Food scarcity myth
[back] Farming
Food Inc
[This one feeds the GM and Depopulation conspiracies.]
[2013 Jan] Scientific Paper Argues Against Factory Farms “Feeding the World” lead author John P. Reganold from Washington State University claims that the US’s current ag-research policy is flawed and not the vehicle needed to feed the world. Instead, it “[masks] market, social, and environmental factors associated with conventional production systems,” and is “narrowly focused on productivity and efficiency,” even to the detriment of the public and the environment.
The Myth - Scarcity. The Reality - There is enough food
Food and Permaculture by David Blume On approximately two acres— half of which was on a terraced 35 degree slope—I produced enough food to feed more than 300 people (with a peak of 450 people at one point), 49 weeks a year in my fully organic CSA on the edge of Silicon Valley . If I could do it there you can do it anywhere. I did this for almost nine years until I lost the lease to my rented land. My yields were often 8 times what the USDA claims are possible per square foot. My soil fertility increased dramatically each year so I was not achieving my yields by mining my soil.
Organic Farming Can Feed the World
Organic farming can yield up to three times as much food as conventional
farming on the same amount of land---according to new findings which
refute the long-standing assumption that organic farming methods cannot
produce enough food to feed the global population.
We'd shown that protein could be made from natural gas, that it
could be done successfully on a large scale, and that it could be done
cheaply (a pound would cost about 11 cents to produce, and would provide
eight people with 100 % of their protein needs for a day). And we had done
it in one year — half the time we'd been allotted for completion!
......
When we were called into the vice president's office
on the afternoon of New Year's Eve, we expected a raise and a pat on the
back. ...... "Gentlemen," he said nonchalantly, "the Board of Directors has decided to
terminate your project, effective immediately."........They were actually
firing us! .......Finally, when I could stand it no longer, I marshalled my courage and
called the president of Tenneco. How could they do this senseless thing?
"Friend," he told me, "if I had a whole mountain of protein, I wouldn't
have the slightest idea what to do with it. Who's gonna buy something like
that?"
I was dumb struck. What about the starving millions? Was the profit
motive all that counted for anything? I told myself that it could not be so,
that somewhere there must be a company which would embrace the project and
develop it to full potential. But I was still naive, and I still believed
that the best way to make money was to make things people really needed.
BEATING THE FOOD GIANTS by Paul A. Stitt