

How to Feed the World by 2050 - sasvari
http://www.theatlantic.com/life/print/2011/03/how-to-feed-the-world-by-2050-biotech-isnt-the-answer/72768/

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bryanlarsen
Putting your head in the sand and saying "eat less meat" is not going to fix
the problem. As billions of people come out of poverty, they're going to
rightly demand their share of meat.

As has been pointed out, it's easy to feed 9 billion people on grain alone.
But feeding 9 billion people meat and a healthy variety of vegetables is a
much more difficult challenge.

But luckily, there are ways to fix this problem and still let people eat their
meat:

1) cows eat grass. Currently, modern cows eat grain. Historically, cows ate
grass. Grass-fed cows are healthier, happier and much more nutritious. Grain
fed cows also waste most of the grain they're fed: a cow fed corn needs 12
calories of grain to produce a single calorie of meat. But a chicken needs far
fewer pounds of grain since birds evolved to eat grains & insects. Cows eat
grass. A grass-fed cow doesn't "steal" any food from humans.

So why do we feed them grain instead of grass? Because it's cheaper. Huge
numbers of dollars have been invested in increasing our production of wheat,
corn and rice, to great success: yields today on non-virgin farmland are 4-10
times as large as they were 150 years ago. A comparable effort to raise the
production of crops such as alfalfa will provide huge benefits. It's insane
that it's more efficient to to plant a crop of barley, harvest the seeds to
feed to cows and throw away the rest of the plant than it is to plant
something else and feed the whole plant to the cow.

The other part of the solution is to eat a wider variety of meats and less
beef. Bacon is the only form of pork that Americans eat, yet it's tastier than
beef, IMO. Luckily, most Asians already know that.

2) fix our fishing: Current fishing practices are hugely wasteful. We've got a
huge number of boats chasing a small number of fish, reducing stocks well
below the most efficient breeding population size. Properly managed oceans
could produce far more meat calories for humans than it currently does. We'd
have to reduce our fishing now, but do we want a few calories now or a large
number of calories later? Through the tragedy of the commons, we're saying a
"few calories now".

~~~
rcurses
>Bacon is the only form of pork that Americans eat

I can't agree with you there. Think of all the ham, barbeque, and ribs, and
pork chops.

Maybe you are talking about fast food (lots of beef, not much pork)?

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noahth
Interesting piece pointing out some possibly non-obvious considerations about
future food supply. However, it fails miserably at answering "How" the
suggested change in diet for first-world eaters will come about. Sure, most
who care to look realize that feeding grain to animals is an inefficient way
to produce edible calories, but in order for there to be a mass shift away
from meat consumption in first-world countries, that inefficiency has to be
accurately reflected (if not exaggerated) in the relative prices of meat and
grains. Should there be a meat tax? It seems that the alternative is years of
fluctuation in food prices (as we flail about seeking the new equilibrium)
that mostly have a negative effect for the world's poor.

~~~
anamax
> Should there be a meat tax?

There is a "meat tax" which is exactly equal to/accounts for the inefficiency
that you're worried about. That inefficiency is in the price of meat because
suppliers pass the cost of grain through to their customers.

People don't always buy the most efficient. Get over it.

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latch
I recently discovered Quinoa, which is quite delicious and very nutritious (it
has a balanced set of essential amino acids). It's also pretty cheap. I'm not
sure how hardy the plant is though. Googling shows that it's on the short list
of foods often mentioned as being able to play a significant role in world
hunger.

~~~
switch007
It's great for breakfast too - treat it a bit like porridge. Cook it on the
stove with some milk, almonds, sugar, raisins, muesli etc.

~~~
RyanMcGreal
I just had cold quinoa and vegetable salad for breakfast. :)

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ctdonath
Feeding the world isn't the problem. There is enough food.

The problem is distribution. Politics finds food distribution - or creative
hinderance thereof - a powerful tool in controlling populations.

~~~
igrekel
And I would add the issue of food waste, if you go through the whole chain, a
lot of food produced is wasted because of inefficiencies in each steps of the
transformation and distribution chain

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chapel
Sadly the idea that eating less of things like meat and other 'expensive' to
produce foods will help feed the world is a bit short sighted. Not to mention
that the majority of first world diets which are more heavily carb based is
slowly killing us. There are many diseases that are caused by our diets and
continuing to eat the way the government and many health officials recommend
is detrimental to our health. Meat is an important facet of our diet, and it
is a lot more healthy than the last 40 years of medical rhetoric has led us to
believe.

I think locally we can do better by focusing on local produce and other food
products. Maybe to the point of having vertical farms inside cities which
could feed the local populace and cut down on pollution from shipping the food
around as well as give higher quality fresher food to the local community. As
another poster mentioned, we shouldn't try and force our mechanized techniques
to third world countries, they just don't work.

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yannickmahe
Really interesting piece, but the end falls short. I would have loved to see
concrete solutions and possible implementations. It felt like the article was
building up to that.

~~~
bodski
One of the key factors has to be the unlocking of previously 'unfarmable' into
a self sustaining fertile alternative. Big agro-business contends that this is
not possible and that we need to use oil based fertilisers and pesticides,
machine intensive techniques and pumped water irrigation. It turns out that
this does not seem to be the case at all.

This 'Greening the Desert' projects shows a promising way forward using long
term (5-8 years) permaculture techniques to render arid, salty and previously
unproductive land into productive land able to capture and sustain the
majority of the water it needs with minimal irrigation.

[http://permaculture.org.au/2007/03/01/greening-the-desert-
no...](http://permaculture.org.au/2007/03/01/greening-the-desert-now-on-
youtube/)

I recommend watching the videos, truly inspiring stuff. The original greening
the desert project transformed an arid, salt ridden area in Jordan into a
fruit producing farm within a few years. The locals laughed initially at their
efforts but then started queuing up to learn how it was done.

The other thing we need to do (in the West) is appreciate the value and
privilege of eating meat and stop expecting to base a large part of our diets
on it. A given amount of land can feed 7x the number of people when used to
grow plant crops eaten directly as opposed to feeding it to livestock.

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wisty
It doesn't mention energy, but that's just a bag of hurt on any public forum.

