Here's the thing, Kat. The US is awash in cheap food, right? One way
to look at that is oversupply, another way to look at it is
underdemand. Meaning, increase the population and you increase the
demand for food. Sure, there is hunger around the world. But that
hunger is not caused by US agriculture. As you pointed out, those
starving people could buy US food, if only they had something to
exchange for it. Give them the food? What will that do to local
agriculture? Local food prices will plummet, local farmers will be
ruined. Yes, food aid is helpful for emergency relief. But as a
general policy it is counter-productive, even exploitative.
Rich countries have poor harvests all the time, but they never lead to
famines. Why is that? Two reasons. Obviously the first is that they
can simply buy food from other regions. The other is accountability
and openness in the political process. Openness means that there is no
way to hide the problem, accountability means that steps must be taken
to solve the problem. How can a poor harvest mean starvation in North
Korea and slightly higher food prices in South Korea? And of course,
the main cause of famine is not crop failure but war. During wars
farmers abandon their fields, or have their crops destroyed or
confiscated.
So, we could increase food production significantly if there were only
someone who wanted to buy it. Population growth in a developed country
does not cause food shortages. Population growth in the third world
DOES cause food shortages, because they don't have social and economic
factors to prevent them.
Or look at it another way. If demand increased and milk prices doubled
tomorrow, don't you think your farm could increase production quite a
bit? Only trouble is that if milk prices doubled, every other dairy
farmer could do the same thing. Meaning you could double production,
but you'd stil be making the same profit you are today, since prices
would fall back.
Now, population growth. Yes, of course growth rates are still positive
worldwide. The point is that growth rates are also declining
worldwide. Growth rates, not population levels. So...if growth rates
are falling, then where will they be in 100 years? Look at the changes
in growth rates over the last hundred years and we can see that
predicting the future this way is pretty much impossible. But, if you
asked me to guess which is more likely, positive growth or negative
growth, I'd guess negative growth.
And when I said that habitat destruction was the problem, not lack of
food, we can look at this "Neanderthin" position. Why is there habitat
destruction? Because people turn wilderness into farms. Turning
wilderness into farms feeds people, but it also damages wildlife. So,
increased population is a problem, not because those people will
starve, but because of what those people will do so they don't starve.
=====
Darryl
Think Galactically -- Act Terrestrially
__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Get email at your own domain with Yahoo! Mail.
http://personal.mail.yahoo.com/
