Ludwig,
I have been living, breathing and working with agriculture for many years now. Horticulture to be more specific. Within the Australian horticultural industry we do not see a trend towards producing enough food as a problem.
The continuing trend is one towards the quality of the product presented to the customer. If I had to guess, around 60%, yes 60% of what we produce never makes it out of the farm gate and is ploughed back in due to not having met quality parameters.
This has had significant impacts on the way we produce food in this country accross all sectors of agriculture. There is not one farm in the country focused on producing the most kJ of energy worth of food from their available resources. In fact, the reverse is the case, we are producing ever fewer quatinty for the sake of producing a product which meets the growing demand of our customers.
So I'm not sure who these many people are who are focussed on how to feed the population.

Hello ManOfTheLand. Nice to make your OLO acquaintance.

Interesting comments. I don’t have much idea at all about the efficiency with which we produce food in this country. But as you’ve been in the game for a long time then I accept what you say.

I guess it’s part of having a high quality of life to demand a high quality of food.

So even with the quite enormous wastage, the Australian populace is well fed and the producers make a reasonable living….. and it is sort of nice to know that if we become pressed for food, we can actually produce a whole lot more pretty easily, just at a bit lower quality.

In Australia, the priority is on quality, not quantity, because the quantity is more than sufficient to meet the demand. That is why there are not many people focussing on how to feed the population in our country. They don’t need to.

But around the world, there is certainly a major need for better ways of feeding the people…. and there is a great deal effort going towards achieving this, in the face of a still-rapidly increasing global population.

And there is STUFF-ALL effort going into stopping this population growth.

Nice to make your OLO aquaintance also Ludwig.
With regard to Australian population growth, I have made my views on the subject clear on a similar post in the main page titled "States need to intervine in population growth". Suffice to say that I think that a well managed population growth in this country could be beneficial, managed in the right way.
As far as global population growth goes, I'm not sure that it's fair to say that there is stuff all effort going into this. China obviously gave this some considerable thought many years ago, and Asian countries in general (India included) have given this considerable thought.
As a farmer, I have been watching global food trends with interest as it may have some long-term effects for our industry. There are some reliable statistics on this on the ABARES site (for some reason I had trouble pasting the link in). Key points are:
- The real value of world food in 2050 is projected to be 77% higher than in 2007. (In $US)
This sounds like a big number, however this represents an anual increase of only 1.3%. Also, it is only half that of the previous 40 years (165%)

- China accounts for 43% of this increase, while India accounts for around 13%. Bare in mind, these figures are based on VALUE of food stuffs. The lions share of the projected increases are also based on income increases in these countries and subsequent increases in value of the types of food they consume. (Higher protein & sugar in their diets)

In short, I'm not sure that it is as dooms day as the substance of this thread seems to convey. In fact, in Australian agriculture, the pressure is on as much as ever to be more efficient, add more value to our products, as opposed to simply being able to feed the world.

By the way - "producers make reasonable living". The reality is that profitablity of Australian agriculture is declining. Imports are increasing significantly and exports are declining, especially at the higher end of the value chain.

<< Suffice to say that I think that a well managed population growth in this country could be beneficial, managed in the right way. >>

Agreed, ManOfTheLand.

The key is to make sure that population growth IS beneficial and not just in the short term, and to be willing to bring a halt to it if it isn’t.

Currently in Australia, the level of pop growth is strongly negative for our future wellbeing.

<< As far as global population growth goes, I'm not sure that it's fair to say that there is stuff all effort going into this >>

There are a few examples of significant action, such as China. Also Iran, which has now gone into total reverse. But overall, it’s just not happening anywhere near enough.

We’ve got researchers of all sorts working on better food production and quality, energy provision, medicine, etc, all of which works towards facilitating population growth.

The best that can be said about all of this in terms of achieving sustainability is that it hopefully improves the lives of some of the world’s poor and hence helps to lower the fertility somewhat.

I don’t see the rapidly increasing global food output as a particularly good thing, at least not in isolation. If it was part of a concerted effort to achieve sustainability, then yes it would be good. But as I say, it is effectively just the opposite – a facilitation of our global trend AWAY from sustainability.

Ludwig,
We are approaching some sort of agreement in some areas. I have added a couple of links at the bottom here from UN stats and another one showing growth by world region. Here are some key messages from the data:
- Population growth rate reached its peak in the late 1960's, and since then has halved. (2.19% then, 1.15% now)
- Growth estimated to be less than 1% by 2020, and less than 0.5% by 2050.
- World population increased 100% in the last 40 years, and is expected to take another 42 years to increase a further 50% to 9 billion. (As of 1999)
- UN projects the population will stabilise at just above 10 billion after 2100.
- Africa's population growth has been more than double that of the rest of the world.
- Africa has the ability to feed itself but not the political or economic organisation.
http://www.worldometers.info/world-population/
http://www.newsbatch.com/africa.htm

From this, I would draw the following conclusions:
- We need to think about creating a sustainable world with a population of 10 Billion. I believe this is possible given the resources we have.
- Africa is the key to this problem. We have 2 options here:
a) Shut Africa off to the rest of the world and let nature take its course. They will either organise themselves or starve their way to sustainability.
b) Intervene in the political and economic structures there. To organise these societies would have the effect of stabilising their population anyway. And perhaps have the added benefit of largely lifting them from poverty.

On face value, option b seems to be the more humanitarian one. However this would obviously require SIGNIFICANT intervention and a massive change to their culture. Perhaps something even akin to the erosion of the aboriginal culture here.
May-be your are right. May-be we shouldn't be making any effort to feed the world's poor [directly]. Perhaps you could go as far as to say the likes of Bono and Bill Gates are major contributors to the problem?

Manothe Land,
Your figures are interesting but again I must draw attention to the
arithmetic of energy.
At 10 billion we might have enough energy to all live at current
African levels in 2050.
However many countries, Australia, US, Europe, Japan & China will very
likely want to maintain a living standard close to what we have now.

To satisfy these "bottom lines" will require a few billion to die.
Understand these easily checked facts.
1. Peak world crude oil occurred in 2006.
2. Peak world coal will occur about 2025.
3. Peak "world other liquids" will occur about 2016.
4. World food production will follow down energy production.

In regards to Australia consider these facts.
1. Australian peak crude oil occurred in 2000.
2. Australian refineries are currently being closed.
3. Aus Crude oil production is approx 45% of demand.
4. Decline rate of production 3% to 4% a year.
5. Security of supply is tenuous and dependant on affordability.
6. Coal & Natural gas being exported at increasing rates, peak 2030 ?
7. Food production dependant on oil based energy supplies.

The question is as our oil declines can we feed ourselves ?
Our food is dependant on others supplying us with oil.
I would be interested to know what proportion of your on farm costs
is diesel and petrol ?
Is your production heavily dependant on diesel such as harvesters etc ?