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The Forum > Article Comments > Farming in cities could help feed the world > Comments

Farming in cities could help feed the world : Comments

By Lucía Atehortúa, published 16/12/2010

With traditional food production under threat from climate change, we should switch from agriculture to cell culture.

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"the reason that so many human beings go to bed hungry every day or die because of malnutrition is the greed and indifference..."

of environmental activists responsible for shutting down food production on a massive scale in the most productive countries of the world, on the basis of a belief that nature has a value above human values - providing human sacrifices to Gaia.

Profit comes from the difference between the value that the consumers set on the uncombined factors of production, versus the value that they set on the finished product. In other words, it is a reflection of the *increase* in value that the capitalist has conferred on the factors of production, as judged by the consumers. The idea that profit is responsible for food shortage has the matter precisely backwards, and is culpable economic illiteracy.

The idiocy of socialists, in their new incarnation as greens, continues to believe in what an earthly paradise we will all enjoy, if only we can get rid of that evil private property, and all draw from the common storehouse, directed by the presumed wisdom and selflessness of the political elite. We need to understand that if these people are to have their way, the result will be the death by starvation of many hundreds of millions of people.

It is an utterly unproved assertion to say that catastrophic man-made global warming, dishonestly called "climate change", is reducing agricultural production. By far the biggest single cause of reducing agricultural production is the anti-human, anti-civilisation, anti-logical policies of the greens.
Posted by Peter Hume, Thursday, 16 December 2010 7:59:09 PM
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Yabby: "even in the third world, sex is a normal and natural activity. We humans enjoy it, that does not mean that we want to create more children.
Stop blaming corporations for political and religious failure."

Yabby once again you exhibit your pro corporation anti people views with the above gem "Stop blaming corporations for political and religious failure." Politicians and religions do not set the tempo and theme for life in the 21st century, the "money" does, the corporations you dismiss of any liability are a sheet load closer to all our woes than the six degrees of separation that link us all and the politicians are the corporations, enough of them end up on their boards post politics.

We have politicians that administer departments for all the major industry groups and I assure you they are not there as conduit to convey our concerns of corporate culpability to the money. They are there so corporate can tell government what they want, ensuring that negative legislation and impediments to their business are "fixed up" or changed.

About the bugger in the third world with eight kids, you have absolutely no factual understanding of the third world. Nuclear families do not work in the third world, even in an impoverished country the family unit survives because of the eight kids rather than in spite of it. The larger the family the more people going out and bringing income into the family home.

You are so predictable Yabby, it's shameless, have you ever considered giving public office a spin, you suit the mould, or mold, both are apt.
Posted by sonofgloin, Friday, 17 December 2010 7:20:16 AM
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Columbia is a developing country and it's wonderful to see their scientists tackling food security head on with such a refreshing 'natural' approach to the basic building blocks of food - it's cellular structure. I'm sure in 50 years that healthy, low cost designer food will be main stream and thanks to the patents being held by organisations with high social responsibility we will see the best chance yet of meeting millenium goals of poverty reduction.

If some great gene mix foods come on line, we may have some of the most nutricious and delicious meals ever produced. Columbian gene food laboratories may develop startegic alliances with poor Columbian cocaine farmers and Afgahn poppy growers to switch to a much higher value crops that have high local and export value. Truely inspirational work.
Posted by Quick response, Friday, 17 December 2010 8:17:35 AM
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*About the bugger in the third world with eight kids, you have absolutely no factual understanding of the third world.*

Not so Sonoflgoin, for the extensive research undertaken shows
that hundreds of millions of third world women would use contraception, if it was available and affordable. Politics
and religion prevents that happening.

If people have 8 kids, despite family planning being available, don't expect
the rest of us to feed them. Corporations have nothing to do
with it.
Posted by Yabby, Friday, 17 December 2010 12:06:19 PM
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For those that think that high birth rates in the developing world are the fault of corporations, take a look at this PDF file (UN Policy Brief, first 4 pages): http://www.un.org/esa/population/publications/UNPD_policybriefs/UNPD_policy_brief1.pdf

High birth rates, high infant mortality, high maternal mortality, low school enrolment, low family incomes, poor health systems, non-existent pension systems, low levels of education...they are all connected and guess what, one of the easiest forms to break this interconnectedness is the use of modern forms of contraception. Dealing with the other issues is considerably more complex, so when we go out to provide aid to the world we can take the easy route (contraception) or the hard route (everything else). By taking the easy route we can make inroads on the hard stuff.

http://currentglobalperceptions.blogspot.com/
Posted by jorge, Friday, 17 December 2010 1:39:39 PM
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A timely article Lucia Atehortua but you present a system that I hope our human race will never need and at present only the wealthy or powerful could access it.

As someone whose life work has been spent thinking and doing something about feeding the World, I would need to be convinced that we will need industrial scale cellular food production systems inside another hundred years. If we need it any sooner, then catastrophe will have visited. Having said that though, it is equally important that the field be vigorously researched, so that we may be more ready for such a catastrophe. One can also add that if such a catastrophe strikes, someone will have the task of deciding who gets the food and who starves; will money – or weapons – decide!

I am quite content that we can feed a World population of 9 billion by 2030 but I have trouble with feeding 12 billion. Under a ‘medium’ growth scenario, UN studies predict around 9 billion at and beyond 2050. If a ‘high’ growth scenario applies, then population surges toward 30 billion and other strategies will be demanded, however, we will not know which model will emerge for about another 30 years.
I personally feel that the UN and all World Governments have ‘simply’ to agree to a two child policy, which would stop population growth in its tracks. That would be anathema to some cultures and religious groups - as well as to our economists - who cannot think in terms of steady state economics. They will have to!

At the Annual American Cattle Association dinner a few years ago, its organisers arranged that the ‘steak’ they ate was actually textured soy protein. The assembled mass of Cattlemen, and their wives, did not notice the difference - or realize they’d been conned! It was a salutary lesson. But that steak came from a plant protein (plus flavours), it was not derived from cellular systems as Lucia Atehortua presented in her article.

Continued next post
Posted by Beef, Monday, 20 December 2010 10:17:38 PM
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