Guest Post by Willis Eschenbach
Bill McKibben, the skeptics best friend, can always be depended on to provide interesting claims. Never one to let a good crisis go to waste, he opines on the tsunami and our “shrinking margins” over at the Guardian. A number of people have highlighted various of his ideas, not all of them favorably. One claim of his that I have not seen discussed is the following:
We’re seeing record temperatures that depress harvests – the amount of grain per capita on the planet has been falling for years.
Figure 1. Food and Protein per capita. The LDCs are the “Least Developed Countries”, the poorest of the world’s countries. Red and orange are total food supply (right scale). Dark and light blue are protein (left scale). DATA SOURCE
Let’s start by considering the real issue. People eat a host of things, not just grains. So the issue is not the number of kilogrammes of grain produced per person. That’s only part of the story. The real issue is, how well are we feeding the ~ 7 billion people of the world?
The first thing that Figure 1 shows is that after years of making little gain, since the early 1990s the food supply in the LDCs has been improving (orange line). There’s still a ways to go, but the trend is upwards.
The next thing is quite surprising. In the year 2007 (the last year for which we have data), the people in the poorest countries (orange line) were getting almost as many daily calories as the global average in 1961 (red line). To me, this is an amazing accomplishment. Remember that during this time, the population of the planet more than doubled. Despite that, both the poorest of the poor, and the global population as a whole, are better fed than at any time in history.
Finally, globally there is no sign of any recent decrease in nutrition levels. Nor do nutrition levels appear to be connected in any way to the temperature.
However, to be fair, that wasn’t McKibben’s claim. He said that grain production per capita on the planet has been “falling for years”, so let’s check that. Figure 2 shows those numbers, with the data again from FAOSTAT.
Figure 2. Production per capita for all cereal grains. Figures for the LDCs represent domestic cereal production divided by domestic population.
Has global grain production per capita been “falling for years” as McKibben claims? The observations say no. Globally, it peaked at just above 350 kg per person around 1980 and has dipped less than 10% and come back up since then.
For the LDCs, on the other hand, their domestic cereal grain production was unable to keep up with their domestic population growth until the early 1990s. Since then, due in part to decreasing population growth rates, LDC grain production per capita has been rising steadily. There’s no sign of any recent change in that rising trend. Anything is possible tomorrow, of course. But there’s no sign of falling grain production as McKibben claims, from temperature or any other cause.
So, what’s the current score in the battle of the farmers of the planet to feed the ever-increasing masses?
Farmers: 1 … Malthus: 0.
Oh, and McKibben’s score? … -1 for truth content, but high marks for entertainment value.
w.
PS – The continued ability of the world to feed itself, despite adding a total of four billion people to the planet in the last fifty years, is an unparalleled and largely unrecognized success for humanity. I am so tired of people like McKibben not only not acknowledging that, but going so far as to claim that the trend has reversed and that things are getting worse. That’s nonsense. In terms of world nutrition, things are better than they have ever been, even for the poorest countries. Not only that, but they continue to improve. That’s a huge success.
So rather than incessant whining about how terrible things are, how about we take some pride in that success, and think about what it is we’ve done right to achieve that, and how to do more of whatever that was that got us here?
[UPDATE TWO WEEKS LATER] Here’s the latest of Bill McKibben’s “depressed harvests”, from the WSJ … India has so much grain from several years of record harvests that it has run out of warehouse space to store it.
India Foodgrain Output to Hit Record High
By BANIKINKAR PATTANAYAK
NEW DELHI –India’s foodgrains output is set to rise to a record 235.88 million metric tons this crop year, according to government estimates, a figure which is likely to pave the way to lifting the export ban on wheat and common rice varieties.
Citing the government’s latest crop estimates, Farm Minister Sharad Pawar said wheat output during the year through June is likely to rise to 84.27 million tons from 80.8 million tons last year, while rice output will increase to 94.11 million tons from 89.09 million tons over the same period.
“The government should now give serious thought about storage, allocation to states and export of rice and wheat,” Mr. Pawar told a news conference.
India imposed a ban on the export of wheat and common grades of rice three years ago to curb prices, and since then the government’s grain stocks have swelled to more than double its requirement.
Consequently, state-run warehouses ran out of space last year and the government was forced to store some of the grain in the open. The storage crunch may worsen this year because of the record output. The government is expected to make a decision next month on lifting the export ban on wheat and common rice grades.
Pamela Gray says:
March 27, 2011 at 7:54 am
And yet over my lifetime, government involvement has not been the answer–it has been the problem. Every time the government gets involved, it creates a shortage in one sector of the economy and at the same time a surplus in another and here’s the catch–the taxpayer is suddenly obliged to make up the difference.
So it comes down to a question of central planning by government bureaucrats, or letting 330 million of us make vastly suprior decisions regarding the economy. For me, I absolutely know that the brainpower of 330 million far exceeds that of a bunch of (relatively) stupid bureaucrats because of one main reason–these bureaucrats aren’t spending their own money; they have no “skin in the game”. Hence, the decisions they make are suboptimal.
Clive says:
March 26, 2011 at 9:56 pm
You are welcome to use the grapics, I think that the realities they reflect are important and should get wide circulation. I ask that people credit my work, but I don’t require it. I find that if I don’t care who gets the credit, I can get a lot more done. In any case, anyone is free to use my ideas and images. Best of luck with your presentation.
w.
guidoLaMoto says:
March 27, 2011 at 7:51 am
An exponential function is of the form: y = (exp)^x and does increase to infinity. A logarithmic function is of the form: y = log2(x) and y does not go to infinity. It does however go to infinity along the x-axis. Like I said two entirely different functions and two entirely different graphs. A quick look in a Calculus text will show you this.
David says:
March 26, 2011 at 10:57 pm
Thanks, David. My clear answer would be “less”, but how much less, I don’t know. The people to confer with on that question are commercial greenhouse growers. Since some of them run their greenhouses with artificially high CO2 levels, they could tell you exactly how much more growth they get per ppmv. It varies by crop, among other things.
w.
CRS, Dr.P.H. says:
March 26, 2011 at 11:16 pm
CRS, I agree with you completely. The problems with food production by and large are not constraints on the total amount of food that we can produce.
They are human constraints, due to the ancient and all-too-human human issues of greed and laziness and bad governments and jealousy and wars and lack of roads and infrastructure and waste and the like.
Which is good news and bad news. The good news is that we’re nowhere near the planet’s carrying capacity in terms of humans … but the bad news is, we may be nearing the planet’s carrying capacity in terms of stupidity …
w.
dp says:
March 26, 2011 at 11:42 pm
Thanks, dp. You’re correct, there’s a host of unanswered questions relating to production of anything anywhere. My point was simple … regardless of any of those things, McKibben’s claim is incorrect. We’re gaining ground, not losing ground, and we have been for decades.
w.
1. Willis Eschenbach says:
March 26, 2011 at 9:32 pm
Absolutely. Consider what will happen when we replace our antiquated methods of energy generation with cold fusion:
Consider this demonstration of a cold fusion device that ran for 18 hours, eliminating the possibility that the energy was a chemical reaction (instead, nickel and hydrogen are being converted to copper):
http://pesn.com/2011/02/28/9501774_Future_Impact_of_Rossis_Cold_Fusion/
A recent report gives this:
http://peswiki.com/index.php/Directory:Andrea_A._Rossi_Cold_Fusion_Generator
Is this generally being ignored by main-stream media? Of course:
http://sourceofrealnews.wordpress.com/2011/03/09/andrea-rossis-and-sergio-focardis-cold-fusion-reactor-status-update/
Has ANY of the media in the US reported on this? Yes:
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2011/mar/17/nuclear-future-beyond-japan/
But that’s not surprising since other researchers are finding cold fusion is real too:
http://esciencenews.com/articles/2010/03/21/cold.fusion.moves.closer.mainstream.acceptance
And more on the subject:
http://www.technewsworld.com/story/Cold-Fusion-It-May-Not-Be-Madness-71916.html?wlc=1301159308&wlc=1301244813
By October of this year, a commercial cold fusion plant based on Rossi’s Energy Catalyzer is scheduled to begin operation in Athens built from units that are being constructed now in Miami, FL. Just imagine what a game changer this will become; just imagine how little impact such plants would have caused in Japan had they been cold fusion rather than fission.
To say this all will be revolutionary–as it impacts farmers or anybody else–is an understatement!
les johnson, you previously wrote
In a downturn, production of commodities fall. Buts it due to a fall in demand, not a fall in capacity.
as an explanation for the shrinking supply. Now to explain the increasing prices in what is basically the same time period you write
Increased demand + constant or down supply = higher prices.
So is demand up or down?
Prices started rising at an accelerating rate around 2004, and if supply is to catch up there has to be a lag of considerably more than 1 to 2 years.
Thomas: demand is currently up, particularly in developing nations like China and India.
Production was down slightly, due to high input costs, and subsequent cost cutting measures. (less fertilizer and pesticides, less marginal crops, less irrigation on paid water etc)
your
Prices started rising at an accelerating rate around 2004, and if supply is to catch up there has to be a lag of considerably more than 1 to 2 years.
And look at Willis’s per capita chart. Production started increasing about 2000, with a slight downturn in 2001-2002 (recession), and increasing again after.
Production is always chasing demand (price). If production was NOT increasing, then prices would be higher still.
I’m not altogether sure that we know all there is to know about the nutrition our bodies extract from the various foods we eat. Simply measuring carbohydrate and protein levels seems too simplistic to me.
(Very unscientific I know but sometimes I get cravings for certain foods, my body must need these. They are not cravings for just protein or carbohydrates.)
Similarly, an unfertilized egg from a battery hen may not have the same nutritional value for our bodies as a fertilized egg from free range hens accompanied by their rooster.
To me, a seed of a plant is it’s egg. Sterile seeds may not have the same nutritional value as fertile seeds. Something to do with enzymes perhaps. Manipulating seeds before fully understanding the relationship between that seed and the nutriants our bodies extract from it may lead to unintended consequences. /Rant off
Re: Becky’s point on ‘soil depletion’
The link she provides is quoted here:
Bolding by me. If there were facts, they should have been provided. Since the wording is as it is, I understand that there are not data to back up the ‘questions’ or ‘speculation’.
Nowhere on this USDA page does it say that today’s foods are actually less nutritious than yesteryear’s. It only says, in the page introduction:
It will be interesting to see their answers, once they become available.
Becky says:
March 27, 2011 at 12:39 am
Becky, first, thanks for the reply (and the warning), and well done on the brackets. When someone asks for a citation for your claim that GMO grain makes up a big percentage of the grain that the poor of the planet eat, a citation to US production figures and to Zimbabwe refusing GMO grain totally misses the point. You made the claim, you need to support it … so I ask again: “citation?”.
For example, here’s what I just did to check your numbers, FAOSTAT is your friend.
The US exports about fifty million tonnes of corn per year. Corn is the only “genetically engineered cereal grain” grown in any quantity. The US is the only major producer of BT corn. Of that US production, as you point out, some 60% is “BT corn”, genetically engineered to resist pests. So about thirty million tonnes or so of BT corn is exported.
Next, about two-thirds of the world still lives on less than $2 per day, call that four billion people. Divide our thirty million tonnes of BT corn among them all, we get about 5 kg of corn per person … not enough to even notice.
So no, Becky, you are very, very wrong. Genetically modified cereal grains are currently a trivial part of the diet of the world’s poor. The main BT crop grown world-wide is cotton, not food …
Now you are moving the goalposts. Your claim was that GMOs are the problem … now you are implying that no, GMOs are no less nutritious than the rest. In other words, you have no citation, and you’ve abandoned your claim.
And you mean to tell us that growing vegetables actually removes nutrients from the soil? Gosh, that’s shocking news, Becky, I bet the world’s farmers never thought of that …
You’ll need more than the fact that farmers have to fertilize their fields to scare us, Becky. Perhaps the need for fertilizer is some secret death knell for the planet, known only to you and other initiates … but the people around the planet are still farming the fields farmed by their great, great, great, great, great, great, great grandmothers, and somehow people stay alive.
Yes, you’re right, the crops are larger and more nutritious when they fertilize, and smaller and less nutritious when they don’t fertilize … and???
Yes, Becky, as your citation says,
Again, you bring all of this up as though it were some surprise, that farmers need to fertilize, and that when they don’t, plants are less nutritious.
Clearly, you’ve never spent much time with people on the edge of starvation … they’ll eat a box of sawdust if it smells like cooking oil.
If your argument is that humans should not be eating soy, corn, and wheat, yeah, you’re gonna have a debate. But not with me. With the billions of people who thrive on those foods every day. I’ll be happy to keep score, though.
However, a “global epidemic of obesity (even among the poor)” will be a hard claim for you to slip past the truth censors without a citation. When people are living on $2 a day, as do a large chunk of the world’s populace, I can assure you that obesity is not a problem no matter what their few spoonfuls of food are comprised of.
Can one get obesity from people switching to modern foods? Sure. Eat lots of sugar and white flour all day, you’ll get fat and stress your heart to the max. Does everyone eating modern foods get those diseases? No, they’re a result of bad eating habits, not modern foods. Bad eating habits when eating traditional foods can do the same.
Yes, Becky, if people don’t get enough food and vitamins and dietary fats, they will not thrive and will be host to a bunch of diseases. And yes, people don’t get much fat from cereal grains, either GMO grains or regular grains … again, how is this news?
But kids brought up eating oatmeal and bread and corn “have catostrophic effects on developing brains”? Again, you are changing the goalposts. Nobody has said that eating nothing but just wheat or just oatmeal is a brilliant nutrition plan. So why are you arguing against it? Everyone needs a balanced diet, duh …
Which kids are eating plenty of cereal grains and living with “bone deformities” and “neurological defects” from eating cereals? Where? You are an absolute font of random “facts” and outrageous claims. You need to either pull back on your factoids or double up on the citations. You seem not to understand that at this point, the mere fact that you make a claim decreases the odds that it is true, and that you should cite your claims accordingly.
Sure, be glad to cite it. Here’s an article from Nature Magazine that says exactly what I said. Now how about a citation connecting the suicide rate among Indian farmers to GM crops … here’s my citation while you’re waiting. Don’t bother giving me a citation to Prince Charles as elevated to a god by the Daily Mail … if The Artist Currently Known As Prince says it, you can be sure it’s nonsense, particularly when the Daily Mail is flogging it.
Gosh, you mean that insects and plants develop resistance to pesticides and to herbicides and to GM crops, and that it has always been (and given the reality of evolution always will be) a battle between farmers and insects? You really do know your farming, it seems … but you assume we don’t.
Becky, that war of bugs vs. humans has been going on a really long time. How is it news?
And how is even a temporary win (since that’s the only kind of win we ever get in the farmers-vs-famine game) bad news? GM plants are preventing the use of something on the order of 175 million pounds of pesticide this year … even if we have to pick up the sprayers again next year, how is that possibly a loss to the planet? Seriously, my dear, in ten years we avoid the use of a BILLION POUNDS OF PESTICIDE, and you want to put your nose in the air and airily dismiss that as meaningless? Not on my planet it’s not … unlike most environmentalists these days, I’m still concerned with pollution, I haven’t been sidetracked by CO2.
Sorry, but you’ll have to do better than the arguments you’ve tried out so far.
w.
TheTempestSpark says:
March 27, 2011 at 4:34 am
Clearly, you don’t understand scientific web sites like this one. If you think there aren’t 7 billion people on the world, you need to do the math and show us why you think there aren’t that many. Otherwise, you’ll just get (deservedly) ignored.
w.
Joe Lalonde says:
March 27, 2011 at 5:30 am
Yeah, that damned free market system is the pits, it sucks. I mean just look at the evidence – all the countries that use it are starving to death, and all the countries that don’t use it eat so well. So why doesn’t everybody see the truth of Joe’s ideas? …
Do you truly believe what you are writing, Joe? Because clearly you haven’t thought your ideas all the way through to the end, and then looked at the real world to see if they actually reflected reality.
w.
PS – let me note in passing that in modern democracies, markets are very, very far from free. They are hedged about by all kinds of restrictions and regulations, and reasonably so – they work better that way.
So making claims about imaginary “free markets” doesn’t bolster your case.
Willis, I think both you and Becky are ignoring a primary food source by only talking about plants. A great many people eat wild animals also (bush meat), fish ( and other yummy things from the worlds waters), insects, reptiles, dog, cat, monkey, etc., etc.. I’m very fond of deer for example, and I’ve eaten a great variety of what this planet has to offer including all of the above, and enjoyed every bite. It’s a mistake to focus only on what is acceptable fodder for the 1st world. Planet Earth offers great abundance, and one need only get beyond ones cultural preferences to realize this.
Thomas says:
March 27, 2011 at 7:52 am
A couple points on this comparison to populations of animals, as it is common.
In the 1930’s there was growing concern that the world would soon run out of magnesium. Known reserves were clearly being depleted at an alarming rate.
You notice any shortage of magnesium today?
In the 1940s a chemist working for Dupont invented a way to economically extract magnesium from seawater.
My point is, no animal but man ever solved a resource shortage like that. Not reindeer, not monkeys, not grizzly bears, not ants, not bacteria, no animal can do that.
Humans are unique in that regard. When bacteria run out of living space, they die. When Dutchmen run out of living space, they make more living space out of the bottom of the ocean. Go figure.
As far as I know, no other animal either can do or has ever done those kinds of things.
This means that when we talk about resources, we cannot use animal parallels or exemplars.
You go on to say
Agreed. We can say, however, that technology has both solved all of our past problems, and in the process brought us all of our present problems.
And if you think those present problems will be solved by something other than technology …
Finally, it is not technology I trust in, it is human imagination. And imagination is free.
The basic limit on everything is energy. For example, the hardest resource limit we’re up against is water. But if we had abundant energy, it wouldn’t be a problem. Water would be desalinated around the globe. Heck, even now Israel gets a good chunk of their water from the sea, it will be two thirds of the nation’s total water supply when the two latest plants come on line. It just takes energy and imagination.
The first human use of non-animal energy was an act of pure imagination, the domestication of fire. And ever since then, through the harnessing of water power and wind power, then steam, and internal combustion, up to nuclear energy, and beyond to algal-produced hydrogen and artificial photosynthesis and fusion and who knows what, the limit on the total amount of available energy has always and only been human imagination.
And yes, I have absolute faith that human imagination has not reached its limit, look around you. I think that the energy sources of a hundred years from now will bear little resemblance to those of today. And I suspect we might agree on that.
All the best,
w.
Willis,
There is further evidence of the beneficial effects of warming/CO2 increase at the World Climate Report website. According to this article, the grass IS getting greener (along with other leafy plants).
Speed says:
March 27, 2011 at 7:56 am
Indeed. The fact that we are better fed than at any time in history is no reason for complacency, no reason to assume that the problem is solved. There is still a lot to be done. In Africa post-harvest loss is still around 25%. People are still starving in many places. The global median income is shockingly low, a few bucks a day.
However, less are starving than ever, and while median income is low, it is higher than it has ever been in history.
My point is that we are winning in the war, and we need to proceed as such. This means trying to figure out what we’re doing right, rather than going all McKibbenish and ignoring our wins. We need to look at our wins and try to see how to win more, there’s lots of battles yet unfought.
w.
Willis, another great post.
To all those gloom and doomers that live under that awful dark cloud of fatalism, watching their half empty glasses leaking away I offer the following.
During the depths of the dismal 1970’s stagflation, oil crunch, and less is more moonbeam mentality, I had the opportunity to listen to an optimistic economist from Washington University. He made a statement I will always remember: “There is more arable farm land in the median strips of the U.S. interstate highway system than there is in ALL of western Europe (excluding the Soviet Bloc) , and all we do is mow it.”
Cheer up. The glass is half full and filling. Nay saying obstructionists need to get out of the way.
The necessity of using stats to disprove world food problems due to climate warming is an outrage. Famine in the last 150 years has never been about lack of food, it has been about a lack of the will to create it locally or distribute it from where it is being produced. An inadequate distribution system is probably most responsible for many previous food shortages as well. What Stalin did to punish his opponents was something a lack of roads and rail did earlier in Russia and in China, for examples.
Today, those without food today are either too poor to buy it – poverty being the issue then, not how much food we produce – or prevented from buying it (or growing it) as in North Africa, where armies use food as a weapon. Even the recent famine in a “modern” state as North Korea was due not to the inability to produce sufficient food for the people, but from the government’s refusal to allow the people to grow adequate amounts of food.
It is difficult to determine what is shallow thinking and what is purposeful deceit. Perhaps the two are the same for some enthusiasts of polar bears and snail darter fish.
Willis Eschenbach says:
March 27, 2011 at 12:47 pm
The basic limit on everything is energy. For example, the hardest resource limit we’re up against is water. But if we had abundant energy, it wouldn’t be a problem.
I don’t think there is an energy problem. I think it’s ‘The Elite’ making it a problem so they can make big money and gain more power. Expensive energy is the problem.
To be sung, accompanied by wash-tub bass and banjo:
“The farmer is the man.
The farmer is the man.
Lives on his credit ’til the fall,
Then they take him by the hand
And they lead him from the land
And the banker is the one who gets it all.
Still, the farmer is the man.
The farmer is the man:
Strong and tan and tried and true and tall.
Some people disagree
But it’s obvious to me
That the farmer is the one who feeds us all.
Becky – anyone can grow quinoa in their deck pots or herb garden. It grows like a weed (well, it is one) and produces the nearly perfect food. Unfortunately it tastes like dog spit and has the texture of lumpy slime mold – good luck finding a decent recipe. But – it is very good for you. Surely now that you know this you will dive in and start raising it or buying it at the local Whole Foods store. Or not, eh – you can lead a horse to quinoa but you can’t make it eat.
The point is there is a lot of very good food out there that we can buy and eat but it does not please us to do so. So we don’t. Don’t blame the farmers. They to a man would probably love to raise quinoa and put a lump of it on every plate in the third world but nobody would buy it (twice). Even Bolivians are shucking it to greenie gringos and turning to vacant calories instead.
And when the hell did recharging the soil become a bad thing? That has been going on every year when the Nile flood would come, for example. Ever wonder why floodplains are so popular with farmers? What lesson did flooding teach farmers far from flood plains? To recharge the fields, no? Yes!
Want to know more about quinoa? It is a very big deal in Canada. Google is your evil friend. Check it out. If you cook with it I suggest starting with a modified dal makhani recipe using quinoa with or instead of dals. Go heavy on the garam masala.
As a matter of routine, I hereby confess that I am an old retired bureaucrat in a field only remotely related to climate, with minimal qualifications and only half a mind.
Re RockyRoad, Mar 27 2011, 10.18am
I’ m sorry, I’m skeptical about cold fusion. Without good reason, it’s true. But your references appear to be secondary reports and the less credible for that. I read that one intrepid researcher has had his paper on the topic rejected by a peer reviewed publication. Ironic that, because climate science skeptics have the same experiences. In the end it will all work out because the proof of the pudding will lie in the eating – both for global warming and cold fusion.
But if cold fusion is possible in the near future, we are all wasting our time here, because no one will have any problems with CAGW or food supply.any more, ever.
Re Genetic Foods.
1. Do not Monsanto’s first GM crops come out of patent very soon? So will not hosts of generics become available?
2. The cost of genetic science has fallen dramatically in recent years. (See Sir Paul Nurse’s recent interview with Charlie Rose re animal genetics. Are not animal and plant genetic mapping much the same?) Instead of development being confined Monsanto like giants, will not hosts of small bio-tech company pile in?
I guess these changes will lead to an unprecedented expansion in the variety and availability of GM foodstuffs. If this comes to pass, does it not also provide another example of how human activities frustrate extrapolation from the past?
Wow…does “dp” stand for in the science blog world what it does in some other worlds?
I am pretty much SICK of people here attacking Becky for making a valid point about GM foods.
Yeah…conspiracy theories and hype aside….it is a real issue.
Unless you have your head completely in your *** you may not be aware of the atrocities of some of the proponents of GMOs.
You can research those on your own. But I leave you with one Saskatchewan farmer who was royally ******* by them and also some prescient analysis from one anti-GMO advocate.
You decide in the long run….if indeed you have a conscience and a brain.
Chris
Norfolk, VA, USA
http://www.percyschmeiser.com/