Betting on food
Posted on June 5, 2008
Filed Under All, Context, Green Tech, Photos, Technology |
Big money is betting on food according to the New York Times, pouring money into farmland, fertilizer, storage, shipping and other infrastructure in the belief that food will only become more valuable in the future. After decades of surpluses (at least in the U.S.), the world is now facing a net shortage.
Indeed the planet is facing a perfect storm: it’s the triple-witching hour of peak water, peak oil and now, peak food (and the three are clearly connected). We are all going to have to learn and adapt to new ways, and quickly, if a major, planet-wide catastrophe is to be avoided.
One quick fix will be for us all to curb our wasteful habits, formed in years of cheap and plentiful resources. But we’ll need to do much more.
The good news is that we probably have much of the technology we need to address many of the issues, not the least of which is a (so far) reliable global Internet. What we lack is the political courage and will to do the hard things that will be necessary (say hello to $7 gas, America). “[T]he biggest energy crisis we have in our country today is the energy to be serious — the energy to do big things in a sustained, focused and intelligent way” - Thomas Friedman…
Comments
4 Responses to “Betting on food”
Leave a Reply
Saw an amazing documentary a while back about the corn crop in America. Did you know that almost all of the corn being grown in Iowa, Illinois, Nebraska, etc, is totally unedible? It’s all been hybridized so it’s only good for making high fructose corn syrup (probably a big contributor to the obesity epidemic) and feeding cattle (although it would kill them if they ate it more than a year!).
Find out more:
http://www.pbs.org/independentlens/kingcorn/corn.html
SUV usage & commuting hasn’t changed in the bay area. High inflation & expectations of future entitlements are creating more home equity than the gas is taking away.
@Roger: Not only hybridized, but also GMO’d. Most of the GMO crops were not developed to increase yield, but to withstand the GMO developer’s other products, like weed killer. This is an interesting read:
http://sierraclub.typepad.com/carlpope/2008/05/the-real-villai.html
Regard grain fed cattle, that’s such a crock that companies like Omaha Steaks make. Cows were designed to eat grasses, not grain. But I guess you get more calories per acre from corn than you do from grasses, so let’s develop a marketing campaign to make grain fed beef seem more appealing.
BTW, nice picture of the carrots at the market. Was that from France?
Roger: Alice Waters of Chez Panisse fame is campaigning to return to locally-grown food and animals and away from Big Ag’s high-yield-at-all-cost strategy. Wired mag this month thinks organics are a bad idea - lower efficiency means more carbon.
http://www.wired.com/wired/issue/16-06
Rob: carrots photographed in Louhans, in the Bresse region of France, on market day (speaking of locally grown).
http://www.gulker.com/wp/2008/05/05/market-day-in-louhan/