The politics of food - Turns out Ehrlich was right after all
 

Today on NPR's Fresh Air, Terry Gross interviewed Lester Brown, the founder of the Earth Policy Institute. The topic was increasing competition for food by various nations with burgeoning populations.

http://www.npr.org/2011/05/18/136394365/food-shortages-the-hidden-driver-of-global-politics

The text at the link is not a full transcript, the interview has a lot more information - troubling but interesting. I might be off on the numbers but he spoke about how China is feeding 130 million people with crops grown from vanishing aquifers. India similarly to say nothing of the US and the monster Ogallala aquifer that is doing a slow but steady retreat.

In response, the importing countries negotiated and in some cases leased land in other, more irrigable countries to grow grain and produce biofuels for themselves. Countries like Saudi Arabia, China and South Korea have all leased land in Africa, where the governments lease irrigable land for as little as $1 an acre.

"This is becoming a huge political issue in many parts of the world, and it's creating conflict between local populations and these investors," Brown says. "Two of the principal countries that have been leasing land long-term are Ethiopia and Sudan, both of which are high on the list of the U.N.'s World Food Program. ... And the idea that the governments in these countries are selling huge chunks of land in these countries to other governments is really very difficult to explain. And what we're probably looking at down the road is a situation where there will be extreme hunger in some of these countries where the investments are being made, and people will simply resist — and try to block the trucks that are hauling the grain from the fields to the ports. ... It's a new situation and quite unlike any that we've faced before."

To which of his movable predictions do you refer?

was an Omen II plotline in '78

I heard it. Disturbing and interesting. Mostly, nobody cares as long as groceries are cheap.

Predictions? Did you hear the piece? Most of what he referred to is happening now. Doubling and tripling food prices, and 'net importer of food' nations leasing land in other nations to grow food specifically for direct export to their nation, bypassing normal market mechanisms which are much less predictable.

Must I spoonfeed you the path over which which his dialogue passed? I doubt you listened to the piece as it was long on established fact. Predictions he alluded to were not outlandish. I can't find a full transcript so you'll have to actually do some research, in this case 1/2 hour of sitting on your bee-hind, if you want to comment with any foundation on what he said.

I believe that is inaccurate. The specifics of this situation are unique but resource availability and access, conflicts over resources, extrapolation of current problems leading to predictions of terrible consequences are fairly common.

My favorite was the guy who took the plot of weekly horse manure production in NY city during a period of the 19th century. Using accurate extrapolation methods he showed that something like (I don't recall the exact numbers but it was staggering) 10% of the US land mass would be needed to handle horse excreta by the 21st century.

Teri Gross is a gifted and successful interviewer but she is quite biased (I know, I know - who isn't) in both how she interviews and what topics she covers.

Nobody cares here . . . yet, as food inflation is tiny compared to many net importer nations. One thing he mentioned was the unprecedented heat wave in Russia last year which knocked hell out of their grain crop . . . which threw nations somewhat dependent on that grain crop into a scramble.

The knee jerk response of bored insular ivory tower pseudo-academicians is to dismiss such realities as sci-fi ramblings.

Listen to the piece. We are in unique circumstances now. It is a fact that hundreds of millions of people are fed by crops grown by overpumping of aquifers. Yemen has quadrupled their population in, I forget exactly, 80 years or so and their water table is shrinking rapidly.

**EDIT**

This piece claims the quadrupling has occurred in 50 years and that Yemen will hit severe water shortages by 2020:

http://m.gulfnews.com/opinions/columnists/don-t-let-yemen-run-out-of-water-1.725125

Yet with all these problems, the most severe threat to Yemen's future is its water crisis. Yemen is running out of water fast. Experts say that Sana'a, Yemen's capital, is likely to run out of water by 2020. This kind of water scarcity breeds conflict and instability, in which Al Qaida groups step in to fill the vacuum. If the US really wants to fight terror in Yemen, it must address its water shortage in meaningful ways.

Presently, only 20 per cent of the Yemeni population is supplied with water. In Sana'a, up to 70 per cent of residents depend on privately-owned water trucks, and the cost of water has tripled in the last year, forcing families to spend about a third of their incomes on purchasing water. The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace confirms this looming disaster, observing that "Sana'a will be the first capital in modern history to run dry."

Golly, I didn't mean to incur such passion.

I have followed Ehrlich since the 1960's and have seen his predictions evolve as they ... required recalibration. In the broad sweep he is undeniably correct, IMO. But his time-certain predictions have tended to disintegrate as deadlines pass and innovations undermine his predictions.

But there is no question in my mind that we are un an unsustainable trajectory and have been for approach 150 years. Is collapse immanent or will it be in 100 years? I doubt our trajectory will sustain beyond 50 years, but I've been wrong so many times with predictions I leave it to Ehrlich who is unbridled by his consistent string of failures.

I enjoy Tegi G. She has many guests and she's good at her job.

I'm not trying to belittle the report, your remarks or the legitimacy. I'm just saying that they have always been real, significant concerns that we see on the horizon. I suspect there always will be.

The plastic pollution of the oceans, the weather cycles (regardless of one's views on global warming I believe there is good agreement that the weather cycles of the past 200 - 400 years - something like that- are very unusual and typically would not support the lifestyle we enjoy), the loss of top-soil, increasing energy demands, etc are all very real and threaten or existence as we know it.

Hopefully we'll survive. I suspect we will, though what life will look like I do not know.

The rapid growth of China and India and to some extent the nations in South America has greatly increased the strain on our systems. The next 50 (20?) years will be very interesting.

Agreed.

I do note (as I think you have indicated above) that the vast majority of predictions in the past did not manifest and yet those who have said them or those who support them are not held accountable.

In science/engineering just one significant error can pretty much destroy your credibility (has anybody heard much from Pons and Fleischman for the past 20 years). Yet the nay-sayers can make an entire career out of future dread and be no more accurate then a coin flip.

Ehrlich was just a frame of reference in the title of the thread. Passion? Popping in with a drive-by post of borderline sneering is not endearing.

The OP did not get into Ehrlich, it referred to the interview with Brown.

One of the points the original fellow quoted makes is 'How is did this (the leasing out of land in African countries) take place?"

The answer to that is easy: Tribeilism. It has been a cause of trouble in Africa for about the past 150,000 years or so.

It works like this: One tribe controls an area. They have a Big Man who deals with their affairs. When you finally figure out who is the go-to guy you can make some really sweet deals! I know a number of people in the Oil Biz who figured this out about 50 years ago, so it is really nothing new.

And the Africa connection is where all of this 'shortage' stuff falls apart. The cry of 'Why isn't someone doing anything?' is false. Someone is doing something and they are doing it in Africa.

I have seen areas of the Sahara that were growing crops like you might see in West Texas. All it takes is proper irrigation. A shortage of water in this area is really nothing more than a shortage of wells.

(Full disclosure: I have a spring on my property, so my problems is too much water and not a lack of it.)

Suggested reading on the subject: Malthus Principals of Population published in 1798. If you think Rand is a right wing hero you should know that next to Malthus she is just a wanna-be. Malthus solution for all the worlds trouble sounds just like the right wing today. I think the only thing that stops him from Republican Sainthood is the fact that he has been proven wrong thousands of times.

And this guy Lester Brown... He's wrong, too.

Desalination.

- Peter.

Not sure if Brown is wrong. Your line that wells are all that is needed is not exactly accurate. Ground water recharges VERY slowly in arid lands. Yemen is a good bad example of increased populations going further out on a limb by using groundwater.

Brown states that increased ag in Sudan and Ethiopia will eventually make demands on Nile water which will introduce a new round of conflicts. There is a lot land that can grow crops . . . if water is available.