[Ludi]

http://www.salon.com/life/sustainable_f ... es_of_food

"In an age of super-sized meals and obesity epidemics, food-shortage doomsday scenarios always seem a little surreal. Backed by half a century of agricultural abundance, it's easy to imagine that cheap food will permanently abound. But in a new book, "Empires of Food," academic Evan Fraser and journalist Andrew Rimas show us that we are not the first advanced civilization to have a hubristic, misplaced confidence that we'll always be fed.

By tracing the rise and fall of a number preindustrial empires, the authors show us just how much trouble we're in. The Romans, the Mesopotamians and the medieval Europeans, for example, all had agricultural systems that, much like ours, were yoked to complex technology and highly specialized trade networks. And each of those societies eventually failed because they hadn't accounted for soil erosion, growing overpopulation and weather changes. Climate change, anyone?"

[Narz]

When you suppose the famines will begin? I don't want to stock up on hot buttered popcorn too early nor, of course, do I want to wait until it's too late.

[Ludi]

Personally I think it is likely to be decades before the developed world experiences famine, though poor people in the developed world are experiencing food insecurity and there are approximately 1 billion people starving on the planet now.

So you're probably ok not to stock up on the popcorn, unless you expect to be poor at some point, in my personal opinion.

[sparky]

.

people in developed countries typically spend 15% of their budget for food

or 10% of their waking time
in the third world , the average is 60% of their budget or 30% of their available time

when it get to above 100% of their earnings , all their time is about getting food
forget personal consumption on education transport , housing or clothing
it's all about the next meal ,
anything else is malnutrition territory , sometimes for years
it get to the line where the little food available is given to the main earner so he can
look for work and earn food

the non producing , women , children elderly are doing with even less
It happened during the great Irish famine when the government road building program paid their workers after a full week work as Victorian morality demanded ,
they had worked for a week eating the very little they had ,
while their family starved


straight famine is very rare and usually happen after wholesale crop failure in a place with
little or expensive transport or man made disruptions
I.E. deliberate policy or the ravage of war

The usual case is the poor section of the population slowly starve
while a majority has enough or just enough
the "malnutrition divide " shift with the seasons and the circumstances
It's the " normal " population control
but in poor countries it's always there

in rich countries , the malnutrition line reappearance above the statistically insignificant
would be the sign of really big trouble

[Narz]

Personally I think it is likely to be decades before the developed world experiences famine, though poor people in the developed world are experiencing food insecurity and there are approximately 1 billion people starving on the planet now.

So you're probably ok not to stock up on the popcorn, unless you expect to be poor at some point, in my personal opinion.

I'm already poor (income of about 10K/year) but I still eat well (I spend about 50-60% of my income on food).

The most angering thing to be is that junk food & meat are subsidized while the costs of fresh produce are exceptionally high. This both hurts poor people & anyone who wants to eat healthy.

[Ludi]

I'm already poor (income of about 10K/year) but I still eat well

I guess you really don't need to worry about stocking up for famine.

[Narz]

I'm already poor (income of about 10K/year) but I still eat well

I guess you really don't need to worry about stocking up for famine.

Why, just because I'm thrifty now & can survive pretty well under the current system doesn't seem to speak about the future. If the price of food goes up & my income doesn't I'm in trouble.

[Ludi]

If the price of food goes up & my income doesn't I'm in trouble.

Well then maybe you should stock up.

[Outcast_Searcher]

If the price of food goes up & my income doesn't I'm in trouble.

Well then maybe you should stock up.

Actually, this goes straight to the heart of a situation in America that I just absolutely DON'T get.

The vast majority of Americans are somewhere between poverty (needing to live paycheck to paycheck just to get by, and the truly wealthy that need give no thought to meeting their expenses or securing their future. (Note -- getting by doesn't mean buying stupid stuff you don't need, regardless of how "good" it may make you feel about your self esteem and how you stack up against your neighbors)).

And yet, it seems the VAST majority of these folks spend so much (and continue to even after the financial crises, overwhelmingly) that they have LITTLE MARGIN TO DEAL WITH FINANCIAL SETBACKS.

Then when something goes wrong, they are generally unwilling to scale back, claim undue hardship, and expect their fellow citizens (cloaked as the government) to bail them out.

Narz, you recoginizing your situation, your vulnrerability, and your implied responsibility to take care of yourself/your family, IMO, makes you a class A fairly rare upstanding citizen, in today's "take care of me" America.

We certainly weren't like this (for the average person) through about 1980, as I grew up.

I can't fathom quite what happened -- and how in the world it happened so FAST.

[wisconsin_cur]

If the price of food goes up & my income doesn't I'm in trouble.

Well then maybe you should stock up.

Actually, this goes straight to the heart of a situation in America that I just absolutely DON'T get.

The vast majority of Americans are somewhere between poverty (needing to live paycheck to paycheck just to get by, and the truly wealthy that need give no thought to meeting their expenses or securing their future. (Note -- getting by doesn't mean buying stupid stuff you don't need, regardless of how "good" it may make you feel about your self esteem and how you stack up against your neighbors)).

Are things different elsewhere in the Western world or is "America" a by-word for "the west"?

I am nearing forty and have never seen ppl pay a cost for living as you describe. Even people older then me who have seen ppl pay a cost for that kind of living have largely forgot about it by now and by forget I mean that it no longer impacts their decision making even if they can technically remember what happened to whom.

Also I would doubt your equation of poverty with living paycheck to paycheck. There is a difference between true poverty where someone is just meeting their needs paycheck to paycheck and the relatively affluent who are still living paycheck to paycheck but due to their financial habits rather than true need.

If we are to find a way out of this situation then we will need to think precisely.

[sparky]

.
It's mostly America ,
Europe has a longer tradition of hanging their rulers when things get sticky ,
they have better coverage while American is under constant patriotic , cum " try hard and succeed " lullaby
somehow having a hard life is to be branded a failure and is felt like it ,
even if the game was rigged from the start
Some proviso
Here in Oz ,things are going from pretty good to not so hot ,
all the money seems to flow to the same suburbs while Farmers and bogans ( poor whites ) struggle more and more to get shorter jobs paying less
even the flash money people have increasingly precarious prospect ,
one month they put a deposit on a hot car , the next it's repossessed

[Ludi]

.
It's mostly America

It's true that income disparity is much greater in the US than in most parts of the developed world. Most people in the US are closer to the living paycheck to paycheck end of the spectrum than to the truly wealthy end.

http://www.lcurve.org/LCurveVideo.htm

The US owns something like 1/4 of the world's wealth, as well as using approximately 1/4 of the world's resources.

[EvanDGFraser]

Hey folks,

I saw you discussing my book and couldn’t help but join in. Good discussion, by the way, and lots of great points raised.

In terms of “when” the crisis is possibly going to strike, the short answer is “who knows.” It could be a long way off. It could be the year after next. A lot depends on Mother Nature. Consider what happened in 2006-8. A string of bad harvests brought global grain reserves down (that plus a policy of recommending African nations abandon their “strategic grain reserve”) and this, combined with financial speculation* and the bioenergy industry made prices shoot up. Food riots erupted across the world and the global grain markets were thrown into turmoil. But then we got lucky and the weather cooperated. The global harvest in 2008 was a world record, as was 2009. Grain stocks recovered and prices began to sink. But I shudder to think about what might have happened if the 2008 harvest had been bad. Things could have got ugly indeed.

The food system started to get interesting again about two months ago with the el Nino year hurting rice harvests in SE Asia and droughts in Russia and Asia hurting wheat harvests. Prices have again shot up but because we’ve had two good years we’ve got enough grain in the world’s silos that no one is really panicking.

The key lesson: storing food, while expensive is a really good idea!

I’m reminded of Sunday school and the story of Joseph and the Pharaoh who dreamed about 7 skinny cows eating 7 fat cows. Joseph interpreted this as a weather forecast – that there would be 7 good years and 7 bad years. Then Joseph made a policy recommendation: tax the agricultural sector during the good years, store the food, and then you’ll have the buffers to survive the lean times. I think we need to remember this lesson from the old testament and at household levels through to the international scale store more food.
Cheers folks!

Evan

PS: sorry for the self promotion but if anyone’s interested in following up these points, the link to my book’s amazon site is here: http://www.amazon.com/Empires-Food-Feas ... 964&sr=1-1

*see Fred Kaufmann’s recent article in Harpers on this.

[Ludi]

Transitioning to more resilient food-growing techniques might be a good idea as well. Most of the world relies on only a few crops, which are very vulnerable to pests, disease, and climate change.

[sparky]

.
Some development on the food front
2010 is a bit of a disappointment , bad weather has play havoc with the estimate
The good news is the South hemisphere is looking at making a killing
except for a really big locust plague down our side
The official bad news
http://www.daff.gov.au/animal-plant-hea ... ts/current

and the TV version
http://news.sky.com/skynews/Home/World- ... 9891?f=rss

[Sixstrings]

I know that supposedly food is cheap in the US, but I'm still amazed that a cell phone is cheaper than a restaurant meal.

I kind of think that's where we're headed, some kind of techno-poverty like in Blade Runner. Cheap technology all over the place and people twittering and social networking to find the closest soup kitchen.

[Plantagenet]

I'm still amazed that a cell phone is cheaper than a restaurant meal.

I kind of think that's where we're headed, some kind of techno-poverty like in Blade Runner. Cheap technology all over the place and people twittering and social networking to find the closest soup kitchen.

You must eat in some pretty fancy restaurants, but what a cool way to describe your vision of the future.

I think the main effect of peak oil is going to make most people in the USA substantially poorer, but I agree with you that technology will continue to develop and permeate the society and networks of wealth and technology will be floating above the mess and laced through it, no matter how bad it gets.

[efarmer]

I am in line with Plant in my thinking as well. I took a Permaculture course at The Farm in TN back in 2006 from Albert Bates and his dazzling band of practitioners. I was struck at the balance of solar power and satellite internet access with Permaculture at the school, and especially how the housekeeping and
chores were split up and performed by the attendees. We formed a village of very happy and civil people from extremely diverse backrounds and it was a pure joy.

Americans getting poorer in the right condition could actually improve their quality of life and social interactions!

People of means with wealth and land resources and people who wish to grow and pursue the local food and vibrant community concepts are truly each other's best friends if they ditch the class warfare nonsense and see each other as people, that is, able to sort the willing from the unwilling and get the willing working together where and when they can.

It is after all how America was built before we succumbed to outrageous consumption on leveraged money.