Current global food production trajectory won't meet 2050 needs

[OKIsItJustMe]

http://www1.umn.edu/news/news-releases/2013/UR_CONTENT_447180.html

[font face=Serif][font size=5]Current global food production trajectory won't meet 2050 needs[/font]

[font size=4]New University of Minnesota research shows current growth in global crop yields will be insufficient to feed the world in 2050 and identifies focus areas for closing the gap.[/font]

[font size=3]MINNEAPOLIS / ST. PAUL (06/19/2013) —Crop yields worldwide are not increasing quickly enough to support estimated global needs in 2050, according to a study published June 19 in the open access journal PLOS ONE by research associate Deepak Ray and colleagues from the Institute on the Environment (IonE) at the University of Minnesota.

Previous studies estimate that global agricultural production may need to increase 60–110 percent to meet increasing demands and provide food security. In the current study, researchers assessed agricultural statistics from across the world and found that yields of four key crops — maize, rice, wheat and soybean— are increasing 0.9–1.6 percent every year. At these rates, production of these crops would likely increase 38–67 percent by 2050, rather than the estimated requirement of 60–110 percent. The top three countries that produce rice and wheat were found to have very low rates of increase in crop yields.

"Particularly troubling are places where population and food production trajectories are at substantial odds," Ray says, "for example, in Guatemala, where the corn-dependent population is growing at the same time corn productivity is declining."

The analysis maps global regions where yield improvements are on track to double production by 2050 and areas where investments must be targeted to increase yields. The authors explain that boosting crop yields is considered a preferred solution to meet demands, rather than clearing more land for agriculture. They note that additional strategies, such as reducing food waste and changing to plant-based diets, can also help reduce the large estimates for increased global demand for food.

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[msongs]

1. free pregnancy prevention on request or demand for all humans. otherwise, nature has a way of

dealing with a species that outpopulates its food sources

[FBaggins]

2. Yes it will

It's self adjusting... one way or another.

[oldhippie]

4. ^^ This ^^

Any such problem will resolve itself. Always has, always will.

[Nihil]

3. That works for me!

This will be a far more effective population limiting strategy than anything that comes out of
the usual international/government talking-shops.

It's easy to argue with (or simply ignore) advice. It's pretty hard to survive when there is no food.

QED

[wtmusic]

5. Of course it works for you, you won't be affected by it.

The people who will be starving will be in some far-off place where you won't even have to look at them.

[Nihil]

7. I'll be affected but not in the same way.

> The people who will be starving will be in some far-off place
> where you won't even have to look at them.

That's where the excessive numbers are coming from so that's obviously where the hit occurs.

I'll be affected - same as everyone else in the "safer" places - not by the starvation itself
but by the impact of the unwanted mass immigration (already started) and the resulting civil
unrest (ditto).

Everyone alive (other than the inevitable 0.1% of decision makers, way out of reach of mere mortals)
will be affected.

[wtmusic]

8. In terms of suffering your presentation just falls a little flat.

For example, you could swap "unwanted mass immigration" with "being overrun by the brown-skinned hordes".

Even still, some namby-pamby types might think both pale in comparison to "watching your kid die from hunger", and not consider starvation as the swell solution it might at first appear.

[Nihil]

10. Maybe I'm not as bothered about "brown-skinned hordes" as you are?

I said I'm concerned about unwanted mass immigration and you want to turn it into
a "white vs brown" issue?

I don't care what race, religion or outward appearance the "unwanted immigrants" have.

Nor do I care whether you consider starvation a "swell solution" or not.

It is a factual result that has been proven so many times in the past that I have little
hope that this time will be any different. And all of the "namby-pamby" crocodile tears
that you care to cry aren't going to help one way or the other.



Edited to reiterate my original comment:
>> This will be a far more effective population limiting strategy than anything that comes out of
>> the usual international/government talking-shops.
>>
>> It's easy to argue with (or simply ignore) advice. It's pretty hard to survive when there is no food.

[wtmusic]

11. Your glib "That works for me!" is where we part company

I get tired of this first world exceptionalist shit. Starvation, wherever it happens, doesn't "work for me".

[happyslug]

6. Where are they getting their data on population growth????

http://www.worldbank.org/depweb/beyond/beyondco/beg_03.pdf

Interactive Map of Population Growth AT THE PRESENT TIME:
http://www.maps.igemoe.com/fact_birth.htm

http://www.indexmundi.com/map/?t=0&v=24&r=xx&l=en

More of fertility rates:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states_and_dependent_territories_by_fertility_rate

2.1 children per woman is considered the ideal rate to maintain a Zero (0) population growth:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sub-replacement_fertility

In simple terms, Europe and the US has been at or below replacement rate in the number of births since the 1970s (Population growth has been due to immigration. through is this is less true of the US then Europe). Russia has not even been close to replacement rates since Gorbachev and the collapse of the Soviet Union.


As of 2010, about 48% of the world population lives in nations with sub-replacement fertility.[3] Nonetheless most of these countries still have growing populations due to immigration, population momentum and increase of the life expectancy. This includes most nations of Europe, Canada, Australia, Brazil, Russia, Iran, Tunisia, China, and many others. The countries or areas that have the lowest fertility are Hong Kong, Macau, Singapore, Taiwan, Ukraine and Lithuania. Only a few countries have low enough or sustained sub-replacement fertility (sometimes combined with other population factors like emigration) to have population decline, such as Japan, Germany, Lithuania, and Ukraine.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sub-replacement_fertility#Forecast

Many reasons are given, but it looks more and more like simple economcis:

Another explanation for falling fertility could be a reduction in the frequency of sex in populations with low birth rates. For example, according to a survey published by the Japanese Family Planning Association in March 2007, a record 39.7 per cent of Japanese citizens aged 16–49 had not had sex for more than a month. A study came to the result that instability of modern partnerships is a major cause of European sub-replacement fertility.

Also, a number of sociologists and demographers have pointed out that among those who co-habit, without marrying, are now usually likely to have fewer children than those who are married, due to the lack of commitment in the male/female relationship. This uncertainty induces a 'wait and see' approach in many cases, especially on the part of the female.

i.e. given that more and more people do NOT believe they will hold onto their jobs for 20 or more years, they do not take on the extra cost and risk of having children (and the first step in that direction is to commit to someone of the other sex for 20 or more years, which is hard to do when both of them may have to look elsewhere for employment to get the money to raise the child).

Back to the topic:

If you assume present birth rates will continue, then the report is accurate, but it is NOT expected to continue, in fact birth rates are expected to continue to follow the DROP in birth rates that has occurred in most of the world since the 1960s (Women tend to have many less children where child mortality is near zero, as child mortality nears Zero, birth rates drop to just below replacement rates).

The reason for the birth rate to drop BELOW replacement rates, is that women tend to want two children, a boy and a girl (Most will accept two boys or two girls). This "replaces" the parents of those two children BUT NOT THOSE woman and men who do NOT have children. Thus you need a birth rate of around 2.1 not 2.0 to reach replacement levels.

Just a comment that this is based on data that is suspect at best.

Side note: The above quite mentioned 48% of the population of the world is below replacement levels, but that is BEFORE THE PRESENT RECESSION. Major Recessions have a severe impact on birth rates (For example the Great Depression saw a massive drop in birth, thus the Baby Boom of 1947-1964 is only a boom when compared to the baby bust of 1927-1946. Similar booms occurred in 1912-1920 (WWI lead to an economic boom in the US, which included increase wages due to a massive drop in immigration due to Europe refusing people to leave, for they wanted them in their Army to fight WWI). They was a bust starting in 1919 and lasting till about 1922 (Tied in with the Economic Crisis of 1919-1921 including massive strikes and suppression of those strikes AND the Spanish Flu). Then you had a brief boom 1822-1927 (The Great Depression started in 1927 in Rural America, spread to urban America by 1928, but only hit Wall Street in late 1929).

I bring this up, for in the booms you saw an increase in births, in the bust you saw a massive drop in births. The above in concentrated on the US, but the Great Depression was world wide as is this recession and both times you saw a massive drop in births. For example births of white babies is less then the deaths of whites as a whole. Why? It is a recession and births are DOWN from already marginal levels. but people keep on dying on a steady basis.

Sorry, this is more fear mongering then a realistic forecast and thus my comments on it.

[OKIsItJustMe]

9. “Where are they getting their data on population growth????”

http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0066428#references