Jullian If we consume more than we produce, then wat are we eating.
I think wat we are tackling here is a dose of verbal diahorea.
How long is a comment? Some people here are frustrated would be polatitions. You go on and on and say nothing. They write essays,when the rules say comments. It is a hard do; when there are so many against your every move in agriculture. There are farms this year just growing enough for the upkeep of stock and personal use. You cannot grow without water.

Maybe we should recycle dead people into biscuits. What intrigues me is why this guy gives ten points to explain the food shortage when he need only have mentioned one: Population. An excellent article though. If only governments would take scientific research as seriously as advertising.

Yabby,
The grain biofuel industry around the world is being subsidised, protected, mandated by governments. It is very doubtful if grain ethanol it can compete in its own right against sugar cane ethanol.
So when you say a farmer has a right to sell to the highest bidder it is not a OK if the highest bidder is only there because of government subsidies.

Would you be happy with the grain biofuel issue if, for example, governments withdrew their support and the conversion of grain to ethanol had to compete with sugar cane ethanol and food on an equal footing?

Goeff I think they should all compete. If cane ethanol is cheaper,
so make the stuff.

AFAIK some of the mandates were put in place, as oil companies clearly
preferred to flog their petroleum products, rather then bio fuels.

Yes, subisidies distort markets, but the 50c a gallon on ethanol is
perhaps less distorting then the subsidies thrown at grain production
for years by the US/EU. Result is that alot of third world food
is not being produced where it is consumed. In places like Afghanistan,
they used to grow their own wheat. Low American grain
prices, subisised by taxpayers, also massively reduced corn
production in places like Mexico.

My point is that in the end, you can't mandate that land not be
used for energy production and I certainly don't think its
immoral to do so.

Food, energy, population are all related and are all on an exponential growth path. To solve any of these problems we have to change the system that humans have created that has lead to exponential consumption.

It turns out there is a solution to the problem that will lead to ever increasing standards of living. The solution is to make a minor change to the human invented money system that has lead to the consumption society. The money system is on an exponential growth path and we need to turn it on its head so that instead of growth - which is defined by the system as consumption - we turn it into a system where we have exponential value creation. We reward people by doing the same things with less in contrast to the current system where we reward people by giving them the ability to consume more. In the new world the less you use to do the same thing the richer you grow.

It is remarkably simple to do. We start to dismantle the interest based money system so that money stops growing exponentially which inevitably turn leads to more and more consumption. We can do this by paying people to consume less and by spending the money we give them on ways to get more value from lower consumption. We now have a system that has an exponential bias towards efficiency and value creation.

To see how to "fix" the energy problem by using these principles take a look at http://cscoxk.wordpress.com/2008/09/13/energy-rewards-to-reduce-emissions/

The same principles - but with variations - can be applied to water, to population, to food, to health, to education etc.