4 ms·

This is my nightmare scenario, where we literally cannot produce enough food for everyone. That's why I'm hopeful that artificial methods of food synthesis (e.

This is my nightmare scenario, where we literally cannot produce enough food for everyone. That's why I'm hopeful that artificial methods of food synthesis (e.g. startups like Solar Foods or Air Protein, or NASA's CO2->glucose prize) will be successful and allow us to begin to decouple food production from weather or soil fertility problems.

minitoar 6y ago
Decoupling is valuable because it lets you grow the food where it’s needed. Food distribution is hard.
bpodgursky 6y ago
It's always going to be more complicated than that. There's a TON of un-used ex-farmland in the US, and across the world, which fell out of use because prices dropped too low (the entire eastern part of the US used to be farms, and has now reforested). So if food prices rise enough, we're going to start re-farming marginal lands. The world is never going to "run out of food", probably not even enough to affect most Americans / Europeans notably, but will result in hunger in the third world -- but it's not like that's a solved problem right now.
Aunche 6y ago
This isn't a concern you have to worry about in developed nations at least. Food is so cheap that most of our food goes into feeding animals, so that we can change them into tastier forms of food. 30-40% of that gets thrown out anyways. Developing countries have bigger issues, but their priority right now is to exploit their local groundwater rather than pursue bleeding edge tech.
- jeffbee 6y ago
  Food is cheap until it isn't. We in "developed" America don't have the social or political framework to keep domestic food in domestic markets if need be, so it will just be an all-out global bidding war over American products if there is ever a global supply crunch.
  - redisman 6y ago
    What makes you say that? I thought Covid already proved that the US is more than capable of hoarding their own resources when in need. If there was famine, the political leadership would shut exports down immediately unless they want to get Bastilled.
    - jeffbee 6y ago
      The federal government could abrogate a contract (like an obligation to export a commodity) but they'd have to pay the same price, because of the takings clause. So food would not be "cheap".
      - whimsicalism 6y ago
        Presumably in times of a global famine, that would be a good time to engage in heavy spending. Increasing the deficit is a much smaller problem than not being able to acquire enough food to ensure your population doesn't starve.
- NortySpock 6y ago
  1) I still have a moral obligation to show some concern for my fellow human, even if they live on the far side of the planet. Cheaper, reliable access to food is one part of that. 2) Famine causes stability problems, unstable countries are more likely to turn into problematic countries and humanitarian crises. See: Syria 3) With globalization, a rise in food prices on the far side of the planet still has (eventual) price effects in other parts of the world, including here. 4) I don't feel comfortable washing my hands of it and saying market forces will take care of the problem, when it means the price of food will fluctuate above the grasp of the least fortunate. The resulting easily preventable deaths are on our hands if some trivial amount of subsidy or technological progress would have kept prices low enough for those who need it. 5) Same thing goes for access to water -- we should support access to water while making it more sustainable and cheaper. 6) I'd like to get to a post-scarcity world, not just a post-scarcity country.
  - ben_w 6y ago
    3) is way smaller than I think you believe. It’s not that it doesn’t have any effect at all, but the raw ingredients themselves are what gets traded, and they are the cheapest bit for westerners — so much so that food prices were noticeably different moving from the UK to Berlin, even though I moved before Brexit. If you’re actually focused on gaming the cheapest possible calories and nutrients, then it makes a difference; but even then, the last time I ran the numbers for that the best I found was (rice + lentils + frozen mixed vegetables), and the vegetables were both the most expensive and also grown fairly locally.
  - Udik 6y ago
    > I still have a moral obligation to show some concern for my fellow human, even if they live on the far side of the planet. Your fellow human on the other side of the planet is reproducing at crazy speed. The population of Africa is projected to double in the next thirty years. And they are the ones supposed to feel the greatest impact from climate change. If you're worried about their future access to food, the most important thing you should focus on is convincing them to stabilise their population, not climate change.
- mempko 6y ago
  And yet a large portion of the US population is hungry. 20% of children are food insecure in the US. A change in prices could still disrupt a lot of people's lives. This is mostly because we distribute high quality food poorly to people. The US is not designed or prepared for any food supply disruptions. An example is during early months of COVID store shelves became empty for flour, sugar and other staples. It would take about 4 days of disruption to create a food shortage in the US because it's highly centralized in distribution and production.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
rmah 6y ago
The world can and does already produce multiple times more food than is necessary to feed all of humanity. It's just that, currently, most of the crops mankind grows is used to feed animals which we then eat/use.

minitoar 6y ago

Decoupling is valuable because it lets you grow the food where it’s needed. Food distribution is hard.

bpodgursky 6y ago

It's always going to be more complicated than that. There's a TON of un-used ex-farmland in the US, and across the world, which fell out of use because prices dropped too low (the entire eastern part of the US used to be farms, and has now reforested). So if food prices rise enough, we're going to start re-farming marginal lands. The world is never going to "run out of food", probably not even enough to affect most Americans / Europeans notably, but will result in hunger in the third world -- but it's not like that's a solved problem right now.

Aunche 6y ago

This isn't a concern you have to worry about in developed nations at least. Food is so cheap that most of our food goes into feeding animals, so that we can change them into tastier forms of food. 30-40% of that gets thrown out anyways. Developing countries have bigger issues, but their priority right now is to exploit their local groundwater rather than pursue bleeding edge tech.

jeffbee 6y ago
Food is cheap until it isn't. We in "developed" America don't have the social or political framework to keep domestic food in domestic markets if need be, so it will just be an all-out global bidding war over American products if there is ever a global supply crunch.
- redisman 6y ago
  What makes you say that? I thought Covid already proved that the US is more than capable of hoarding their own resources when in need. If there was famine, the political leadership would shut exports down immediately unless they want to get Bastilled.
  - jeffbee 6y ago
    The federal government could abrogate a contract (like an obligation to export a commodity) but they'd have to pay the same price, because of the takings clause. So food would not be "cheap".
    - whimsicalism 6y ago
      Presumably in times of a global famine, that would be a good time to engage in heavy spending. Increasing the deficit is a much smaller problem than not being able to acquire enough food to ensure your population doesn't starve.
NortySpock 6y ago
1) I still have a moral obligation to show some concern for my fellow human, even if they live on the far side of the planet. Cheaper, reliable access to food is one part of that. 2) Famine causes stability problems, unstable countries are more likely to turn into problematic countries and humanitarian crises. See: Syria 3) With globalization, a rise in food prices on the far side of the planet still has (eventual) price effects in other parts of the world, including here. 4) I don't feel comfortable washing my hands of it and saying market forces will take care of the problem, when it means the price of food will fluctuate above the grasp of the least fortunate. The resulting easily preventable deaths are on our hands if some trivial amount of subsidy or technological progress would have kept prices low enough for those who need it. 5) Same thing goes for access to water -- we should support access to water while making it more sustainable and cheaper. 6) I'd like to get to a post-scarcity world, not just a post-scarcity country.
- ben_w 6y ago
  3) is way smaller than I think you believe. It’s not that it doesn’t have any effect at all, but the raw ingredients themselves are what gets traded, and they are the cheapest bit for westerners — so much so that food prices were noticeably different moving from the UK to Berlin, even though I moved before Brexit. If you’re actually focused on gaming the cheapest possible calories and nutrients, then it makes a difference; but even then, the last time I ran the numbers for that the best I found was (rice + lentils + frozen mixed vegetables), and the vegetables were both the most expensive and also grown fairly locally.
- Udik 6y ago
  > I still have a moral obligation to show some concern for my fellow human, even if they live on the far side of the planet. Your fellow human on the other side of the planet is reproducing at crazy speed. The population of Africa is projected to double in the next thirty years. And they are the ones supposed to feel the greatest impact from climate change. If you're worried about their future access to food, the most important thing you should focus on is convincing them to stabilise their population, not climate change.
mempko 6y ago
And yet a large portion of the US population is hungry. 20% of children are food insecure in the US. A change in prices could still disrupt a lot of people's lives. This is mostly because we distribute high quality food poorly to people. The US is not designed or prepared for any food supply disruptions. An example is during early months of COVID store shelves became empty for flour, sugar and other staples. It would take about 4 days of disruption to create a food shortage in the US because it's highly centralized in distribution and production.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

rmah 6y ago

The world can and does already produce multiple times more food than is necessary to feed all of humanity. It's just that, currently, most of the crops mankind grows is used to feed animals which we then eat/use.