sustained doses of climate change denials propaganda have convinced him that burning more fossil carbon as fuel is a necessary part of the process. The Agricultural Revolution got going in Eng;land from 1700. before the Industrial Revolution and without burning any coal.
Feed them, educate them: that\'s the path to progress and general happiness and, indeed, to population control.
All true, and all quite independent of burning fossil carbon. Use solar cells to charge the batteries that let the school children stays in the evening. Burning the midnight oil was never good for the atmosphere, and it was bad for the lungs of the students.
Mankind\'s agricultural output was outright paltry until mechanization came along.
The Agricultural Revolution meant that half the population could feed the other half. That\'s paltry compared with mechanised agriculture, but it was enough allow the industrial revolution, and Russia industrialised without doing much better.
Don\'t know about other places, but U.S. was just starting total mechanization in the 1940s. The result was acres in cultivation per farmer took off exponentially. And this is gas/ diesel combustion engine mechanization.. There was steam powered mechanization around in the mid-19th century, but it wasn\'t in wide use and ordinary farmers weren\'t using it.
It made a great deal of difference, but the third world doesn\'t need to get that far to do much better than it is doing at the moment
The problem with primitives in the third world is farming practices are more of a cultural tradition than anything else, and they don\'t want to be told to change. You can give them a bunch of state of the art farm equipment and they let it sit idle and rust.
There may have been other limitations that made steam impractical, like all these machines weighed 20 tons and the engines were weak. I saw a steam powered machine designed to lay drainage tile. Looked like something from a Jules Verne story. Tires were out of the question, they used big heavy wheels, with spikes for traction.
Solar and windmill powered mechanisation is quite a enough get beyond the original Agricultural revolution. The world isn\'t required to recapitulate the European industrialisation of agriculture to get to European agricultural outputs, and the third world doesn\'t need to eat as much meat as Americans do - in fact it should eat rather less (and so should Americans).
There are other aspects to farming. It\'s estimated that without modern herbicide and pesticide application, modern output would decline by 70%.
Nitrogen is a big deal, and synthetic fertilizers make a huge
difference. Crop rotation is very inefficient.
On Friday, July 7, 2023 at 1:02:45â¯PM UTC+10, John Larkin wrote:
On Thu, 6 Jul 2023 13:47:08 -0700 (PDT), Fred Bloggs <bloggs.fred...@gmail.com> wrote:
On Thursday, July 6, 2023 at 12:03:16?PM UTC-4, Anthony William Sloman wrote:
On Friday, July 7, 2023 at 12:55:29?AM UTC+10, Fred Bloggs wrote:
On Thursday, July 6, 2023 at 2:02:53?AM UTC-4, Anthony William Sloman wrote:
On Thursday, July 6, 2023 at 5:31:22?AM UTC+10, John Larkin wrote:
On Wed, 5 Jul 2023 11:54:36 -0700 (PDT), whit3rd <whi...@gmail..com> wrote:
On Wednesday, July 5, 2023 at 9:18:49?AM UTC-7, John Larkin wrote:
On Wed, 5 Jul 2023 08:49:08 -0700 (PDT), Fred Bloggs <bloggs.fred...@gmail.com> wrote:
snip
There are other aspects to farming. It\'s estimated that without modern herbicide and pesticide application, modern output would decline by 70%.
Nitrogen is a big deal, and synthetic fertilizers make a huge difference. Crop rotation is very inefficient.
There are lots of ways of fixing atmospheric nitrogen.
https://deepgreenpermaculture.com/2023/06/12/the-big-list-of-nitrogen-fixing-plants-including-australian-natives/
You don\'t need to to burn fossil carbon to make ammonia or urea - it is an energy intensive process but renewable power can provide the energy.
--
Bill Sloman, Sydney
On Friday, July 7, 2023 at 2:17:05â¯AM UTC-4, Anthony William Sloman wrote:
On Friday, July 7, 2023 at 1:02:45â¯PM UTC+10, John Larkin wrote:
On Thu, 6 Jul 2023 13:47:08 -0700 (PDT), Fred Bloggs <bloggs.fred...@gmail.com> wrote:
On Thursday, July 6, 2023 at 12:03:16?PM UTC-4, Anthony William Sloman wrote:
On Friday, July 7, 2023 at 12:55:29?AM UTC+10, Fred Bloggs wrote:
On Thursday, July 6, 2023 at 2:02:53?AM UTC-4, Anthony William Sloman wrote:
On Thursday, July 6, 2023 at 5:31:22?AM UTC+10, John Larkin wrote:
On Wed, 5 Jul 2023 11:54:36 -0700 (PDT), whit3rd <whi...@gmail.com> wrote:
On Wednesday, July 5, 2023 at 9:18:49?AM UTC-7, John Larkin wrote:
On Wed, 5 Jul 2023 08:49:08 -0700 (PDT), Fred Bloggs <bloggs.fred...@gmail.com> wrote:
snip
There are other aspects to farming. It\'s estimated that without modern herbicide and pesticide application, modern output would decline by 70%.
Nitrogen is a big deal, and synthetic fertilizers make a huge difference. Crop rotation is very inefficient.
There are lots of ways of fixing atmospheric nitrogen.
https://deepgreenpermaculture.com/2023/06/12/the-big-list-of-nitrogen-fixing-plants-including-australian-natives/
You don\'t need to to burn fossil carbon to make ammonia or urea - it is an energy intensive process but renewable power can provide the energy.
Just about anything in the legume family is a big nitrogen fixer. You don\'t need to go to Australia to find that. If the climate doesn\'t suit the legume, there are multiple choices of grasses and grains, that not only partially replenish, but also fix soil in place, and produce an additional crop to generate profit.
On Friday, July 7, 2023 at 6:47:13â¯AM UTC+10, Fred Bloggs wrote:
On Thursday, July 6, 2023 at 12:03:16â¯PM UTC-4, Anthony William Sloman wrote:
On Friday, July 7, 2023 at 12:55:29â¯AM UTC+10, Fred Bloggs wrote:
On Thursday, July 6, 2023 at 2:02:53â¯AM UTC-4, Anthony William Sloman wrote:
On Thursday, July 6, 2023 at 5:31:22â¯AM UTC+10, John Larkin wrote:
On Wed, 5 Jul 2023 11:54:36 -0700 (PDT), whit3rd <whi...@gmail.com
wrote:
On Wednesday, July 5, 2023 at 9:18:49?AM UTC-7, John Larkin wrote:
On Wed, 5 Jul 2023 08:49:08 -0700 (PDT), Fred Bloggs
bloggs.fred...@gmail.com> wrote:
All they know for sure is their current crop of models are oversimplified and dangerously useless for predicting the kind of extreme events coming their way. ( But I bet the graphics are real impressive.)
https://www.sciencealert.com/researchers-weve-underestimated-the-risk-of-simultaneous-crop-failures-worldwide
Crop production is way above what it was decades ago, and still
increasing.
So, John Larkin is a fan of underestimation.
No, I\'m a fan of feeding the poorest people on the planet.
That\'s what he likes to claim. Sadly, he doesn\'t have a clue how this might be done, but sustained doses of climate change denials propaganda have convinced him that burning more fossil carbon as fuel is a necessary part of the process. The Agricultural Revolution got going in Eng;land from 1700. before the Industrial Revolution and without burning any coal.
Feed them, educate them: that\'s the path to progress and general happiness and, indeed, to population control.
All true, and all quite independent of burning fossil carbon. Use solar cells to charge the batteries that let the school children stays in the evening. Burning the midnight oil was never good for the atmosphere, and it was bad for the lungs of the students.
Mankind\'s agricultural output was outright paltry until mechanization came along.
The Agricultural Revolution meant that half the population could feed the other half. That\'s paltry compared with mechanised agriculture, but it was enough allow the industrial revolution, and Russia industrialised without doing much better.
Don\'t know about other places, but U.S. was just starting total mechanization in the 1940s. The result was acres in cultivation per farmer took off exponentially. And this is gas/ diesel combustion engine mechanization. There was steam powered mechanization around in the mid-19th century, but it wasn\'t in wide use and ordinary farmers weren\'t using it.
It made a great deal of difference, but the third world doesn\'t need to get that far to do much better than it is doing at the moment.
The problem with primitives in the third world is farming practices are more of a cultural tradition than anything else, and they don\'t want to be told to change. You can give them a bunch of state of the art farm equipment and they let it sit idle and rust.
Not just the third world. Farmers are famously conservative. In Australia the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation paid a couple of sociologists for a study on how to get them to pay attention to good advice. The answer was to concentrate the advice on the least conservative farmers.
When they started making more money than their conservative neighbours, the conservative neighbours would copy them. It worked.
There may have been other limitations that made steam impractical, like all these machines weighed 20 tons and the engines were weak. I saw a steam powered machine designed to lay drainage tile. Looked like something from a Jules Verne story. Tires were out of the question, they used big heavy wheels, with spikes for traction.
Solar and windmill powered mechanisation is quite a enough get beyond the original Agricultural revolution. The world isn\'t required to recapitulate the European industrialisation of agriculture to get to European agricultural outputs, and the third world doesn\'t need to eat as much meat as Americans do - in fact it should eat rather less (and so should Americans).
There are other aspects to farming. It\'s estimated that without modern herbicide and pesticide application, modern output would decline by 70%.
But you don\'t to burn fossil carbon to get or apply herbicides and pesticides. And farmers famously apply too much and mess up the local ecology.
--
Bill Sloman, Sydney
On Thursday, July 6, 2023 at 8:02:45?PM UTC-7, John Larkin wrote:
On Thu, 6 Jul 2023 13:47:08 -0700 (PDT), Fred Bloggs
bloggs.fred...@gmail.com> wrote:
https://www.sciencealert.com/researchers-weve-underestimated-the-risk-of-simultaneous-crop-failures-worldwide
There are other aspects to farming. It\'s estimated that without modern herbicide and pesticide application, modern output would decline by 70%.
Nitrogen is a big deal, and synthetic fertilizers make a huge
difference. Crop rotation is very inefficient.
Yeah, but a farmer needs to take out a loan to get his fertilizer in advance of
harvest, and rotation (in the absence of crop insurance) has better fault tolerance.
Since the topc here is \'simultaneous crop failures\' in a climate-changed world,
it\'s not the soil nitrogen that\'s the killer.
On Thu, 6 Jul 2023 22:35:13 -0700 (PDT), whit3rd <whi...@gmail.com
wrote:
On Thursday, July 6, 2023 at 8:02:45?PM UTC-7, John Larkin wrote:
On Thu, 6 Jul 2023 13:47:08 -0700 (PDT), Fred Bloggs
bloggs.fred...@gmail.com> wrote:
https://www.sciencealert.com/researchers-weve-underestimated-the-risk-of-simultaneous-crop-failures-worldwide
There are other aspects to farming. It\'s estimated that without modern herbicide and pesticide application, modern output would decline by 70%.
Nitrogen is a big deal, and synthetic fertilizers make a huge
difference. Crop rotation is very inefficient.
Yeah, but a farmer needs to take out a loan to get his fertilizer in advance of
harvest, and rotation (in the absence of crop insurance) has better fault tolerance.
Since the topc here is \'simultaneous crop failures\' in a climate-changed world,
it\'s not the soil nitrogen that\'s the killer.
Somebody said \"there are no stupid farmers\"... and city folk think
they know better.
I\'ve known a bunch of farmers. My cajun daddy-in-law made a fortune
timing a sugar crisis. He looked and sounded dumb but wasn\'t.
We have a friend who is a farmer with a day job as a chemist at
Chevron. He married a near-billionaire high school principal and they
have great 4th July parties on their farm. Some of the guests arrive
by helicopter.
Google says \"In 2021, the average U.S. farm household had $2,100,879
in wealth.\"
On Thu, 6 Jul 2023 22:35:13 -0700 (PDT), whit3rd <whi...@gmail.com
wrote:
On Thursday, July 6, 2023 at 8:02:45?PM UTC-7, John Larkin wrote:
On Thu, 6 Jul 2023 13:47:08 -0700 (PDT), Fred Bloggs
bloggs.fred...@gmail.com> wrote:
https://www.sciencealert.com/researchers-weve-underestimated-the-risk-of-simultaneous-crop-failures-worldwide
There are other aspects to farming. It\'s estimated that without modern herbicide and pesticide application, modern output would decline by 70%.
Nitrogen is a big deal, and synthetic fertilizers make a huge
difference. Crop rotation is very inefficient.
Yeah, but a farmer needs to take out a loan to get his fertilizer in advance of
harvest, and rotation (in the absence of crop insurance) has better fault tolerance.
Since the topc here is \'simultaneous crop failures\' in a climate-changed world,
it\'s not the soil nitrogen that\'s the killer.
Somebody said \"there are no stupid farmers\"... and city folk think they know better.
On 7/5/2023 11:54 AM, whit3rd wrote:
Population has risen since \'decades ago\' and we\'d be starving now if crop production
Yet there are still LOTS of folks who *are* starving. So, clearly any
gains are illusory.
The \'poorest people\' have local crops, and don\'t need cash. And, they\'re
finding the climate worse (and food scarce), so they have to migrate.
We\'ve all heard about boatloads of folk trying to cross
the Mediterranean, is drowning them what you mean by \'population control\'?
On 7/5/2023 12:47 PM, whit3rd wrote:
The \'poorest people\' have local crops, and don\'t need cash. And, they\'re
finding the climate worse (and food scarce), so they have to migrate.
We\'ve all heard about boatloads of folk trying to cross
the Mediterranean, is drowning them what you mean by \'population control\'?
ISTM that the \"food problem\" isn\'t that the planet can\'t feed the
current population but, rather, that the food isn\'t where it needs
to be (conversely, the people aren\'t where THEY need to be!)
From <https://www.fda.gov/food/consumers/food-loss-and-waste
\"In the United States, food waste is estimated at between 30â40
percent of the food supply. This figure, based on estimates from
USDAâs Economic Research Service of 31 percent food loss at the
retail and consumer levels, corresponded to approximately 133
billion pounds and $161 billion worth of food in 2010. Food is
the single largest category of material placed in municipal
landfills and represents wasted nourishment that could have
helped feed families in need.\"
I.e., a \"hand-waving\" estimate says that 100M people could be fed
(at the same *average* \"feeding level\" of the US population)
from just the US\'s \"waste\".
One problem with food is that it is perishable. So, not all
foodstuffs can bear the transport time (assume zero cost) to
get to the need that exists.
There\'s a local group that tries to give a second chance to
produce that is \"past its due date\" (yet still edible).
They can\'t find enough people to take it off their hands
before it passes it\'s REAL \"last use date\".
Feel guilty when you pass over an apple with a slight blemish?
(I\'m sure there\'s someone who would be thrilled to have said apple!)
So what. Some clever farmers eventually persuade their neighbours to take advantage of new developments, but tit takes while for the new stuff to trickle through
On Saturday, 8 July 2023 at 00:25:57 UTC+1, Don Y wrote:
On 7/5/2023 12:47 PM, whit3rd wrote:
The \'poorest people\' have local crops, and don\'t need cash. And, they\'re
finding the climate worse (and food scarce), so they have to migrate.
We\'ve all heard about boatloads of folk trying to cross
the Mediterranean, is drowning them what you mean by \'population control\'?
ISTM that the \"food problem\" isn\'t that the planet can\'t feed the
current population but, rather, that the food isn\'t where it needs
to be (conversely, the people aren\'t where THEY need to be!)
From <https://www.fda.gov/food/consumers/food-loss-and-waste
\"In the United States, food waste is estimated at between 30â40
percent of the food supply. This figure, based on estimates from
USDAâs Economic Research Service of 31 percent food loss at the
retail and consumer levels, corresponded to approximately 133
billion pounds and $161 billion worth of food in 2010. Food is
the single largest category of material placed in municipal
landfills and represents wasted nourishment that could have
helped feed families in need.\"
I.e., a \"hand-waving\" estimate says that 100M people could be fed
(at the same *average* \"feeding level\" of the US population)
from just the US\'s \"waste\".
One problem with food is that it is perishable. So, not all
foodstuffs can bear the transport time (assume zero cost) to
get to the need that exists.
There\'s a local group that tries to give a second chance to
produce that is \"past its due date\" (yet still edible).
They can\'t find enough people to take it off their hands
before it passes it\'s REAL \"last use date\".
Feel guilty when you pass over an apple with a slight blemish?
(I\'m sure there\'s someone who would be thrilled to have said apple!)
The planet has no difficulty producing enough. It\'s nowhere close to max possible production. The reason for food shortage is the inability of the poorest to pay. It is pay that motivates people to grow things.
On Friday, July 7, 2023 at 11:34:02â¯AM UTC-4, Anthony William Sloman wrote:
So what. Some clever farmers eventually persuade their neighbours to take advantage of new developments, but it takes while for the new stuff to trickle through.
Nothing could be further from the truth. There\'s nothing a farmer wants more than there to be short supply of whatever it is they\'re growing, because that means higher market value, more returns on their labor and investment. Over production is well known to be a disaster for farmers caught up in it. That and dozens of other ways farmers can put themselves out of business is why the U.S. government has so much regulation, subsidies, and strict control over production.
On Saturday, July 8, 2023 at 7:11:55?PM UTC-4, Tabby wrote:
On Saturday, 8 July 2023 at 00:25:57 UTC+1, Don Y wrote:
On 7/5/2023 12:47 PM, whit3rd wrote:
The \'poorest people\' have local crops, and don\'t need cash. And, they\'re
finding the climate worse (and food scarce), so they have to migrate.
We\'ve all heard about boatloads of folk trying to cross
the Mediterranean, is drowning them what you mean by \'population control\'?
ISTM that the \"food problem\" isn\'t that the planet can\'t feed the
current population but, rather, that the food isn\'t where it needs
to be (conversely, the people aren\'t where THEY need to be!)
From <https://www.fda.gov/food/consumers/food-loss-and-waste
\"In the United States, food waste is estimated at between 3040
percent of the food supply. This figure, based on estimates from
USDAs Economic Research Service of 31 percent food loss at the
retail and consumer levels, corresponded to approximately 133
billion pounds and $161 billion worth of food in 2010. Food is
the single largest category of material placed in municipal
landfills and represents wasted nourishment that could have
helped feed families in need.\"
I.e., a \"hand-waving\" estimate says that 100M people could be fed
(at the same *average* \"feeding level\" of the US population)
from just the US\'s \"waste\".
One problem with food is that it is perishable. So, not all
foodstuffs can bear the transport time (assume zero cost) to
get to the need that exists.
There\'s a local group that tries to give a second chance to
produce that is \"past its due date\" (yet still edible).
They can\'t find enough people to take it off their hands
before it passes it\'s REAL \"last use date\".
Feel guilty when you pass over an apple with a slight blemish?
(I\'m sure there\'s someone who would be thrilled to have said apple!)
The planet has no difficulty producing enough. It\'s nowhere close to max possible production. The reason for food shortage is the inability of the poorest to pay. It is pay that motivates people to grow things.
And that\'s why Soviet Union was an agricultural disaster. The population was so apathetic of their food supply in one year during Gorbachev regime, they wouldn\'t even get up to help with harvest during a labor shortage when he made a call for it. Let it rot in the fields.
On Monday, July 10, 2023 at 1:49:37â¯AM UTC+10, Fred Bloggs wrote:
On Friday, July 7, 2023 at 11:34:02â¯AM UTC-4, Anthony William Sloman wrote:
So what. Some clever farmers eventually persuade their neighbours to take advantage of new developments, but it takes while for the new stuff to trickle through.
Nothing could be further from the truth. There\'s nothing a farmer wants more than there to be short supply of whatever it is they\'re growing, because that means higher market value, more returns on their labor and investment. Over production is well known to be a disaster for farmers caught up in it. That and dozens of other ways farmers can put themselves out of business is why the U.S. government has so much regulation, subsidies, and strict control over production.
Unfortunately farmers don\'t have strict control over production. Natural variation in climate always has unpredictable effects on yield.
They may want everybody else to have a bad harvest, but they still try hard to grow as much as they can - or are allowed to.
Real farmers also pick what they grow, and the more conservative ones are more reluctant to diversity into new crops - one of the clever ones I went to school with diversified into native plants and herbs that he could sell to naturopaths, and made a bundle out of it.
And there\'s the business of raising animals for meat or other products. Sheep farmers harvest wool, dairy farmer harvest milk, and the guys who spercialise in fat lambs sell them to be slaughtered for the meat trade.
Pork growers in the Netherlands are limited by the amount of nitrogenous waste they can dispose of (and have been known to cheat). It can be a complicated business. There is more and less sophisticated cheating, and the guy near Nijmegen whose farm emitted enough ammonia to rot the copper gutters off the nearby houses was not very sophisticated at all
--
Bill Sloman, Sydney
On Sun, 9 Jul 2023 09:06:15 -0700 (PDT), Fred Bloggs
bloggs.fred...@gmail.com> wrote:
On Saturday, July 8, 2023 at 7:11:55?PM UTC-4, Tabby wrote:
On Saturday, 8 July 2023 at 00:25:57 UTC+1, Don Y wrote:
On 7/5/2023 12:47 PM, whit3rd wrote:
The \'poorest people\' have local crops, and don\'t need cash. And, they\'re
finding the climate worse (and food scarce), so they have to migrate.
We\'ve all heard about boatloads of folk trying to cross
the Mediterranean, is drowning them what you mean by \'population control\'?
ISTM that the \"food problem\" isn\'t that the planet can\'t feed the
current population but, rather, that the food isn\'t where it needs
to be (conversely, the people aren\'t where THEY need to be!)
From <https://www.fda.gov/food/consumers/food-loss-and-waste
\"In the United States, food waste is estimated at between 30â40
percent of the food supply. This figure, based on estimates from
USDAâs Economic Research Service of 31 percent food loss at the
retail and consumer levels, corresponded to approximately 133
billion pounds and $161 billion worth of food in 2010. Food is
the single largest category of material placed in municipal
landfills and represents wasted nourishment that could have
helped feed families in need.\"
I.e., a \"hand-waving\" estimate says that 100M people could be fed
(at the same *average* \"feeding level\" of the US population)
from just the US\'s \"waste\".
One problem with food is that it is perishable. So, not all
foodstuffs can bear the transport time (assume zero cost) to
get to the need that exists.
There\'s a local group that tries to give a second chance to
produce that is \"past its due date\" (yet still edible).
They can\'t find enough people to take it off their hands
before it passes it\'s REAL \"last use date\".
Feel guilty when you pass over an apple with a slight blemish?
(I\'m sure there\'s someone who would be thrilled to have said apple!)
The planet has no difficulty producing enough. It\'s nowhere close to max possible production. The reason for food shortage is the inability of the poorest to pay. It is pay that motivates people to grow things.
And that\'s why Soviet Union was an agricultural disaster. The population was so apathetic of their food supply in one year during Gorbachev regime, they wouldn\'t even get up to help with harvest during a labor shortage when he made a call for it. Let it rot in the fields.
Collectivazation is \"Let Gorgi do it.\"
And it lets dumb people try to manage farming.