Comments on: The Looming Food Crisis and the ‘Food 2030′ Report

By: Øyvind Holmstad

Øyvind Holmstad — Sat, 11 Jun 2011 13:58:30 +0000

Also it’s not natural for us eating grains: http://bigthink.com/ideas/38410

By: Øyvind Holmstad

Øyvind Holmstad — Sun, 10 Oct 2010 08:07:08 +0000

To produce and distribute all food in the USA for one year uses 1,4 billion barrels of oil a year, equal 222 billion liters of oil, new report shows.

Ref: Michael E. Webber og Amanda D Cuéllar. Wasted Food, Wasted Energy: The Embedded Energy in Food Waste in the United States. Environ. Sci. Technol., 2010, 44 (16), pp 6464–6469. DOI: 10.1021/es100310d.

By: Martin Bartlett

Martin Bartlett — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 08:50:39 +0000

Terrific article. Can anyone point me to the research that calculates the amount of fossil fuel calories is used to produce a calorie of food? Does anyone know of research that calculates the calorie cost of local, sustainable food production?

By: Øyvind Holmstad

Øyvind Holmstad — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 18:10:09 +0000

I think the best idea is to create thousands of ecovillages around the world, so that people can share both land and knowledge, se http://www.ecovillage.org

By: Craig Mackintosh

Craig Mackintosh — Fri, 08 Jan 2010 02:47:54 +0000

Hi Glen. Learn? Yes, of course. But you can’t learn unless you realise the lesson.

I wouldn’t make light of the direction of his work. Not in the slightest.

By: Glen Novello

Glen Novello — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 23:03:39 +0000

Hi Craig, do you think that Borlaug’s intentions were malicious? It seems a very personal attack on an individual if you don’t think he had our current outcomes in his evil plan.
I blame Isaac Newton for making the gold standard a popular thing but in reality he didn’t have the options we do now and he did give us plenty of really useful stuff.
Can’t we just learn from Borlaug’s mistakes and move on.

By: Craig Mackintosh

Craig Mackintosh — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 15:24:39 +0000

Hi Nigel. Thanks for your comment. I don’t disagree with you re the personal responsibility aspect. Although, I’d add a touch of realism. It sounds like you have land (“We have one growing season to get some food from our own land onto our own table.”) and perhaps even access to a forest (“You provide and teach the wisdom of where in the forest to find the food.”), but due to Borlaug’s ‘recipe for success’ millions, no, billions, don’t. It’s hard to take personal responsibility for your food supply if you’re living in corrugated iron shed in a city slum in India or Africa or a tenement in the U.S. or Europe, etc. These agricultural policies have ensured many of us are now landless. The work of Borlaug and others like him (the big corporations who have a vested interest in our becoming captive, landless customers and labour) have overseen a massive demographic shift since WWII.

And to get land there is little option but to become part of this system – to contribute to it – and strive and strive to outcompete your fellow man to win a little oasis of potential. As the economic system is increasingly tight – we’re working more and more hours for less and less income as globalisation has us competing against the lowest waged workers on the planet, and the corporations that pay us have learnt to pay us only enough to get by, but not advance, so they can finance the buyout of their competition, and ensure we remain their economic slaves – the ability to secure this little dream home becomes more and more impossible for far too many.

Enjoy your land. Make the most of it. But don’t forget you’re one of the lucky ones. I think this disconnect from the realities of life for a large proportion of the world’s population will ensure violence in the future.

It’s hard to be free to do what you want, or even what you need to do, when you’re being managed for profit.

By: NigelW

NigelW — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 10:07:04 +0000

All true. But not all the blame should be heaped at the feet of Mr Borlaug. Every man and woman has an individual personal specific duty to protect their family from harm. That duty starts with personal safety followed by security of food supply. You protect them with the big stick. You provide and teach the wisdom of where in the forest to find the food.

Yet Roman citizens expected the state to provide their grain, the same as 20th century people expect there to be bread in the shop. They all see it as Someone Else’s Problem.

But now its our problem, once again. Up close and personal. And we have no one to blame but ourselves.

Borlaug provided each of with the opportunity to behave badly. That we took that opportunity is hardly his fault.

That is all behind us now. We have one growing season to get some food from our own land onto our own table. Nobody else will care if we don’t.