Jared Diamond talks about the problem of gradually increasing salinity and its effects on the former Fertile Crescent in Guns, Germs and Steel. A very thought-provoking read.
It makes you wonder what may happen in the long term to the American Midwest.
Maybe planting peanuts will reverse the process. (Or maybe I’m thinkin’ of the Dust Bowl. Or George Washington Carver. Or something.)
I think the American Mid-West is less dependent on irrigation and has a higher rainfall amount than “the former Fertile Crescent” lessening the sality problem to some degree. If we keep this same climate the American Mid-West will be okay, otherwise all bets are off.
jois
Salinity
Well it seems my prior post did not get through and Jois has beaten me to the punch, however let me amplify her answer as this issue falls into one domain which I have some work in currently, if abstractly.
First, one has to understand that all run-off surface waters carry dissolved salts to some degree. Local conditions determine the precise salt load.
Second, irrigation in dry climates (you might ask why would one irrigate in wet ones: well in some areas dry season irrigation is necessary even if there is a significant rainy season) naturally leaves salts behind (a) because of course evaporation leaves the salts in the soil and (b) depending on the area and type of irrigation, salts may leach up from buried salt beds.
As anyone probably can guess, much of the Middle East (a) receives too little or no rain to flush out salts left by irrigation (b) ancient sea-beds are close enough to the surface so leaching issues arise in some areas © break-down or original lack of discipline in irrigation schemes (good irrigation must allocate for salt-flushing) led to salt buildup which progressively saps soil productivity until it becomes effectively sterile. There are treatment methods, but they are either expensive and/or time consuming. An issue which we are examining are regimes for salt-tolerant plants (bio-engineered) as well as perhaps salt-cleaning plants/organisms to help fight this issue, which by the way is perhaps the worst problem facing the Middle East. Not the idiocy over Jerusalem. Water and salinization issues. When one takes a look at the demographic trends, water profiles and political institutions in the region one grows terribly depressed. Egypt for example is already over its 84 BCM allotment of Nile water per its 1959 treaty with Sudan and we have a million new Egyptians a year. Ah, well, no need to bombard you with depressing the depressing details which add new joy to my life every day.
In re the American Mid-West, I believe the issue is not quite the same in the eastern areas (frankly I have not looked at this kind of data in a long time so I’m winging on memory) but when you get out on the western tier, then you have problems. While American irrigation systems are generally fairly modern (although some lag on best techniques in many areas) over-withdrawals of groundwater is a serious issue. In the long term this could render much dryland agriculture unsustainable if better practices are not adopted. Salinization is also a minor issue, but I believe that is well in hand — caveat being I have not really looked at this very much.
Even though livestock may eat grain that is not fit for human consumption that doesn’t mean that going vegan wouldn’t increase the availability of food. The problem is the amount of land taken up by farmers to grow food for those livestock which could be used instead to grow food for humans. The statistic people use is the amount of land needed to grow one pound of food, either corn or beef or whatnot. It works out that if you needed an acre of land to grow X pounds of corn, it would take you ten acres of land to grow that same weight of beef. And since pound for pound vegetables and such are more healthy for the body then meat you can see how it’s a waste of land. The statistics as I heard them in 1995 were if 10% of Americans stopped eating meat. That would free up enough land that is now being used to feed cattle to grow foor meant for humans, enough to feed 100 million people. We could extend that out, if Americans went meat free that would free us enough land to feed an extra billion people. If they all went vegan it would be even higher.
That’s all well and good but there is one problem, capitolism. If farmers were to focus all there energy growing corn, soy, potatos and whatnot their prices would drop and farmers profit margins would drop. Although we could still go ahead and all be vegetarians and force them to deal with us. But of course Americans LOVE beef, especially Texans. But it remains to be seen where we will be in 50 years as there is less and less arable land and more and more people to feed. Perhaps then farmers will be more likely to grow corn and other plants driving up the cost of beef and encouraging Americans to eat better for the environment, their health and pocket books.
I’d also like to add that no beef would also go ahead and save America loads of money. Mostly through health benefits.
First, it’s hard to see what Brother Rat is actually getting at. It appears the comments are focused on North America. I’ll assume that for the moment that is indeed what he means.
False dichotomy, insofar as you presume that lack of food is indeed the issue. It is not.
Weight is unlikely to be the most useful or valid method of comparison between food-stuffs. In fact, it’s likely to be among the most irrelevant.
That all depends on what your caloric intake needs are.
Vegan schmeegan. The issue, as constantly pointed out in this thread is not a problem of absolute quantity of food available but rather distribution and poverty. This sort of propaganda is utterly worthless.
No mind you, I tend to eat a la vegetarian and frankly don’t personally like meat that much. Quite a valid choice for a largely sedentary worker such as myself. Not perhaps so valid for the entire population. Further, “vegan” agitprop aside, not everyone’s nutritional needs can be readily met through veganesque diets.
If one wants to be a vegan, fine, but I find the pretend superiority of the choice to be laughable at best.
Capitalism is not the problem.
Grain farmers already face surpluses from excess production. Their profit margins are already problematic given current levels of production by the current numbers of farms, leaving aside subsidies for the moment.
Less and less arable land in the USA? Eh, perhaps but given current surpluses where’s the issue? Even 50 years from now, we can at the very least assume higher efficiencies per acre derivable from scientific advances. Reduction in meat eating to meet changed socio-economic circumstances is laudable — a sedentary population should reduce high calorie food consumption if it wishes to avoid the health problems from over-consumption. If.
No beef? Moderation is just as valid as veganesque fantasies.
This brings to mind the silly PETA idiots I just read a report about. Went to Kenya, Nairobi I believe, and locked themselves in a chicken cage to protest Kenyan meat-eating. I have no clue as what they were thinking.
brother rat wrote:
If that’s the statistic people are using, then people are using a misleading statistic. One pound of wheat has nowhere near the caloric content of one pound of beef. The more telling statistic would be calories produced per acre of farmland.
I think you missed the point. Cattle are (frequently) eating grains that were rejected as unfit for human consumption. Even if you eliminated cattle production entirely, there will always be grain that is rejected as unfit for human consumption (too many mold spores, etc.). With no livestock industry, that rejected grain would go to waste. As it is, the rejected grain gets converted to livestock feed.
Furthermore, your arguments ignore the point I made earlier, which is that crop production is harder on the land than cattle production. (Pesticides, loss of topsoil, use of chemical fertilizers, etc.)
Beware vegan propaganda!
I agree, the amount of food is not a problem, not now, but in all likelyhood it will be eventually. But yes, right now we’ve got so much grain that it is stored in silo after silo across the midwest, partly because farmers can’t afford to sell it but also because we don’t need it. But is this the default case? I think not. Things don’t always progress and if we were to wait around for the next big agricultural break through to boost the amount of food we can grow we’d probably eventually find ourselves with our pants around our ankles.
Let’s look at some statistics
In 1960 the US had 1.2 mil acres of farm land. And a population of 179 mil ppl. Let’s see, that’s about 150 Americans per acre.
In 1999 the US had 947,000 acres of farm land. And a population of est. 280 mil ppl. Now that’s just over 295 ppl per acre.
In 40 years the number of people each farm acre has to feed has just about doubled. Now granted saying ‘if these trends continue’ is always a dangerous proposition but if these trends continue pressure will build. And to tell me that we can count on continued scientific knowledge will continue to increase the productivity seems like a pipe dream to me. You can only morph a clod of dirt, a puff of air and a bit of sunlight into so much food. And since most of what we have gotten so far is an increase in productivity through homogenization of our current crops and animals it leaves us in a tight situation. One good disease and we could be in big trouble. Look at Europe, slaughtering livestock by the ton. It effects plants too. isn’t the elm tree in serious danger of being wiped out over on the mainland?
As per the weight issue, no it’s not the best statistic, and neither is amount of calories. Unfortunately we don’t have a nutritional value that’s useful. But if we were to talk vitamins, minerals and other nutrients and somehow morph all those various elements into 1 number we’d find that per acre we can make more nutrients with plants then with animals. This is common sense. Why go through a middle man when we can get the it straight from the source.
And just for the record I’ve yet to espouce veganism, I’ve merely mentioned it for the record. But if you were to go vegan you could survive quite healthily. You wouldn’t be able to randomly shop and buy fast food. Veganism is NOT convenient, which is why I’m not one. You’d have to actively know what foods you were eating and exactly what’s in them but you could get by. But I’m not surprised that the contrary view would be the one possessed by the majority of Americans since I can name the following industries that are advertising heavily on TV: Beef, pork, egg, milk and cheese. Powerful groups with lots of influence in Washington. If you were given the choice of eating either meat or vegetables for the rest of your life I know which one would kill you first.
I’d also agree that intensive farming is very destructive to the land, but there are smarter ways to farm that, although they would require more investment and would make food more expensive, they would dramatically increase the length of time that a farm could be productive.
In trying to address the OP, yes he was right when he said no meat equals more food and I haven’t seen anything to convince me otherwise. So… Food, we don’t need it now, but if we do hit 394 mil Americans in 2050 we just might. Oh yeah, and in this predictionwe are already 5 million ppl ahead.
So what is my point? Not that we should all stop eating meat, this is a free country and if ppl want to eat t-bone and ribs every day for the rest of their life, well they have that right. But I think that we should start thinking about what we need to be doing in the future. Because our population IS booming, both US and world, and the sprawl is getting incredible. And sooner then we’d like this will become a problem.
This is, I beleive, at best a half truth. IMHO the starvation in Africa is caused by politics and climate. The Sahara is getting bigger. Land that was farmable 50 years ago is no longer farmable. The other major factor is over population. The land in Africa can not support the number of people that live there which in turn helps fuel the wars and politics