How long will it be before we Run Out of Food?

Question

The population is growing rapidly, it's close to 7 billion currently. Considering the shortages in food due to oil prices, weather, etc. How long do you think it will take before we run out of food?

I know that one day we will be at our most vulnerable, in fact, we are very vulnerable now. If something happened to a large portion of our food crops, like dying because of drought, we would be in big trouble. We wouldn't be able to provide food for the people.

Answer 1

i say ditto to what TEXAS R said. we have had a cheap food polilicy in the USA for many years.  "keep their bellys full and they will be happy" farm programs have been under fire for the last 5 years for making farmers over produce in the U.S. and drive the price of commodities down for farmers in poor countries worldwide. the federal govt. is being sued in the wto now for that.

Answer 2

Good, timely, and a very serious question is raised here. Your noting of a disaster hitting a major crop field is also apt.

Yet there something in addition to the food supply that can make or brake whether everyone gets fed; affordable energy. (I am assuming an ideal situation wthere there is the political will to feed everyone.)

When energy prices go high enough to make the shipping and distribution too costly, much of the food relief work will be affected as there will be more urgent business to take care at home; the Gov't feeding its own people.

So long before we run out of the absolute amount of food produced, a major energy crisis could stall the daily feeding routine in many places.

This is fundamentally related to the inequal distribution of crop fields and paddies where some countries do not produce enough to feed everyone in their country.

Therefore one of the major adjustments that is urgently needed is to reduce, and eventually abolish this inequality to the point where maximum equitable redistribution of food production is achieved at the geographical level.

This rearrangement btw should also be excercised even within one country as many countries are very big, and not being able to transport food fast enough in sufficient quantities will be disastrous, like food is overproduced by statistic, but some people starve regardless.

Answer 3

Never.  There may come a time when you can't just hop in your car and run down to the store a few blockes away and pick up a few groceries for next to nothing and without any effort to make the food on your part, but there will always be food.

Some day, everyone may have to raise animals or go hunting and grow their own vegetables and fruits or barter for what they can't grow again like we used to  hundreds of years ago.  Those who aren't willing or able to do so may not survive but there will still be food.  

Those who live in areas of chronic famine or in places where crops don't grow well anyway, like deserts, may have to "gasp" move to places with decent soil and weather for growing crops.  I get so sick of seeing people on TV begging for food to feed people who live in deserts where they can't grow their own food.  Move out of the desert, I say.  Go where there is food instead of waiting for a handout.

Answer 4

Never !  

Ever seen the movie Soylent Green ?

Answer 5

At the present rate of enviromental polution and spread of disease due to non-organic food production, it would appear that the food-shortage crisis is not the most critical one and it may happen that the quality of our food is the limitation rather than the amount.

Answer 6

Some of the underdeveloped countries don't have food. It would be hard to say when or if we would ever run out of food completely. We should have food as long as the world is fit to live in.

Answer 7

in the near future for sure , i would say in about 500 years or so . then we would eat each other  or there will be a disease that kills off the majority of the population ; then we start over again!!!

Answer 8

indeed you have touched a subject very close to my heart..

check my link

http://www.socyberty.com/People/Solving-...

its estimated that within 40-50 years we will be eating cat and dog here like the do in China simply because the population growth will demand the land for urban sprawl and growing crops for people to eat...

I only had 1 kid... then had my tubes tied so I no longer contribute to the problem.. and I try to spread the message...

Answer 9

not much i am afraid... the world is going to go hungry in the next decade or so if they do not come up with a solution to transport everyone to Mars!!!

Answer 10

Soon, food supply is shorter than demand. Every one has right to reproduce, so they go on making babies without thinking what will children do for living? Moreover, even if they will have money, will they have food to survive?

See video on "On line New York times" today. Fertilizers are in short supply and will continue to be that way. Scientists predict 40% of population will perish without food in coming few years.

Global warming plays role too, Australia could not produce rice for last 10 years due to lack of rain, India has excess rain so pulses from there are in short supply. These two countries are two of biggest lands producing grain. All changes are due to global warming.

Who should stop using 'cars', which airline should stop flying? Which terrorist organization should stop blasting bombs? So on and on...

Answer 11

Strange how people react instead of thinking.  The USA has less than 2 million tax paying farms (BTW this is how it is determined, not by number of people producing food but by the number of individual tax returns).  IF we were truly having a food crisis, agriculture would be quite lucrative (even today no one makes that claim) and the number of farms would increase, dramatically.  Around here, most good farm land gets sold to developers to create subdivisions, not farms.

Is the price of food increasing?  Yes, and my response is "bout d**n time".  Will we in the USA truly face starvation because of the lack of food?  Nope.  Will food prices go up and some items become limited.  Probably, but that will be short term and more often due to poor store management and speculative purchases rather than true lack of production.

Let's be honest.  IF we, as a nation, were hungry, then 80% of our corn and soybean production would not be fed to livestock for meat, fiber and milk production.  It would be fed to people.

My age is becoming obvious.  I stand corrected, current USA livestock consumption isn't  the 80% I remember, but it is larger than suggested by John.

According to http://www.farmdoc.uiuc.edu/marketing/mo...

                                                                            Billion bu corn

2007 Corn Production   (USA)                        12.29

Usage

Domestic Feed                                                    5.85

Exports                                                                  2.2

  (% use as feed not documented)

Processing                                                            3.525

  (by products feed production not documented)

Fuel Ethanol production                                       1.25

(roughly 1/3 becomes livestock feed aka distillers grain)

Consequently 47% goes directly into USA livestock and pet food, with many of the bi-products going to livestock food.

Answer 12

after at least 200 years i think

Answer 13

The USA is a developed nation and I reference my country only because I live here.  The US has an overabundance of food with a good distribution system and can provide food very cheaply to the consumer.  Less than 10% of our disposable income is spent on food items at the grocery store.  We are gross exporters of food products.  

Countries around the world with the best example are those within Africa.  Lack of arable ground for food production, governments that do not have a good infrastructure for food distribution as well as medical supplies are always the first to feel the affects of short food supply.  Even with foreign aid to these affected countries, the politics and policies in place create problems for the population at large to recieve proper nourishment on a daily basis.  

I feel that food production is not the biggest problem at this time or the near future, it is the political policies of the various countries around the world that suppress the people from the lack of distribution.  Equitable distribution is the largest problem and that is a time-held problem that has been with man (gender neutral) for as long as man has been on this earth.  Solve that and the food issue will go away.

Answer 14

Lexico, you said {I am assuming an ideal situation where there is the political will to feed everyone. When energy prices go high enough to make the shipping and distribution too costly, much of the food relief work will be affected as there will be more urgent business to take care at home; the Gov't feeding its own people.}  That is a Communism type of agriculture, and that spells real disaster. Texas R has the best answer, except that 80% 0f our corn and soybeans are not used to feed livestock. About 17% is for livestock feed and 3% for actual food. Nearly 100% of the soybeans used as livestock feed is a byproduct after the oil is removed for food. A large percentage of corn fed to livestock is also byproduct as well, from corn oil, high fructose corn syrup and Distiller's dried grain. The US has the large amount export to fall back on before we have a real food shortage, but using that exported grain would be big problems for other countries.

Answer 15

Early in the process, high grain prices will force farmers to take livestock off food. That would give us an early warning system in countries that feed a lot of livestock.

But widespread crop failures are possible. With so much of agriculture dependent on just a few strains of crop plants ( millions of hectares of crops so closely related that any infection attacking  any of those crops could rush through millions of hectares, just the way the Irish Potato famine did. How so? Remember that potatoes as clones can be extremely closely related, field after field right across the country.

Same with our GM crops... we really have very few distinct germ lines, The genes are injected into a few plants and then the plants are replicated ad nauseum.

Yes, we also have risks of drought and flood. And we still have diversion of a lot of food to feed animals. But we can correct the diversion to feed animals or to burn in our cars very quickly.

Is hoarding food a solution? To some extent planned hoarding has to be part of a nation's food security plan.

Answer 16

there is really no guess that i can give to that, but what you are saying is true. the government doesn't seem interested in this topic right now, and if they are they are doing nothing to help. farmers rae leaving their farms every day because they don't get paid enough and they work to hard to continue receiving peanuts for it. unless the government does something to encourage more farms and decrease the population by controlling how many children our families have, the shortage of food or the "running out" might happen over the next couple of centuries, and we may see signs of it in the next couple of decades.

Answer 17

As long as humans keep researching these areas and advancing technology, humans should never run out of food, if we did then natural selection would come back with a vengence until the human population can be maintained at a tolerable level.