Will humanity soon be awash in cheap food

[Wesley_Clark]

I don’t know very much about agriculture, so hopefully someone else does.

According to some agricultural companies (like Monsanto) and some scientists and professors I’ve read of, crop yields may double per acre between about 2000-2030. So corn would go from 150 bushels/acre up to 300 bushels/acre. A big part of this jump would be a better understanding of genetics and other forms of biotechnology.

http://www.monsanto.com/responsibility/our_pledge/healthier_environment/raising_yield_peracre.asp

At the same time, a good deal of our crops grown are used to feed livestock.

http://www.enterfarm.com/what-percentage-of-soy-and-corn-crops-are-fed-to-livestock/

80% of corn, 95% oats, altogether 56% of all agriculture inU.S.A. land used for beef production. 260 million acres of forest have been cleared for meat-based diet. “Divine Nature” a book by Michael A. Cremo & Mukunda Goswami – this book can be found in Library of Congress
“The amount of corn and oats required to produce one 8 oz. beef steak, could fill the bowls of at least 45 hungry humans.”
“The land required to produce one 1/4 lb. hamburger, can produce 36 lbs of potatoes, and for every acre of land used to grow food for humans – there are 14 acres growing hay for fodder for meat-based diet.”
“Livestocks Long Shadow” 2006
Untied Nations Multinational Study

I have no idea what the stats are for outside the US. But I have heard before that more corn goes to livestock than to humans. The problem is livestock is inefficient, and it takes about 7 calories of corn to produce 1 calorie of meat. I can’t find the exact stats, but I think it is around that area.

However advances in in vitro (lab grown meat) should become commercial in the next few decades. Lab grown meat has a higher return on investment and will not require the same number of calories of raw materials to produce meat. I don’t know exactly how many calories of agricultural products it takes to make 1 calorie of in vitro meat, but it is going to be lower than the amount needed to make meat the current way.

http://hplusmagazine.com/articles/bio/eight-ways-vitro-meat-will-change-our-lives

At the same time, you’d assume/hope that biofuels become more advanced and do not require corn as a precursor. So that would free up raw materials like corn for food.

http://74.125.95.132/search?q=cache:XCG8qwlAS_cJ:www.iowacorn.org/User/Docs/Checkoff%2520Connection%2520Insert3_s.pdf+percent+corn+goes+to+livestock&cd=4&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us

Iowa corn growers grew enough corn for food and fuel use in 2007 andplan to do so again this year. Adjusting for ethanol’s feed coproducts,about 40 percent of Iowa’s corn goes into livestock feed, 24 percent toethanol, 12 percent to food uses and 24 percent leaves the state (mostwill be livestock feed)

So it seems with crop yields of about 150 bushels/acre of corn, about 12% becomes direct food. The rest is either ethanol or goes into livestock (which is inefficient at converting agricultural calories into meat calories).

However, what if in vitro meat requires half (or less) the calories of corn to produce a calorie of meat that living animals do at the same time that we do not need corn based ethanol anymore (since alternatives like algae grown or other biomass ethanols will come along), and crop yields double per acre?

So we’d be producing 300 bushels/acre for corn. However even though people would eat more meat, it wouldn’t require nearly as much energy from corn to make it in vitro. And corn based ethanol would likely not exist as much due to inefficiency.

At the same time world population is only going to go up about 20% by 2030 (up to a little over 8 billion), but it seems the amount of calories of crops (when you factor in advances in in vitro meat production and ethanol using fewer of those crops inefficiently) might go up 500% or more. If right now the energy equivalent of 40 bushels/acre of corn is fed to humans (after subtracting the energy lost in converting corn to meat and subtracting ethanol) it might be 200 bushels/acre in 2030 because of in vitro meat and the loss of corn based ethanol.

So will we become awash in cheap food, or scale back on farming, or am I wrong or what exactly?

[An_Arky]

I think that, historically speaking, we’re already awash in cheap food. Not sure of all of the ramifications, but I do know that there are far fewer farmers. I’m guessing that’s going to be the case, but it already is happening, so it’s not a tough guess.

[SenorBeef]

We’re going to hit a point not far down the road where some of the big aquifiers we decided to tap as part of the green revolution are going to run dry. Our current agricultural model is unsustainable - we are draining water that takes thousands fo years to replace. Between this, and the possible shift of farmable areas due to climate change, we’re going to have a very severe disruption in our agricultural supply. Huge advances in agricultural technology may just ensure we don’t face mass starvation, but it’s hard to believe that at the current rate of population growth we will be able to sustain an equivelant level of food supply indefinitely.

[penultima_thule]

@Wesley_Clark

According to some agricultural companies (like Monsanto) and some scientists and professors I’ve read of, crop yields may double per acre between about 2000-2030. So corn would go from 150 bushels/acre up to 300 bushels/acre. A big part of this jump would be a better understanding of genetics and other forms of biotechnology.

Yes, it’s the Green Revolution II and it will struggle for much the same reason. High output predicated on high inputs in terms of both cost and management. The old wheat varieties would give you (for arguments sake) 60 bushells in the good times and 15 in the bad with a break-even of 20. The new varieties give you 100 if the ducks line up and 10 if they don’t with the break-even about 70.

A good manager in the right conditions will do very well. But in average conditions it’s less clear.

However advances in in vitro (lab grown meat) should become commercial in the next few decades. Lab grown meat has a higher return on investment and will not require the same number of calories of raw materials to produce meat.

Firstly, if “lab grown meat” has a higher return on investment that either feedlot or range fed meat then it would be commercially viable now.

Soy TVP (textured vegetable protein) has been a staple for decades and would be far cheaper.

If there is so much resistance to GM “Frankenfood” now, then “lab grown meat” is a very hard sell. I would have thought the label “lab rat meat” would probably kill the concept commercially.

And of course, the world is awash with cheap food now. It’s in the distribution that we run into the problems.

[Lumpy]

Define “cheap”. In the US, a cheeseburger that costs a dollar is cheap. For some of the world’s most destitute people, that would be exorbitant. Now make that “cheap” burger a foreign import, which ultimately has to be somehow payed for by your nation’s balance of trade, when much of your population are underemployed shantytown dwellers. Ten cents is cheap- unless you have no way to earn ten cents.

[Dick_Dastardly]

They’ll turn all the extra into biofuels.Already a huge chunk of US grain is made into biofuels, maybe a quarter or a third I remember reading recently. Of course if somebody produces a cheap clen fuel soon then we’ll have a bit of a surplus. But all that’'ll happen then is the Chinese/Asians will start using it to feed animals so they can eat more meat.

[Condescending_Robot]

Desalination is possible if the energy barrier is overcome. The energy barrier can be overcome by nuclear power. The same people who cry about water stress object to nuclear power, because of ATOMS! or because they wouldn’t know what to do with themselves if a problem was actually solved instead of becoming a perpetual focus of martyrdom.

[blindboyard]

A remarkably anti-Malthusian position.

But food is already cheap enough to bankrupt third world farmers. Food is more likely to become more expensive due to a shortage of water, phosphates, nitrates, petrol/diesel or government subsidies, which effectively control prices at present.

[Wesley_Clark]

@penultima_thule

Firstly, if “lab grown meat” has a higher return on investment that either feedlot or range fed meat then it would be commercially viable now.

It doesn’t yet, but people are working on ways to improve the taste and texture while lowering the cost of production. Since it is a biotechnology that would be manufactured, there should be many productivity advances in both of those fields that can and will be used to increase output and lower prices. People may oppose G.E. crops, but if in vitro meat becomes 1/2 the price of regular meat (while also being healthier), people are going to buy it.

We are already awash in cheap food. I think a bushel of corn will feed a person for about 50 days. And a bushel only costs about $3.30 right now. There are other expenses like refining, transportation, etc. but the gross calories are pretty cheap.

[Anne_Neville]

The US at least already is awash in cheap food. One result of that is our obesity epidemic.

We’re scaling back on farming. We have fewer acres of farmland now than we did in 1920, despite having triple the population. (Source: US census, 1920 (PDF) and USDA fact sheet.)

[Kent_Clark]

A lot of the land currently used for agriculture will become urbanized, and lost to production. In the U.S., the amount of land used for agriculture peaked in 1950 and has declined ever since. (In fact, the number of acres planted to corn peaked in 1932!)Of course, population growth will require more food. Those two factors alone will keep cheap crops from glutting the market. Consumer demand also may shift more heavily toward organic production, which currently yields less per acre.

Another flaw in the scenario is that if there’s a large amount of corn available for ethanol production, it will slow development of alternative sources. Alternately, if biofuel production requires land currently used for crop production, that also will reduce production.

Even if in vitro meat prodcution becomes commercially viable, the meat will still need nutrients, which will come from plants. Simple physics makes a 1:1 conversion impossible, so we’ll still need a large amount of crops to produce a smaller amount of meat.

[begbert2]

@kunilou

Even if in vitro meat prodcution becomes commercially viable, the meat will still need nutrients, which will come from plants. Simple physics makes a 1:1 conversion impossible, so we’ll still need a large amount of crops to produce a smaller amount of meat.

The comparison is with the amount of crops it currently takes to produce that amount of meat, which is considerably worse than 1:1.