Food+Scarcity+-+Distribution

· The limits to growth. · The high price of a meat-based diet. · The dehydration of the planet. · What do scientists say? Stewart, Holly. (1996, September). //Facing food scarcity//. Retrieved from http://www.earthsave.ca/articles/enviro/limits.html · “As increasing global demands put pressure on declining grain stocks, countries the world around are in for a wake-up call.” · "Measured in days of global consumption, the world's estimated carryover stocks of grain for 1996 had fallen to 49 days" - the lowest level ever. · “As disposable incomes rise sharply across the developing world, a fast-growing middle class from Seoul to Sao Paulo is buying more beef, poultry, and pork. Since 1950, world meat consumption has leaped four-fold, from 44 million tons to 184 million tons. Consumption per person has nearly doubled from 17 kilograms in 1950 to 33 kilograms in 1994.” · “In China alone, the demand for pork is creating a soaring population of hogs"510 million by the year 2000, from 307 million a decade ago.” · Even as population grows at a record pace, those with low incomes, who account for most of humanity and who typically depend on a starchy staple such as rice for 70% or more of their calories, see prestige in consuming more livestock products.  · If groundwater levels are falling consistently around the world, it becomes a question of some urgency whether the difference can be made up with surface water. The planet's great rivers, after all, are perpetually renewing. Yet here, too, there are signs of trouble.  · We are diminishing the earth’s chances to sustain all life in the future.   · Unseasonably cold, wet weather in some countries, and crop-withering heat waves in others, have lowered grain harvests in such major grain-producing countries as Canada, the U.S., parts of Europe and Russia. · Recent years reproduction has decreased here has been no growth in global grain production at all, while population has grown by some 440 million people, the equivalent of 40 New York Cities. · Decades, grain stocks have remained more or less adequate; as population has surged, so has food production. Boosted by new crop varieties, fertilizers, and irrigation, yields improved dramatically. · It is expensive to live on a meat-based diet and many Ontarians relay on livestock as the main source of their calorie intake. · Due to dehydrations major food-producing countries supply of products are very low. · Technological advances have steadily enhanced our capacity to raise living standards. They not only helped boost food production, they also increased our access to sources of water, energy, timber, and minerals.
 * (1) An Insight on, “Food Distribution” Amanda Cira **
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