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Citation? I'm unfamiliar with the views on this, but considering the amount of starvation in the world, this seems suspect, especially considering an increasing

Citation? I'm unfamiliar with the views on this, but considering the amount of starvation in the world, this seems suspect, especially considering an increasing population.

sykh 8y ago
There is plenty of food being produced to feed everyone at present. The problem of starvation is one of distribution and not one of production.
mjn 8y ago
One way of quantifying it really roughly is to estimate the total caloric value of worldwide food production and divide by the population, to get a global estimate of calories-per-person. According to one estimate, anyway, that's been steadily rising and is now around 2900 kcal/person/day [1]. There still is hunger in some parts of the world, which suggests that the problem is distribution not happening correctly, whether due to logistical or economic or political issues. This seems to be true even if you do the averaging per-continent: the continent with the lowest per-capita production, Africa, still produces 2600 kcal/person/day, which should be plenty to avoid starvation. [1] https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/food-supply-by-region-in-kilocalories-per-person-per-day-1961-2013 https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/food-supply-by-region-in-...
beat 8y ago
Population increase is a response to increased resource availability, not a cause of shortage (at least, until you reach chaotic breakdown states). If the primary resource limitation is food (as in many poor countries), when the food supply grows, population grows. In wealthy countries, where the primary resource problem is money, population stays flat or even shrinks - children are expensive! Food supplies have grown tremendously post-WWII, thanks to Green Revolution agriculture. Earth's population has doubled in the past 50 years, but food is actually cheaper than it was 50 years ago.
dbingham 8y ago
Yeah, population isn't the issue. As others have pointed out, we grow more than enough food to feed the world. And to address the other side of the equation - the growth side - it seems to be the case that when a country reaches a certain state of development, reproduction naturally levels out or starts falling. The rate of baby production in most developed countries is near or below the replacement rate. The growth rate of these countries is almost entirely from migration. It seems to be the case that when you educate people (in particular, women), give them access to birth control, and opportunities to live interesting and fulfilling lives, enough people will choose to forgo children to make up for all the people who want children. So population isn't the problem: equitable distribution of the resources we have is. To put it most succinctly, if only we could just get out of our scarcity mindset and achieve a reasonably fair distribution of our resources -- then those resources are more than enough to sustain everyone, and population growth isn't an issue.
geezerjay 8y ago
> Citation? It's a sad state of affairs when the onus of proof is placed on disproving a myth instead of proving it. > I'm unfamiliar with the views on this, but considering the amount of starvation in the world, this seems suspect, especially considering an increasing population. IIRC, all recent (i.e., in the last century) starvation cases were caused by disruptive events that caused systemic failures in the food supply. For example, all recent famines in Africa are triggered by civil wars.

Citation? I'm unfamiliar with the views on this, but considering the amount of starvation in the world, this seems suspect, especially considering an increasing population.

sykh 8y ago

There is plenty of food being produced to feed everyone at present. The problem of starvation is one of distribution and not one of production.

mjn 8y ago

One way of quantifying it really roughly is to estimate the total caloric value of worldwide food production and divide by the population, to get a global estimate of calories-per-person. According to one estimate, anyway, that's been steadily rising and is now around 2900 kcal/person/day [1]. There still is hunger in some parts of the world, which suggests that the problem is distribution not happening correctly, whether due to logistical or economic or political issues. This seems to be true even if you do the averaging per-continent: the continent with the lowest per-capita production, Africa, still produces 2600 kcal/person/day, which should be plenty to avoid starvation. [1] https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/food-supply-by-region-in-kilocalories-per-person-per-day-1961-2013 https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/food-supply-by-region-in-...

beat 8y ago

Population increase is a response to increased resource availability, not a cause of shortage (at least, until you reach chaotic breakdown states). If the primary resource limitation is food (as in many poor countries), when the food supply grows, population grows. In wealthy countries, where the primary resource problem is money, population stays flat or even shrinks - children are expensive! Food supplies have grown tremendously post-WWII, thanks to Green Revolution agriculture. Earth's population has doubled in the past 50 years, but food is actually cheaper than it was 50 years ago.

dbingham 8y ago

Yeah, population isn't the issue. As others have pointed out, we grow more than enough food to feed the world. And to address the other side of the equation - the growth side - it seems to be the case that when a country reaches a certain state of development, reproduction naturally levels out or starts falling. The rate of baby production in most developed countries is near or below the replacement rate. The growth rate of these countries is almost entirely from migration. It seems to be the case that when you educate people (in particular, women), give them access to birth control, and opportunities to live interesting and fulfilling lives, enough people will choose to forgo children to make up for all the people who want children. So population isn't the problem: equitable distribution of the resources we have is. To put it most succinctly, if only we could just get out of our scarcity mindset and achieve a reasonably fair distribution of our resources -- then those resources are more than enough to sustain everyone, and population growth isn't an issue.

geezerjay 8y ago

> Citation? It's a sad state of affairs when the onus of proof is placed on disproving a myth instead of proving it. > I'm unfamiliar with the views on this, but considering the amount of starvation in the world, this seems suspect, especially considering an increasing population. IIRC, all recent (i.e., in the last century) starvation cases were caused by disruptive events that caused systemic failures in the food supply. For example, all recent famines in Africa are triggered by civil wars.