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"But that is purely down to distribution problems, not capacity problems." Are you sure? There may be or have been superproductive farming areas in the world,

"But that is purely down to distribution problems, not capacity problems." Are you sure? There may be or have been superproductive farming areas in the world, but do they last forever? In the US there seems to be a water shortage. The Ural sea is all but dried up. Can you point me to one location where farming is going on in a sustainable way?

dagw 11y ago
The water shortage in the US is caused by a combination of 'wasting' too much water on things not related to farming and insisting on farming unsuitable crops on unsuitable land. On the other hand countries like Argentina and India will likely have above average crops this year. And that's kind of the point. Sure at any given time you can find areas doing way below their average when it comes to agriculture, and there may very well be areas that are farmed today that won't be farmed in the future, but at the same time you'll find completely different areas doing above average, and new technology will let us grow crops in places where it wasn't profitable to do so before. As I said it's a distribution problem. As to water, it essentially reduces to an electricity production problem. As soon as electricity gets cheap enough relative to the price of water, you can start firing up the desalination plants and get as much water as you want.
- facepalm 11y ago
  Except, as I said, some previously productive regions were eventually destroyed for good. As I also said, we have only been doing this (modern way of farming) for a miniscule time span. We have no indication whatsoever that it can go on indefinitely. Starvation has happened in the past, so you are simply fooled by your even more miniscule life span in which you didn't experience war or starvation into an unwarranted optimism. It's also not a given that we will have unlimited energy - that science fiction novels exist with that scenario is not proof. Even desalination might have issues, apparently atm they also cause environmental issues. And water is not the only resource needed for farming. Obviously with unlimited energy you could produce lots of food (for example underground or where ever). But we don't have that.

dagw 11y ago

The water shortage in the US is caused by a combination of 'wasting' too much water on things not related to farming and insisting on farming unsuitable crops on unsuitable land. On the other hand countries like Argentina and India will likely have above average crops this year. And that's kind of the point. Sure at any given time you can find areas doing way below their average when it comes to agriculture, and there may very well be areas that are farmed today that won't be farmed in the future, but at the same time you'll find completely different areas doing above average, and new technology will let us grow crops in places where it wasn't profitable to do so before. As I said it's a distribution problem. As to water, it essentially reduces to an electricity production problem. As soon as electricity gets cheap enough relative to the price of water, you can start firing up the desalination plants and get as much water as you want.

facepalm 11y ago
Except, as I said, some previously productive regions were eventually destroyed for good. As I also said, we have only been doing this (modern way of farming) for a miniscule time span. We have no indication whatsoever that it can go on indefinitely. Starvation has happened in the past, so you are simply fooled by your even more miniscule life span in which you didn't experience war or starvation into an unwarranted optimism. It's also not a given that we will have unlimited energy - that science fiction novels exist with that scenario is not proof. Even desalination might have issues, apparently atm they also cause environmental issues. And water is not the only resource needed for farming. Obviously with unlimited energy you could produce lots of food (for example underground or where ever). But we don't have that.