> Fundamentally, the story of golden rice is a metaphor for how tech isn’t the
be-all-and-end-all for the hunger crisis, the web of bureaucrats, NGOs, and
geopolitics is enough to block any sort of disruption into the ecosystem.
In truth, the planet produces enough food to feed its billions, but most of this
is produced in affluent, developed nations where supply outstrips demand by a
large margin, so a third of the supply ends in landfills as food waste
(https://news.un.org/en/story/2019/10/1048452) instead of going where it's
needed, particularly Africa and South America where "undernourishment and severe
food insecurity are on the rise" (from the UN article linked earlier).
This is not a bureaucratic issue, or an issue with regulations etc. Rather, the
people who make the food that feed us all don't make it because they want to
feed us, but because they want to turn a profit. If they can't turn a profit,
then they don't sell the food. So it's a matter of distribution, and economics
and not a matter of regulation, or technology.
As to GMOs, green hysteria aside, GMOs address the wrong problem at best, throw
fuel to the fire at worst: where there is a problem of distribution, as in the
developing world, GMOs address a non-existent problem of supply. Where
there is oversupply, as in the developed world, they just exacerbate it.
To be perfectly honest I'm not an expert in any of this and the above is my
clunky, probably half-wrong version of what's going on, that I've pieced
together from my patchy knowledge of the food production business (I make
cheese, not for a living, but it has given me a narrow perspective from which I
think I can safely extrapolate, up to a point). The most alarming part of the
truth is that most people -in developed and developing nations alike- do not
understand where their food comes from, who makes it, how they make it and where
it ends up when they don't eat it. We have centralised food production, made our
lives in cities far away from wher the food is made, built our societies around
producing all sorts of things we can't eat- and now we're all paying the price.
Because, what it all comes down to is that human needs food badly and there's no
way around that.
Cheap transfer of food from developed to developing nations poses its own risks (which this article touches on). It can undercut developing nations own farmers, and realigns incentives, and is also more easily corruptible (these large imports usually need to pass through government hands).
> Although food aid can have negative unintended consequences, the empirical evidence is thin and often contradictory. The available evidence suggests that harmful effects are most likely to occur when food aid arrives or is purchased at the wrong time, when food aid distribution is not well targeted to the most food insecure households, and when the local market is relatively poorly integrated with broader national, regional and global markets
This assertion (which I think is sound) re-emphasis the importance of the entire system working well, not just having cheap supply.
Another thing to help think about the first world's "food waste" problem (and I do think its something we need to manage), is to imagine what the target food waste goal should be. How much over-supply on average do we want to insure us against shocks and disruptions? For shits and giggles, I looked at the USDA's stats on bushels of wheat harvested (https://www.nass.usda.gov/Statistics_by_Subject/result.php?9...) from 2000 to 2019. The average (both mean and median) production divided by minimal over that time frame is ~1.3. I think that helps set an useful scale.
I don't understand your comment. The abstract you copied here says that the evidence that "food aid can have negative unintended consequences" is "thin and often contradictory". Moreover, I didn't say anything about "just having cheap supply". I said there's a problem of distribution rather than regulation. What are you disagreeing with, in my comment, can you explain?
Hey sorry, I got hooked on this part of your post, "Rather, the people who make the food that feed us all don't make it because they want to feed us, but because they want to turn a profit. If they can't turn a profit, then they don't sell the food." and my eyes just blurred over the next sentence where you clearly say "it's a matter of distribution".
Reading more carefully, and thinking more, I am not disagreeing with you, except maybe when you say it's not a matter of regulation, in the sense that I believe that regulation hugely impacts distribution.
> In truth, the planet produces enough food to feed its billions (...)
Your statement is very general in nature. I assume you mean humans, and I assume by feeding you mean a sustainable process. Would you please quote your sources here? The modern industrial agriculture that keeps modern society alive is based on efficiency innovations such as the Haber Bosch process, soil management, antibiotics, automation, transportation etc that being huge scale effects. Personally, I have no idea of the human population ceiling if all were optimally distributed home farmers. It sure would come with inefficiencies.
source: had some interesting conversions with individuals from the from BASF/Cargill/Tyson Foods.
> To be perfectly honest I'm not an expert (...)
It is a super complex topic - biology, farming, engineering, markets. Hard to be an expert here. Let us hope one shows up and writes a comment :^)
What I mean is that the food we produce is already enough to feed everyone (yes, humans). The UN article I link starts with this:
Enough food is produced today to feed everyone on the planet, but hunger is on the rise in some parts of the world, and some 821 million people are considered to be “chronically undernourished”. What steps are being taken to ensure that everyone, worldwide, receives sufficient food?
The first sentence includes a link to the source of the claim.
What do you mean by "inefficiecies" at the end of your second paragraph?
Hey, thanks for clarifying the source / scope of your statement. I admit that I did not read your link.
> What do you mean by "inefficiecies" at the end of your second paragraph?
I mostly mean the effects of scale that large food production centers can bring. These usually manifests in specialized workforce and efficient use of financial resources e.g. 2-3 shift slaughterhouses, use of large mashines for agriculture, soil management. In effect, this allows for a larger part of the populace to take another role in society than being a farmer e.g. ideally doctor, professor, teacher, construction worker, taxi driver, et cetera.
PS (1) I am a fan of permaculture and eating from my own garden, and I see that there are many a defect in the way we are producing food these days. (2) The World Food Program has some great successes to show for, and I admire many of those systemic grass roots projects.
Golden Rice however addressed a problem that couldn't be addressed in other ways (not without much bigger strife), by providing a decentralized, locally viable way of addressing the vitamin shortage that all other options failed at.
(Of course we could just do it by force, but that has other issues)
I don't understand this comment. There's enough food to feed everyone, and more. Why do we need Golden Rice to ensure everyone gets enough vitamin A? Why can't we distribute enough food with enough vitamin A to the people who need it, without that food being Golden Rice? And how is Golden Rice solving the problem of getting all the already existing food containing vitamin A to people? Why do we need to fulfill peoples' need of vitamin A with Golden Rice, in particular?
Because geographical and cultural differences in diet, that's one.
Because supplementation programs failed, that's two.
Because people most in need are simultaneously too poor and in areas that aren't well served by modern distribution networks, that's three.
What the target, people suffering from lack of vitamin A in among other places India, however, do have:
Diet that is heavily dependant on rice, that's one
Considerable access to rice as locally produced staple crop, that's two.
Don't need any new distribution or support in order to grow Golden Rice vs. existant local cultivars and have a supply network for it already in place, that's three.
In truth, the planet produces enough food to feed its billions, but most of this is produced in affluent, developed nations where supply outstrips demand by a large margin, so a third of the supply ends in landfills as food waste (https://news.un.org/en/story/2019/10/1048452) instead of going where it's needed, particularly Africa and South America where "undernourishment and severe food insecurity are on the rise" (from the UN article linked earlier).
This is not a bureaucratic issue, or an issue with regulations etc. Rather, the people who make the food that feed us all don't make it because they want to feed us, but because they want to turn a profit. If they can't turn a profit, then they don't sell the food. So it's a matter of distribution, and economics and not a matter of regulation, or technology.
As to GMOs, green hysteria aside, GMOs address the wrong problem at best, throw fuel to the fire at worst: where there is a problem of distribution, as in the developing world, GMOs address a non-existent problem of supply. Where there is oversupply, as in the developed world, they just exacerbate it.
To be perfectly honest I'm not an expert in any of this and the above is my clunky, probably half-wrong version of what's going on, that I've pieced together from my patchy knowledge of the food production business (I make cheese, not for a living, but it has given me a narrow perspective from which I think I can safely extrapolate, up to a point). The most alarming part of the truth is that most people -in developed and developing nations alike- do not understand where their food comes from, who makes it, how they make it and where it ends up when they don't eat it. We have centralised food production, made our lives in cities far away from wher the food is made, built our societies around producing all sorts of things we can't eat- and now we're all paying the price. Because, what it all comes down to is that human needs food badly and there's no way around that.