“Agricultural land has not increased at anything like the same rate [as population] so things are going to have to change, as simple as that.
“[Either that] or you put up with the food riots, or hope for a good war to reduce numbers. These are not alternatives.”
Professor Batterham is the deputy chair of a working group which advised Prime Minister Julia Gillard on food security.
If there’s one thing I’m grateful for about having had a liberal education, it’s an appreciation for academic freedom.
Fyodor · 6 April 2011, 14:02 · #
If there’s one thing I’m grateful for in my economics education, it’s the ability not to fall for Malthusian catastrophising.
The world has plenty of food and our cup in particular spilleth over. Agricultural land has not HAD to keep up with population growth because yields have increased so much. The revolution in agricultural productivity in the last 50 years is one of humanity’s great achievements and this bloke has it totally arse-backwards.
The good professor is deeply concerned about the fact that we buy fruit & veg from overseas, but we do this because it’s cheaper to buy it, not because we can’t grow it. I wonder if he’s the kind of loon who thinks Autarky is the ideal.
Liam · 6 April 2011, 17:56 · #
He’s being flippant and over-gleeful about human misery which is why I made the post but since we’re already there, the other problem with the proposals is that collective or organised violence (ie. riots and wars) tend to hit production much more destructively and long before either touches the replacement rate.
Fyodor · 6 April 2011, 19:22 · #
Whoah, dude. You’ve really thought this through.
There is a way better way to ease the production-consumption gap: nukes from space – only way to be sure.
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