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The Forum > Article Comments > You can’t eat potential > Comments

You can’t eat potential : Comments

By Glenn Denning, published 7/10/2009

Through a combination of benign neglect of agriculture and financial mismanagement, the planet is fast running out of food.

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Of course, food security is about both supply and DEMAND. In other words, increasing food production while failing to stop population growth is ultimately futile. All you end up with, in the end, is an even greater number of starving people because food production cannot be increased without limit (remember diminishing returns?) and the world is finite. Chemical fertilizers can boost agricultural production but, as oil continues to decline, will the developing nations be able to afford the increased costs of these? And applying chemical nitrogen to soils leads to a decrease in soil carbon which decreases water and nutrient holding capacity, increases carbon emissions etc.. It is a fool's game. The real lesson is that, if the world is dependent upon chemical fertilizers to sustain its population, then it is already overpopulated.
Posted by michael_in_adelaide, Wednesday, 7 October 2009 9:27:50 AM
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A good article. I read that Borlaug had died. I thought in his own way he was a genuis. It's a fantastic inequity when you think about it that the developed world is fat with food (cooking shows!) while Africa is stuck back in the 1950s.

This has little to do with the closed system thesis of the anti populationists and sociobiologist but rather a lack of education, proper government and food.
Posted by Cheryl, Wednesday, 7 October 2009 10:16:38 AM
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Cheryl, please describe how the world does not operate as a "closed system" so that we can understand where we have got it wrong.
Posted by michael_in_adelaide, Wednesday, 7 October 2009 10:39:30 AM
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1. Michael I'm not sure that using fertilizer = overpolulation, some fertilizers are natural, like guano, do you include that? I understand your intent though I think, that if we have to prop up the land, then it is beyond sustainment .. is that what you mean? Bugger, you're out for 24 hours or something now aren't you because you used two posts.

2. On levels of aid in the $ sense, I suspect that the AGW funds that will be redistributed from "richer" to "poorer" countries will be done in a condescending and tricky manner, such is the style of PM Rudd and his ilk. Will the aid we now distribute overseas just be renamed as AGW money? It would make good sense, then we don't have to send any of the new AGW taxes overseas at all, we just send the same amount, but call it AGW money. That also allows us to do some finger wagging and paternalistic supervising of what the recipients are currently doing wrong.

That way, the various government get to keep and dole out that collected tax for their own pet projects and the never ending electioneering we currently experience.

I'm probably being too cynical though, I'm sure no one would be that disingenuous or devious, certainly I'm sure they will inform the taxpayer (?) haha!

3. Can we eat potential, well yes if we can have jobs that are "potential" - I mean all those new renewable green jobs are just as "potential". I look forward to the "potential" green job employees start paying tax very soon.
Posted by rpg, Wednesday, 7 October 2009 11:08:03 AM
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Photosynthesis, the sun, cosmic rays and wind, tidal pull and all forms of human creativity.
Posted by Cheryl, Wednesday, 7 October 2009 11:28:08 AM
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Ah, well, Cheryl has used up her two posts for the day too. For that we can be thankful.

With regard to fertiliser, Australian soils are deficient in both phosphorus and potassium. Nitrogen can be fixed by growing legumes in rotation with other crops. This also increases the carbon content. Both of the former elements must be obtained by digging them out of the ground somewhere so I would presume that some day they will run out too. Artificial nitrogen fertiliser is produced from the atmosphere where there is an abundant quantity, but the fuel used in its production is also in finite supply. As a result of these factors, use of these resources needs to be carfully managed as one day in the future, the burgeoning population may have to live on fresh air and the nutrients which are recycled, in a similar manner to that which obtained in the middle ages. I expect that in those circumstances, a much smaller population would be sustainable.

For aid to be effective, a country needs to have a stable and relatively honest government, otherwise the bulk of the aid ends up in the hands of the few at the top. This will be a major problem in countries such as Zimbabwe.

David
Posted by VK3AUU, Wednesday, 7 October 2009 12:23:08 PM
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Glenn Denning says that Dr Borlaug’s successes have averted the predicted famines. Could it be more accurate to say that they have only been delayed?

The whizz-bang part of Norman Borlaug’s success was the development of plant varieties dependent upon inexpensive nitrogen fertiliser. Other varieties will undoubtedly be developed, with long-term surety assisted by the bank of basic seed varieties held at Longyearbyen, Spitzbergen. But whizz-bang success was a one-off, because nitrogen fertiliser at low-cost is quickly becoming a thing of the past.

It’s not easy living in the African back-blocks. Imported fertiliser for the new plant varieties, cheap for the developed world, has generally been available only at a much higher cost to the under-developed. Even during the peak of Borlaug’s improvements, local agriculture was in a tight race against increasing human need. For instance, Malawi in 1950 had a population of 2.9 million, 1975 it was 5.2, and 1994 it came to 9.7 million.

1994: the year the world came to Cairo for the International Conference on Population and Development. Agreement came there, in spite of Vatican intransigence, that the essential direction for progress was emancipation of women from enforced child-bearing; that all nations take steps towards limiting their populations; that developed nations would (not should) provide aid for this to the less-developed, at an agreed percentage of their GDP.

Malawi, majority Christian, has not benefited from the Cairo declaration. The influence of the Vatican and other religious fundamentalists upon major donor countries saw to that: population in 1994, 9.7 million, total fertility rate 7.4, birth rate 5%, emigration 3.8%; In 2008, 13.1 million, total fertility rate 5.6, birth rate 4%, annual growth rate of 2.8% average over previous 10 years, population median age 17; for 2025, projected population is over 20 million.

The example of Malawi is pertinent: The IMF’s estimate of growth rate for 2008 of 9.7 per cent is indeed remarkable; though 2.8% of it would have been population increase. But eventual agricultural success is a naïve hope unless nations do step up and deliver on previous promises at Cairo.
Posted by colinsett, Wednesday, 7 October 2009 8:03:29 PM
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Hi rpg. Population is limited by food availability so if fertilizer allowed greater provision of food then population could grow to the greater limit (and beyond, and then crash, since rapidly growing populations commonly go into overshoot by consuming reserves after which resource availability is much reduced). Nitrogen and carbon exist in a ratio in soil. If you boost the nitrogen present (even using "natural" fertilizers like guano) then you will cause bacteria etc. to metabolise existing carbon. Ploughing under legumes etc. simultaneously adds nitrogen and carbon to the soil. Cheryl, some resources are renewable but for, others, e.g. phosphate, the Earth is a closed system. (Unfortunately there are no phosphate-rich meteors falling from the sky.) It only takes one essential resource to limit the productivity the entire system, no matter whether some others are "renewable" or not.
Posted by michael_in_adelaide, Thursday, 8 October 2009 11:35:06 AM
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Michael, you have hit the nail on the head. What people like Cheryl don't realise is that the population of the earth is at present in overshoot and that because of our limited resorces we need to get it back down to something which is more sustainable.

She will be back soon with another specious argument. Perhaps God is going to give us phosphate from heaven next week when the Geminids and Orionids meteor shows come along in the next few weeks.

David
Posted by VK3AUU, Thursday, 8 October 2009 3:04:11 PM
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Wot? No mention of agricultural giants Monsanto, Bayer CropScience, BASF, Dow AgroSciences, Pioneer (DuPont) and Syngenta’s ploy to monopolise the planet’s food distribution?

Saline and barren soils will not grow crops for long.

Norman Borlaug meant well (a hero to many) but as they say, the road to Hell is paved with good intentions and despite Rockefeller's first "Green Revolution" (same players - different era) with Borlaug at the helm, third world hunger is increasing.

http://www.foodfirst.org/media/opeds/2000/4-greenrev.html

http://www.foodfirst.org/en/node/2515
Posted by Protagoras, Friday, 9 October 2009 7:22:07 PM
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You cannot talk about the state of agriculture without talking about the monsantos of the world. They are now the biggest seed company on earth - and rapidly becoming the dominant force in the food chain, along with other giants like cargill, bunge and ADM. We allow this at our peril. And it is impossible to talk about solutions without talking about small scale farming, farming with greater crop diversity, fewer inputs and greater biodiversity. Unfortunately, the policy makers in Australia are going in exactly the opposite direction - bigger farms, more mechanisation, more reliance on corporations - a recipe for disaster in an age of climate change and peak oil.
Posted by next, Saturday, 10 October 2009 7:05:57 PM
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