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It was more of a storage problem than a production problem. Plenty of grains and foods people grew throughout known history were more than capable of providing
by AngryData 29d ago
It was more of a storage problem than a production problem. Plenty of grains and foods people grew throughout known history were more than capable of providing all the calories someone would want or need without crazy effort. The problem is keeping that food good for an entire year, or more if there is unexpected bad growing weather. One person, even using entirely hand tools and no draft animals, could grow 10x more food than they need in a year. But people didn't do that because they knew they had no way of keeping food around for that long, all it would do is attract pests and/or mold and rot after enough time.
- bobthepanda 29d agoIt was both storage and transport. The development of international shipping logistics, improved infrastructure and refrigeration were all needed to make this happen. You can grow the food and you can store the food but that doesn’t do much good if locally you make too much and someone somewhere else is starving but you can’t get from point A to point B, and it has to get there not only unspoiled but intact, or at least undamaged enough to eat.
- quickthrowman 29d agoYou’re correct, there needs to be refrigerated trailers, train cars, and ships along with refrigerated warehouses from source to destination. Transportation and storage. Before vapor-compression refrigeration, there was the ice trade: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ice_trade https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ice_trade
- bobthepanda 28d agoEven that is a bit of an advanced step. We didn’t have paved roads or railroads until relatively recently, and so a good chunk of goods were being damaged on rickety horse drawn wagons on bumpy, muddy dirt roads.