Well Rob, you could get me going on this subject! The planet is losing about 1% of it's arable land each year due to urbanisation, desertfication and soil depletetion. There is possibly another 50 million hectares of land in Brazil to be exploited but after that nearly all of the land suitable for developing agriculture is used. All of the world's major aquifers, including yours in the USA, will be basically dry by about 2020. About 25% of the world's food comes from irrigation and about one third of the world's irrigation water comes from these aquifers so we are looking at a possible reduction of about 8 or 10% in the world's current food producing capacity within another 20 years. 20% of the world's protien comes from fish. The world's natural fisheries are nearly destroyed and we are now relying on farmed fish which require large quantities of grain like any farmed livestock. The levels of soil carbon across one of the richest grain producing areas on the planet, the US great plains, are decreasing rapidly due in no small way to the use of high rates of N so, despite all the claims of increasing yields in the years to ahead, we are starting to run up close to the hard practical field yield limits or the law of diminishing returns as we get near the theoretical yield limits. [ http:__www.sciencedaily.com_releases_2007_10_071029172809.htm ] The latest oil production analysis suggests that peak oil production was reached in 2006. As large scale, high volume food production is totally dependent on oil, the Agricultural sector is going to find itself in savage competition for it's energy requirements with other sectors until the message gets through that the populace has to have something to eat regardless. There is much more along this food production line. The world's population is forecast to level off at about 9 billion people in about 2050 or close to 40% more than the 6.5 billion people that we have on the planet now. So we have to lift food production by at least another 40% in the next 40 years just to maintain the current living standards and that without even contemplating any increase in world living standards. I don't believe we can do that although I won't be around to see it! We do currently produce enough food for 10 billion people IF they were all vegetarians. They are not and never will be. There will be enormous pressure on farmers by every sort of selfish outfit that will use any means possible to force the price of their own food down as low as possible. Argentina recently placed a ban on exports of wheat as it seemed that they were possibly going to run out of supplies for their own domestic consumption and also to keep the price down. A taste of things to come. And of course the great unknown. All of our economies rely on growth or increasing numbers of people to buy all the garbage that is produced so what happens to this sort of economy when the population stops growing and actually starts to fall as is suggested after about 2050. The economic shock will be enormous as no modern economy is in anyway structured for this reduction or cessation of growth. Finally, I am a great believer in having a global population of no more than about 1 or 2 billion people. We would have everything, adequate food, large natural untouched areas around the planet, a population large enough to have a large scientific base and therefore still guarantee all the advances in medicine, technology and everything else. It is surprising that in Australia at least, there is very strong support for this sort of world population level amongst our thinking public but it certainly has not filtered through to the politicians and big business who in their usual rapacious manner could not bear the thought of their profits falling regardless of the total destruction of the planet's resources that their policies are leading to. Darn, I sound like one of those detested greenies! Here endeth the Epstile! Cheers!
