Here is a long, but well worth reading article on the challenge of feeding the world's burgeoning human population. Many will find points to disagree with and experts to dislike. However, the basic dilemma is there whether we like it or not.1930's farming methods will not feed billions of people.
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6 comments:
Sigh! And we still have 1930 crop prices!
Linda
http://coloradofarmlife.wordpress.com/
LInda, good, but sad point. Not easy time for any of us is it?
True, very large scale farming may be necessary to accommodate a human population that is presently nearing 6.8 billion. However, a vital underlying question is whether we can sustain 6.8 billion people (let alone the 10 or more billion that demographers project for the mid-21st century) on Earth without rapidly depleting irreplaceable natural resources. So the real choice is that between continuing to ratchet things up to an ever larger scale (with the danger that these mega-systems at some point finally crash & burn) --versus -- stopping, thinking, and reversing course back toward a more manageable scale.
Ms. Zanoni, Thanks for stopping by and taking time to comment. I much admire your work against NAIS!
As for all those millions of people...so many of them are here already. What else can we do but feed them? Especially when we CAN do so with the technology we have. The big guys do a pretty good job of doing a lot with less. I am sure if improvements in ag technology are rewarded we will see even greater advances in what can be done with existing resources.
We at Northview are not large farmers...fifty cows, one family, no outside help at all. We will never be a big player in the ag field. Personally I love farming on a comfortable scale and wish we made a decent amount of money for doing it. However, realistically our little farm can't compete.
Of course if the government got off its high horse and stopped mandating and regulating and ruling over every breath we take...and maybe took a little look at the monopolies masquerading as milk marketing cooperatives we could.
It seems that little farms must market rather than sell commodities and we are not sales folks, just farmers.
and is why we should be thinning the population. the idea that you need a license to drive but anyone can breed astounds me. i've said for years that i firmly believe that we have one major problem facing us as a species today, and all else is but a symptom of that problem. that problem is overpopulation. /rant
sorry, but i saw something on the octomom again today and it made me flame up again. *growl*
Ericka, yow, that is heavy stuff. There certainly are a lot of people who are lousy parents, but I can imagine vast potential for abuse if someone else decided who was fit to have kids.
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