If we genetically engineer ourselves to be 2 inches tall would that negate food shortages?

Question

If we genetically engineer ourselves to be 2 inches tall would that negate food shortages?

Answer 1

First of all, that isn't really possible.

Second, even if it were, how would we operate the equipment necessary to do the large scale farming necessary to produce food? How would we farm at all?

Answer 2

It would negate a food shortage for all the creatures that would suddenly be much larger than us.

Answer 3

Height is not fully genetically linked. Some cases like dwarfism are genetic, but general height is based upon your diet and environment.

If we were smaller, then new issues with our physiology will arise. Our brains would be smaller, heart speed would need to increase, our arms and legs would need to be shorter proportionatly... a whole bunch of things.

The reality is that our body is perfectly made to be between 5-6 foot. If you are large or smaller than this then you may experience difficulties ranging from slow reaction rate or heart problems depending on how you your body is working and how fit you are.

Answer 4

no.

there are probably about 100 ways to say no to this, here's just three:

1. WE can't engineer ourselves to be two inches tall, but if someone else did it for us (say some alien race, who wanted to subjegate us), when it was done, we'd have a brain smaller than a cat (though possibly bigger than a rat), which wouldn't leave us the intelligence to farm very efficiently.

2. We would have to then shrink all the infrastructure around us: computers, machinery, buildings, transportation. The resources it would take to do that, would make the food shortage problem seem like childs play

3. Suppose by magic, EVERYTHING was shrunken in size, and we got to stay just as smart. Our surface area would have decreased far less than our volume, and thus, like most animals smaller than us right now, we would burn many more calories per unit mass (in order to maintain body heat), while there is no guarantee that our ability to produce food would be proportionally greater per unit mass. So we'd probably, even in fantasyland, have a far worse food problem.

Answer 5

Yes.  We would require dramatically less food to survive.  We would have some pretty serious physiological issues including poor thermoregulation due to our decreased body mass though.

Answer 6

Yes: a family could live for a year on a cow, a couple of eggs and a cabbage (as long as we engineer tiny weapons to guarantee our superiority)