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Is there any legitmacy left to the argument that we need technology to solve malnutrition? According to some sources, the world has recently crossed a threshol

by akamaka 10y ago

Is there any legitmacy left to the argument that we need technology to solve malnutrition? According to some sources, the world has recently crossed a threshold where there are more overweight people in the world than there are malnourished people. [1] If one excludes considerations around national security, labour markets, land use, etc., is there a good case to be made that increased food production is even necessary? [1] http://www.cnbc.com/2016/03/31/obese-humans-now-outnumber-the-underweight-study.html http://www.cnbc.com/2016/03/31/obese-humans-now-outnumber-th...

morgante 10y ago
Absolutely. There being overweight people does not mean there aren't still malnourished. Technology can help not only to increase overall food production, but also to enable greater production in the localized areas where there is still insufficient supply.
- akamaka 10y ago
  I wasn't very clear in that I was referring to developing new technologies. Undeveloped parts of the world don't have access to even the most basic agricultural technology, like mechanization and efficient irrigation. Of course it would be good to spread technologies both old and new. Inventing new things, including GMOs, is fantastic for those who adopt them, but won't help if undeveloped areas that have difficulty adopting any new techniques.
  - btilly 10y ago
    It turns out to be a lot easier to convince farmers to use better seeds than to change everything else about how they work. We have a lot of experience with successfully getting poor farmers to try better varieties. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norman_Borlaug https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norman_Borlaug for the man who made it work.
2muchcoffeeman 10y ago
I always thought distribution of food was the impediment. And if we could reliably ensure that the people who needed the food got it and not some local dictator (or whatever) then there would be no problem. Then it would be worth building infrastructure in the countries that needed it and just ship food over.
natecarroll 10y ago
Turns out that ignoring all political, legal, and economic frictions makes solving all the world's problems very easy! Why don't we all just produce enough food and then give it to the people that are hungry? Duh...!
- akamaka 10y ago
  That's my point: if it's not lack of food production that is causing malnutrition, then arguing for increased food production to solve malnutrition is not very convincing.
btilly 10y ago
Is there any legitmacy left to the argument that we need technology to solve malnutrition? Absolutely. Over a half-million children die each and every year due to lack of vitamin A. If they were eating the same amount of rice they currently do, but it was golden rice, they would be alive. Going farther afield, if it were not for technology, people would have started starving by the hundreds of millions back in the 1970s. Even today we are one good pathogen away from billions starving - something like the Irish Potato Famine but on a much larger scale. There is a constant back and forth where we are constantly identifying threats and breeding responses. GMOs are an important tool to protect our agriculture. Forcible redistribution of food from the haves to the have nots has its own problems. It would admittedly solve the vitamin A problem, but would create others. And it would emphatically NOT solve the problem of a potential crop failure.
- akamaka 10y ago
  That's a strong argument, and much better than any of the other replies. It's not entirely convincing to me, since vitamin A deficiency is spread very widely, including in many countries that don't eat much rice. That said, the general idea of addressing specific deficiencies with enhanced food sounds very promising.

by akamaka 10y ago

morgante 10y ago

Absolutely. There being overweight people does not mean there aren't still malnourished. Technology can help not only to increase overall food production, but also to enable greater production in the localized areas where there is still insufficient supply.

akamaka 10y ago
I wasn't very clear in that I was referring to developing new technologies. Undeveloped parts of the world don't have access to even the most basic agricultural technology, like mechanization and efficient irrigation. Of course it would be good to spread technologies both old and new. Inventing new things, including GMOs, is fantastic for those who adopt them, but won't help if undeveloped areas that have difficulty adopting any new techniques.
- btilly 10y ago
  It turns out to be a lot easier to convince farmers to use better seeds than to change everything else about how they work. We have a lot of experience with successfully getting poor farmers to try better varieties. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norman_Borlaug https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norman_Borlaug for the man who made it work.

2muchcoffeeman 10y ago

I always thought distribution of food was the impediment. And if we could reliably ensure that the people who needed the food got it and not some local dictator (or whatever) then there would be no problem. Then it would be worth building infrastructure in the countries that needed it and just ship food over.

natecarroll 10y ago

Turns out that ignoring all political, legal, and economic frictions makes solving all the world's problems very easy! Why don't we all just produce enough food and then give it to the people that are hungry? Duh...!

akamaka 10y ago
That's my point: if it's not lack of food production that is causing malnutrition, then arguing for increased food production to solve malnutrition is not very convincing.

btilly 10y ago

Is there any legitmacy left to the argument that we need technology to solve malnutrition? Absolutely. Over a half-million children die each and every year due to lack of vitamin A. If they were eating the same amount of rice they currently do, but it was golden rice, they would be alive. Going farther afield, if it were not for technology, people would have started starving by the hundreds of millions back in the 1970s. Even today we are one good pathogen away from billions starving - something like the Irish Potato Famine but on a much larger scale. There is a constant back and forth where we are constantly identifying threats and breeding responses. GMOs are an important tool to protect our agriculture. Forcible redistribution of food from the haves to the have nots has its own problems. It would admittedly solve the vitamin A problem, but would create others. And it would emphatically NOT solve the problem of a potential crop failure.

akamaka 10y ago
That's a strong argument, and much better than any of the other replies. It's not entirely convincing to me, since vitamin A deficiency is spread very widely, including in many countries that don't eat much rice. That said, the general idea of addressing specific deficiencies with enhanced food sounds very promising.