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Food scarcity

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For most Australians food scarcity in 2022 is something that happens overseas.

There is a difference between relative poverty and scarcity of food. The former can have multiple causes, bad luck, parents status at birth, drug addiction and illness.

PNG our nearest unstable neighbour has enough food. Timor is back on its feet food wise. Fringe Asia and Africa will suffer from episodic famines.

Big Food will continue to poison our processed foods with sugar, salt and some cousin of Agent Orange.

It is all relative.

gg
 
Smurf1976 said:
It's hard to put a figure on it but I think it's fair to say that rather a lot of energy is being put into the whole process relative to what ends up on the plate. It's efficient in terms of labour, not so good in terms of physics. :2twocents
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I think there is a fallacy here, you can't compare the energy efficiency of the food production & distribution chain to a Carnot engine. Which is what you are doing without knowing it.

You can only compare our current practices to every other possible mode of production and distribution. That's where you will find current modern farming practices are efficient as they can be.

If you want to talk physics then the real thing that abolished slavery on farms was not the civil war in the US or enforcement of any other laws as you may think. Slavery did not end because humans are nice people. Slavery and every other use of forced labour eg farm animald ended because fossil fuels cost less, gave more work output and os more reliable and efficient than human slaves horses pulling ploughs etc

We actually should be teaching how fossil fuels ended poverty and human misery more than anything else ever and is the sole factor in the massive population growth and unprecedented wealth and comfort most humans enjoy now - HOW DARE YOU..
 
Smurf1976 said:
The most efficient use of human labour to feed humans certainly. Can't argue with that. :)

In terms of efficiency of other things however, it's not so good.

The energy content of food eaten by the average adult at 8.7MJ per day is equivalent to 0.225 litres of diesel fuel.

Now how much fuel did we use to run the farm machinery, pump water, make fertilizers, transport the food to processing plants and then supermarkets, drive to and from the shop and so on?

It's hard to put a figure on it but I think it's fair to say that rather a lot of energy is being put into the whole process relative to what ends up on the plate. It's efficient in terms of labour, not so good in terms of physics. :2twocents
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The Salad I made last night had bean sprouts we grew in a bean sprout solarium, lettuce leaves and green capsicums from our garden, added to two fine pieces of eye fillet from beef cattle we raised, and was topped off with a rare Duriff pressed from our own grapes.
I can sit back with a smug smile and say "it wasn't me".
Mick
 
mullokintyre said:
The Salad I made last night had bean sprouts we grew in a bean sprout solarium, lettuce leaves and green capsicums from our garden, added to two fine pieces of eye fillet from beef cattle we raised, and was topped off with a rare Duriff pressed from our own grapes.
I can sit back with a smug smile and say "it wasn't me".
Mick
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Same here, cattle ,garden ,fruits but our own examples are not the rules and the billions in Africa Asia, Europe and even most if Australian are fed on oil based, fertiliser intensive cereals/rice from the us, Europe inc russia and Thailand farms.
Even our butchers's beef is usually force fed feedlot antibiotics and grain
 
I eat 3 oranges a year, a dozen apples, a few punnets of strawberries and some bananas.

The water, fertiliser, fuel, chemicals and time required to produce that in my backyard or acquire the land and foot the production costs of raising a few cattle to eat is the worst possible economic plan knowable.

If folks want to do that as a hobby, enjoy it but it's not a solution for the vast majority of people...in fact it's impossible.

I buy such small quantities of fruit and veges such that people in the check-out line think I am struggling for cash and offer to pay for them yet most of what I buy goes off in the fridge and is thrown in the bin before I can consume it.
 
3 hound said:
I eat 3 oranges a year, a dozen apples, a few punnets of strawberries and some bananas.

The water, fertiliser, fuel, chemicals and time required to produce that in my backyard or acquire the land and foot the production costs of raising a few cattle to eat is the worst possible economic plan knowable.

If folks want to do that as a hobby, enjoy it but it's not a solution for the vast majority of people...in fact it's impossible.

I buy such small quantities of fruit and veges such that people in the check-out line think I am struggling for cash and offer to pay for them yet most of what I buy goes off in the fridge and is thrown in the bin before I can consume it.
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I thiñnk you should change diet, get more vegies and fruits in?
 
3 hound said:
I think there is a fallacy here, you can't compare the energy efficiency of the food production & distribution chain to a Carnot engine. Which is what you are doing without knowing it.
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Sort of but not quite.

I know that's exactly what I'm doing. ;)

Modern farming is efficient in terms of labour and so on and beats any other way humans have come up with to produce food.

In pure physics terms however not much of the energy input from the diesel, natural gas (fertilizer) and electricity actually makes it to my mouth. Most is lost along the way. In that sense it's inefficient.

That has relevance in a few ways.

In some cases there's use of things grown directly as a source of energy for machines or as chemical feedstock, building materials and so on. Is that really a good use of land and all the inputs that go into farming? Or would we be better off just using the crude oil, natural gas and so on directly and skipping the entire step of agriculture?

That's not about humans eating it but I'm referring to, for example, burning wheat or corn as fuel to heat buildings. That one's very highly questionable as to whether there's any real benefit once all the inputs used to grow, harvest and transport the wheat or corn are considered. It's doubly dubious when there's credible talk of food shortages.

Then there's meat versus plants. I'm not a vegetarian, so I'm not preaching to anyone, but there must be a significant energy loss in turning grain into meat versus just eating the grain.

My basic point being that the world's crop production could feed more people if we didn't burn some as fuel and if we at least reduced the amount converted into meat.

That's a physics argument yes. :)
 
Smurf1976 said:
Sort of but not quite.

I know that's exactly what I'm doing. ;)

Modern farming is efficient in terms of labour and so on and beats any other way humans have come up with to produce food.

In pure physics terms however not much of the energy input from the diesel, natural gas (fertilizer) and electricity actually makes it to my mouth. Most is lost along the way. In that sense it's inefficient.

That has relevance in a few ways.

In some cases there's use of things grown directly as a source of energy for machines or as chemical feedstock, building materials and so on. Is that really a good use of land and all the inputs that go into farming? Or would we be better off just using the crude oil, natural gas and so on directly and skipping the entire step of agriculture?

That's not about humans eating it but I'm referring to, for example, burning wheat or corn as fuel to heat buildings. That one's very highly questionable as to whether there's any real benefit once all the inputs used to grow, harvest and transport the wheat or corn are considered. It's doubly dubious when there's credible talk of food shortages.

Then there's meat versus plants. I'm not a vegetarian, so I'm not preaching to anyone, but there must be a significant energy loss in turning grain into meat versus just eating the grain.

My basic point being that the world's crop production could feed more people if we didn't burn some as fuel and if we at least reduced the amount converted into meat.

That's a physics argument yes. :)
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The big heresy is ethanol in fuel:
Great if using agricultural waste but the current scheme in the US is deliberately turning corn into ethanol to add to car fuel(gas in us lingo)
Sadly it takes more oil to create that ethanol energy than produced.
So de facto a pure subsidy to us farming with a clear waste of energy/resource.
Biden just increased in the last week the ratio of ethanol in US fuels....to save petrol following the energy crisis with Russian embargo.
So wasting more oil, and increasing food shortages..you could not make this up.
With friends like that, who needs enemies
Only bio diesel (vegetable oil) has a positive energy bill.Was true 5y or so ago, and i doubt it has changed
 
Ethanol is proving to be a scam in environment terms and only really benefits politicians looking to curry favour with the powerful farm lobby.
qldfrog said:
The big heresy is ethanol in fuel:
Great if using agricultural waste but the current scheme in the US is deliberately turning corn into ethanol to add to car fuel(gas in us lingo)
Sadly it takes more oil to create that ethanol energy than produced.
So de facto a pure subsidy to us farming with a clear waste of energy/resource.
Biden just increased in the last week the ratio of ethanol in US fuels....to save petrol following the energy crisis with Russian embargo.
So wasting more oil, and increasing food shortages..you could not make this up.
With friends like that, who needs enemies
Only bio diesel (vegetable oil) has a positive energy bill.Was true 5y or so ago, and i doubt it has changed
Click to expand...
 
Very interesting discussions happening in this thread but not a lot to do with food scarcity.

I will see what I can do about moving posts into other threads tomorrow (I am on the phone at the moment) but in the meantime can we please get this thread back on topic.

Thanks in advance.
 
Joe Blow said:
Very interesting discussions happening in this thread but not a lot to do with food scarcity.

I will see what I can do about moving posts into other threads tomorrow (I am on the phone at the moment) but in the meantime can we please get this thread back on topic.

Thanks in advance.
Click to expand...
My bad, read this after I posted, apologies for creating extra work for you. Will get back on topic.

Cheers
 
Joe Blow said:
Very interesting discussions happening in this thread but not a lot to do with food scarcity.

I will see what I can do about moving posts into other threads tomorrow (I am on the phone at the moment) but in the meantime can we please get this thread back on topic.

Thanks in advance.
Click to expand...
Yeah sorry Joe.

Yep well worthy of its own thread and shouldn't take away from the important topic of this thread.
 
Joe Blow said:
Very interesting discussions happening in this thread but not a lot to do with food scarcity.

I will see what I can do about moving posts into other threads tomorrow (I am on the phone at the moment) but in the meantime can we please get this thread back on topic.

Thanks in advance.
Click to expand...
well i could say hungry ( desperate ) people do despicable things ( to fill the families bellies )

but unless we double back to agriculture/aquaculture where do we go this shortage has been started by decades of unwise policy decisions , now compounded by unfortunate weather events , some corporations missing guidance ( fertilizer companies ,some growers , some logistics companies ) one problem leaves you open to further distractions until no progress is made

but would we need a gardening or nutrition thread

yes the hood-winked public are starting to notice now , but this has been brewing for years ( on an Australian level AND an international one )

the current narrative in several nations is that hoarding is BAD , preppers are crazy and the government will have it all under control
 
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couldn't resist posting this

( but actually it is the buying power of the dollar cratering )
 
qldfrog said:
The big heresy is ethanol in fuel:
Great if using agricultural waste but the current scheme in the US is deliberately turning corn into ethanol to add to car fuel(gas in us lingo)
Click to expand...
If it's using waste then sure, that's putting it to a sensible use.

Also there are niche applications where ethanol, regardless of how it's produced, does have huge value as fuel in an engine due to its oxygen content. If the engine unavoidably needs to be used in a confined space well then ethanol has value definitely if it's all mixed and used properly.

Turning corn or wheat into fuel with which to run ordinary road vehicles under normal conditions of use is however an extremely dubious idea. The benefit in terms of fuel use is relatively minor at best and then there's the fertilizer use, water use, land degradation and so on. We're literally turning food into fuel which is rather bizarre considering that a farm turns fuel into food.

Then there's the non-engine uses. I realised after the previous post but many perhaps aren't aware that corn or wheat-fired heaters are a thing. Like this:



That's corn burning there yes. There are similar design heaters that burn wheat or other crops too.

Burning pellets made from waste sawdust from saw milling sure, that makes sense, but burning food? :2twocents
 
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