[Vo]:Land and food
Regarding the Environmental space thread, I mentioned that this book is chock full of stats about land and food: Pimentel, D. and M. Pimentel (eds), Food, Energy, and Society, Revised Edition. 1996: University Press of Colorado. See chapter 12 especially, which the editors themselves wrote. Quote from p. 149: Land for Food Production More than 99 percent of the world's food supply comes from the land. Worldwide, about 1.5 billion ha of arable land are cultivated to produce food (Lai and Pierce, 1991). The global supply of arable land is 0.27 ha per capita; in the United States 0.6 ha per capita are cultivated to produce our relatively high animal protein and high calorie diet (Lai and Pierce, 1991). By the year 2025 arable land per capita worldwide will decline to a meager 0.2 ha and to only 0.1 ha by 2100. This estimate assumes there will be no further degradation in the quality of arable land. During the past 40 years, about 30 percent of the world's arable land has been lost (Pimentel et al., 1995). Current agricultural practices create considerable topsoil erosion. Its severity depends on the particular crops planted, methods of culture and management, topography, rainfall and wind, and other factors (Pimentel et al., 1987; Lai and Pierce, 1991). Worldwide, erosion and its associated problems force the abandonment of 7 (Tolba, 1989) to 15 million (Pimentel, 1993) ha of land each year. This problem is also severe in the United States. For example, Iowa, which has some of the best soil in the world, has lost half of its topsoil after being farmed for about 100 years (Risser, 1981). This sounds dire, but as I pointed out in my book, chapter 16, with cold fusion or some other advanced source of energy plus indoor food factories we could vastly reduce the amount of land it takes to grow food. I estimated that we could grow enough to feed the entire U.S. population in an area the size of greater New York City. This would not take any major breakthroughs other than the energy source, plus in vitro meat production, which is making good progress. - Jed
Re: [Vo]:Land and food
Howdy Jed, Few around Houston can imagine the area was once prime farm land first cultivated by German immigrants with truck farms delivering fresh vegetables daily. By 1900, rice farming was underway with Japanese immigrants. By the end of WW2 Rice was a super crop exported across the world. These huge rice fields stretching from Beaumont across to Victoria but are now reduced to a small percentage of earlier times. The subdivision expansion of single dwelling homes continues and entirely cover some of the best rice farm land in the world. Combined with this huge land area some 250x 100 miles is one of the world's most prolific fresh water aquifers on earth. The Gulf Coast acquifer. This acquifer was the reason why Houston developed into the petrochem complex it is today. Few places on earth have such an huge quanity of fresh water available. The industries now have available the coastal industrial water authority which canals water from the Trinity River and comsumes some one billion gallons per day from that source plus the acquifer. Land has subsided as much as 14 feet in parts of Harris and surrounding counties from excess pumping. Land subsidence is now measurable as far north as Fayette county( my home). Not to worry.. the petrochem industry has one of the strongest lobbying efforts in the nation that protects their right to almost free and unlimited water and a liscense to pollute at will. The profits are so huge that Shell resorted to some very creative bookkeeping to show a loss 2 years back. How??. They wrote down their estimate of holding of crude reserves, fired their manager and held out their hand to IRS. Our two US senator wept tears while supporting their pauper's claim.. nowhere but Texas. Richard Richard Jed wrote, During the past 40 years, about 30 percent of the world's arable land has been lost (Pimentel et al., 1995). Current agricultural practices create considerable topsoil erosion. Its severity depends on the particular crops planted, methods of culture and management, topography, rainfall and wind, and other factors (Pimentel et al., 1987; Lai and Pierce, 1991). Worldwide, erosion and its associated problems force the abandonment of 7 (Tolba, 1989) to 15 million (Pimentel, 1993) ha of land each year. This problem is also severe in the United States. For example, Iowa, which has some of the best soil in the world, has lost half of its topsoil after being farmed for about 100 years (Risser, 1981).
