Tom Bridgeland wrote:
>
> Amadeus Schmidt wrote:
>
> > >There is NO SHORTAGE of food in the world, and there will not be in
> > >the future.
> >
> > I'm afraid this optimistic view will not work out.
>
> Agriculture experts are nearly unanimous that this is the case. The
> only people who claim otherwise are those whose business involves
> creating fear and profiting on it. Popular novelists, green
> politicians and writers, vegetarian evangalist diet book authors and
> the like. Food production has stepped up precisely in line with rising
> population for all of history. If anything, the trend of recent
> decades is for production to rise FASTER than population, though in
> advanced nations land under cultivation is rapidly falling and
> returning to forest. Given current scientific knowlege, even assuming
> no improvements in techniques, there is no real fear that we will run
> out of food.

Tom, for an alternate view on whether there are food shortages ahead you
might want to consider the following:

a. Read the New York Times article on the beef industry from this past
sunday magazine for a clear view of how conventional agriculture is
entirely dependant upon fossil fuels for production and fertilization,
not to mention transport and cold storage (perhaps you already know
about this).

b. Check out <http://www.dieoff.org/page224.htm>, and other articles on
the same website about the world energy supply. There really doesn't
seem to be a lot to argue about there. World oil production is peaking
around now or in the next several years, and then will ramp down about
as quickly as it ramped up during the last century, and there is nothing
on the horizon to replace it on the level that industrial society
requires. These are not greenies, but geologists with petroleum industry
data.

I would suggest that food production has NOT stepped up in line with
increased population. It's the other way around, rather. As with any
species, increased food supply drives increases in population. Human
population started increasing with the agricultural revolution, and has
ramped up far more steeply with the recent discovery of petroleum.
Thinking that we will not run out of food reminds me of the flying
machine analogy in Daniel Quinn's book "Ishmael" (another good source on
this topic, btw.) The airman has launched his non-functional flying
machine off the top of a very high cliff, and is happily pedaling away,
not too concerned about how the ground is quickly approaching since
everything has been going so well thus far! If you get a chance to
explore the dieoff.org website I'll be interested to hear what you think
of it.

Hilary McClure
Danville, VT