Ludwig - you are right on the money. My problem is I never know how to get ALL the relevant inssues into 850 words!
I write this reply from the World Vegetable Centre in Taiwan, having just visited their centre in Africa. And yes,there is an answer - eat more vegies!
Vegies can address the nutritional (and disease) problems of the 850 million hungry, and the nutritional and disease problems of the 1.4 billion obese. They are more water efficient and energy efficient per unit of food than most other crops and all forms of meat. They can use all the water and nutrients which our cities currently waste. They cause less land degradation that broadacre farming.
I'm not advocating vegetarianism, just a rebalacing of the global diet. Did you know there are 400 'undiscovered' indigenous vegetables in Africa alone. How many have we got in Australia? - julian

The problem is compound. Concentrating specifically on Agriculture alone is not enough. All the systems upon which Agriculture depends need fostering. Otherwise Agriculture itself will barely survive, let alone prosper.

The specialist field of mycology is just one of the fundamental supports for Agriculture. Without continuing development of our understanding of fungi and such-like, progress will be stunted: The world of fungi occupies almost a quarter of all the earth’s biological mass, and much of it resides in the top layer of soil, so often eroded. Its benefits to vegetation are huge.

Professional Ecologists also contribute, by overview of the cohesion of biological systems. Specialists in climate and geology provide support from their disciplines. Microbiologists, entomologists, botanists, the scientists who provide the know-how into chemical and physical properties of soil, – future health of Agriculture stands dependent upon support from all. In Australia that has been so in the past, and is essential for the future.

Those in the paddock at the sharp end are key players in a huge partnership. One which rose to world renown a long time ago. It has been, and is in, the process of being bled white by a succession of Labor and Coalition governments having very narrow focus.

Julian Cribb is right that Australian Agriculture is facing difficulty. But we need a wide focus on the problem in order to squeeze the utmost productivity out of land that is increasingly challenged in regard to climate, fertility, and locality.

If we do that we just might, possibly, be able to squeeze more people in – at the present preferred minimum of a million every four years. To fifty million and continuing – perhaps? That is the purpose of it all. And Agricultural capability is fundamental to it. We have to keep the bastards happy. The politicians, I mean – the ones who allow their agenda to be set by industries hell-bent on growth. The Housing Industry, the Business Council, etc. who publicly promote increasing population as a necessity. Will one of their own please tell their colleagues that it is all a pipe dream?

A timely article from the Prof.

Is the high of a euphoric binge of economic rationalism slowly subsiding to the reality of the need for longer term scientific monitoring and research into a plethora of "longer term issues"?

I think that a royal com. is needed into the water issue in southern Australia. It concerns me that in a time of potential food shortage that water traders(in the private sector) can dictate who produces food. Scary.

If you think our Pollies are just thinking of votes in the metropolis then you're right because they are going to rob the Goulburn system and pipe water from the Murray system south over the great divide.
After all the Murray Darling's got too much water, has'nt it?

If we have no bread then we may yet hear that much over-used Political retort again.....Qu'ils mangent de la brioche!

JulianC, interesting comment about “rebalancing of the global diet” and all those indigenous vegetables.

How many have we got in Australia? I can personally attest to acceptability of the “lettuce” which Luderick love, as long as it is not from near a sewer outfall.
Davidsonian Plum is great as a squishy mouthful, after the fur has been rubbed off it – and if you are a lemon fancier. Burdekin Plum is pleasant – when it has softened after burial in sand. Such “undiscovered” are many and varied. I expect you would be aware that A.B. & J.W. Cribb give most of the long list a good coverage in their book WILD FOOD IN AUSTRALIA.
Unfortunately, how to grow, gather, and deliver such produce in sufficient quantity (and minimum cost) might be a challenge. Selecting and developing optimum varieties might be more costly than using the already developed standard vegetable. Great monoculture plantations are sure to be favoured, and would eventually introduce problems such as the Macadamia monocultures are apparently on the brink of facing.
As for Africa – six months back I attended a talk by someone who had recently returned from an agricultural project in Africa. A processing project, actually. One which minimized the potassium cyanide content of the staple vegetable, Cassava. The overpopulated land under discussion had been so flogged that firewood was scarce, and only Cassava (of South American origin) was capable of supplying their vegetable needs. I expect there would have been a less-populous time when “undiscovered” vegetables would have been a substantive part of their diet.

Ludwig, Oh Ludwig, why is it that only the posters seem to realise that unless we stabilise world population, all these ideas are irrelevant, and we are just urinating into the breeze?

Why is it that the only issue that unites George W. Bush, the Pope, and the entire muslim and third world, is that NOTHING must be done to limit world population?

Is that why any reference to population stabilisation is equated to genocide, and regarded as totally politically incorrect?

Why do we have to rely on the four horsemen of the apocalypse to do the job? (And they seem to be falling down the job, as despite AIDS, famine and war, the world population continues its inexorable increase) Surely we can come up with a gentler method.

The one I propose (and which is bitterly opposed in much of the third world), is to educate young girls, as the number of children they bear is inversely related to their education. If I had my way, all our foreign aid would be directed there, and any country that refused it would be denied all aid, trade and tourism.

Given that this will never come about, it seems clear that we are in for a very rough ride this century. Thank heavens we have a sea boundary, and hopefully will be able to continue to produce enough food for ourselves.

Isn’t it strange Plerdsus. So many posters on OLO can see the significance of population size and growth rate on all levels, from local to global, and hardly a one ever expresses support for continued population growth or a lack of concern about it.

So why isn’t there a strong united force against population growth?

OLO is a good indicator of what ordinary Australians are concerned about. So what gives?

The Australian Conservation Foundation has had a good population policy for yonks. But they just don’t act on it. Why?

Similarly with the Greens and Democrats.

Meanwhile, Sustainable Population Australia Inc battles to hold onto a few hundred members after 20 years of lobbying and despite having esteemed people such as Dr John Coulter as its president and Professor Tim Flannery, Prof Ian Low and others as its patrons.

I’ve done hundreds of property visits throughout north and central Queensland as part of my job. Just about everyone out there on the land can see the population problem, and they very often mention it early on in our informal discussions. And yet there is no united concern.

When I was president of the North Queensland Conservation council fifteen years ago, I encountered many people who expressed this concern. And yet the NQCC committee couldn’t cop it and the membership was split down the middle as to whether the organisation should have anything to say about it.

So it goes. Perhaps the biggest issue of all, which practically every thinking person (or perhaps every person who is not brain-dead) can see, goes virtually unaddressed.

Why? This has got to be the greatest mystery on the planet.