I am learning from and enjoying the Coursera course on Sustainability. The above question is interesting. Why should an increase in world population by x % require a much greater % increase in food production? The answer, I suppose, shows why being a vegetarian helps the world in dealing with sustainability issues. What “sustainability issues” you may ask. Well, water supply is becoming problematic – witness our recent drought in the mid-West and problems in India and other countries where they are rapidly depleting their ground water and having to drill deeper for less water. Also, the Green Revolution, which increased crop yields tremendously through the use of fertilizers and various ‘cides, which created their own problems, seems to have peaked in terms of crop yields, so to produce more food we will have to find more land. Unless we buy into GMO’s as the flag bearer for a new green revolution.
But to return to the question – why do we need so much more food. As the world’s population becomes wealthier through globalization the previously poor are now eating less rice, wheat, sorghum and potatoes and eating more chicken, pork and meat. To produce a chicken we need two calories of cereal for every calorie of chicken produced. For pork the ratio is 5 calories of cereal for one calorie of pork and for beef the ratio is 8 calories of cereal for every calorie of beef produced. So we have to produce a lot more food to cater for the changing consumption patters of the world’s population.
The real problem is the mentality that says we need to fed the world with meat from animals fed commodity crops transported all over the world and sold on stock markets.
We have to find a better way…
The recent rapid increase in world population is attributed to increased food production at low prices (until recently) resulting from enhanced crop yields produced by the Green Revolution. Unless we are careful we shall be on a treadmill running faster and faster just to keep pace with world population growth and in the process degrading our environment including huge losses in diversity of species and ownership of food sources (seeds) as we go down the GMO route. So population control as in China is one way, or draw a line in the sand and refuse to compromise the environment further. Which will result in higher prices for meat and less consumption. But business wants to cater to the wishes of the consumer and there will be pressure to produce what the consumer wants and when big business is involved, who do you think will win at the end of the day?
Even if China had zero population growth, consumption of beef, pork, and chicken would still increase because of the increases in income. Matching US beef consumption in 2002 would have resulted in 104 million additional tons of beef being consumed. Global beef production in 2002 was 58 million tons. With per capita GDP growth around 9% annually and a population of 1.3 billion, it’s obvious that there’s a problem with even the smallest of increases in Chinese consumption. A 1% annual increase starting in 2002 would have resulted in an increase of 6.8 million tons in 10 years, a 12% increase in global production. These numbers are derived from data in the spreadsheet found at http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/datablog/2009/sep/02/meat-consumption-per-capita-climate-change and https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&q=cache:VRYJNudXKQAJ:www.ifama.org/events/conferences/2010/cmsdocs/38_paper.pdf+&hl=en&gl=ca&pid=bl&srcid=ADGEESibc3DymcWODIjkgLvEm3YKvpFaoLBBwGI8d3TrHKpjgR64Q7O26Xb3SsUTbqpifiZ0upp99swiy9zqUMfpknumUuUJwQ-ZCbtozEjqTOPagfR-EkZnVAsT_1i2dFNrtFZNNqn_&sig=AHIEtbR9OjEb_fhOh9opGHXbrVJ8MBhtrA
Increased livestock production is expected to have significant implications for the severity of nutrient pollution worldwide.. Nutrient pollution is is a form of water pollution which causes eutrophication and hypoxia. And then there’s the deforestation of the Amazon rainforest for livestock production.
Unless we find low input ways of producing meat, nature not the market place will sort things out. If that sorting out is faster rather than slower………………..
Good points and references. Maybe food scandals will focus world populations more on the quality than the status of what they eat, and high status meat may become less sought after. There is a good article in this mornings NY Times – “In Organic-Hungry Hong Kong, Corn as High as an Elevator’s Climb” http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/04/world/asia/fearing-tainted-imports-hong-kong-squeezes-in-farms.html. “Low input ways of producing meat” – does this mean going down the genetic modification route, as I have read is being done by salmon.
“Low input ways of producing meat” – does this mean going down the genetic modification route, as I have read is being done by salmon.
Absolutely not. The full costs of this approach are turning out to be a great deal more far reaching than we had imagined. I was thinking more along the lines of tissue culture which is used extensively for plants. I’m not thinking of Dolly but rather of the end product say the part of the animal that produces sirloin. I suspect though that that approach will also have unexpected costs.
I’m putting my money on Nature sorting us out since it’s pretty clear that we won’t, at least not voluntarily.
“Low input” might not be completely accurate when it comes to salmon. My understanding is they now have salmon that can be fed corn and soy like other factory farm animals, and probably they are looking for more efficient conversion of these to fish meat.
I’m betting with Richard. I think more and more people understand how important what they eat is. I suspect once the Chinese realize what poor quality meat they’re getting is, they’ll start going back to being vegetarian…
When I moved to The Netherlands in 1990, 10% of all people living in the US called themselves vegetarian. If they were or not is another question, but they at least called themselves that. Being vegetarian was almost unheard of in the Netherlands, and in fact restaurants that offered even one vegetarian dish were viewed suspiciously, because maybe they were trying to cheat their customers by selling them something cheap. Now more than 50% of all Dutch consider meat a ‘luxury’, and only something to be eaten on special occasions if at all. I don’t know the number, but many Dutch are now vegetarian or vegan.
Give it 10 or 20 years, and I’ll bet the same thing happens in China, if it isn’t already happening.
I am optimistic about in vitro meat production as a path to providing affordable ‘animal’ protein and circumventing the food demand ‘multiplier’ that you cite above. Seems like it is still in preliminary stages, but I think once it is producing at scale (and can conquer the taste test) may be a promising opportunity.
http://www.naturalnews.com/035020_artificial_meat_test_tube_hamburger.html
Question to vegetarians: How would you feel about this as a food product?