Did you know of the 20,000 edible plants in the world, only 150 are cultivated commercially? And that 90% of the calories eaten in the world come from just 20 (twenty) species? http://www.foodincmovie.com/ Eric Schlosser This is one of those films that will have you thinking about your children's/grandchildren's future. I was amazed to see some guy in a room full of computers and video screens in Nebraska, who had control over the speed of the "assembly lines" of meat packing plants in seven (7) states. This film is probably on netflicks ,,, it will (as the trailer says) change the way you think of dinner. In the film some one says we Americans are addicted to sugar, salt and fat. I told my grand daughter that and she said. "fat,,, ooh that's yucky ,,, please pass the gravy."
The biggest bottleneck to increased argriculture is fresh water. The world has much more land available to farm than it has water sources to irrigate with. Most of the edible crops grown (and likewise livestock) are water hogs. Corn in particular takes a tremendous amount of water to grow, soybeans relatively less per to yield. Wheat and oats are grasses, potatoes are mostly water, rice grows in standing water. Those are the primary starches that the world lives on. Aquifers, rivers and their impoundments are going dry due to over-exploitation. Urban sprawl and population growth places huge demands on fresh water that can barely be met in many places, and cannot be sustained in others. That's the biggest problem with increased crops production. Finite water sources to meet all demands. Until a cheap way to desalinate seawater is perfected, fresh water is the most precious limited asset on earth. When I lived in Denver, it was common to see water running down the street gutters on its way to the South Platte river every night. It looked like a massive thunderstorm deluged the city's suburbs when in fact that was just myriad underground sprinkler systems watering lawns... non-native plants not designed to grow in such an arid region. But the suburbanites needed their green lawns, and millions of gallons of water every day were soaked thru the turf and runoff into the drainage system to sustain that desire. Meanwhile, fifty miles east in the virtual sea of corn fields and wheat fields out on the great plains, immature plants were curled up and stunted due to lack of irrigation and rain fall. Lawns were kept green, crops were left to fend for themselves with pivot irrigation systems idle due to cost of water versus bottom line profits on yield. Man's priorities for water.
Man, a lot of good posts on this thread. I have family that lives and farms in Mali. A typical farmer works about what we would call 7 acres. The old guys do it by hand and the young guys are trying to learn how to use cattle to pull a plow. 80% of the population in Mali are farmers. So I guess they are all going to be rich. As it stands now, they are lucky if they clear $200 for a whole year. They borrow their seeds and fertilizer in the spring and after harvest have to pay off all their loans and what's left over is their profit. If they're lucky they grow peanuts. There isn't much of a government and probably less now with the down fall of Gaddafi (who they totally depend on for foreign aid) but there is a brutal army who comes in anytime they want and demands the farmers grow cotton which they can't eat or use because that is the only export. There's no futures market so they just have to sell at the buyers price at seasons end. It warms my heart to learn they are all soon going to be rich. There's a big land grab going on in Africa. So far Mali hasn't been impacted.
The Oklahoma panhandle and North Texas used to be some of the most fertile land in the US. I talked to some of the old timers out there and they told me that they used to see water on the surface and would only need to go down 50 to 80 feet to drill for water for irrigation. Now it isn't unusual to go 500 feet. The current circle farmers out there say they are no more than 20 years from another dust bowl. We are not good caretakers of the land and we will pay for it in the not so distant future.
Jimmy Rogers is indeed correct in terms of demand. Envision three graphs: 1. From the dawn of mankind (Neanderthal or Adam & Eve) to 1920. For simplicity, call it 50,000 years. By 1920 the earh amassed 1 billion The resulting graph would have a very wide X axis and a short Y axis. 2. From 1920 to 2010 the earth the population grew to 6 billion. The graph would be dramatically different. A narrow (90 year) X axis and and a Y axis 6 times as high as graph 1. 3. Projections are for the earth's population to be 9 billion by 2040. A 50% increase. This graph would have a mere 30 year wide X axis and a linear equivalent to a parabola. Land is finite, resources (except renewable lumber) is finite. Stated another way, the shit hits the fan about then from BOTH a resource standpoint and a US Government fiscal standpoint courtesy of compound interest. Really requires no further debate. There is no solution and the remedies are debatable. Roger's remarks about MORE farmers is not likely. Like any endeavor, there are good farmers and bad farmers. As time progresses, marginal players will leave the arena. Roger's remark about making MORE money "than" bankers is also debatable. Marginal players leaving the arena suggests money doesn't fall off trees. The barriers to entry for farmers is formible. Just a sprayer you use how many months? out of a year will run $300,000. It takes X number of gallons of diesel to work X number of acres. It increases lockstep. Likewise for many other costs per acre per hour, etc. There are economies of scale in some areas making sense to have more acres. Capitalizing on those aspects is what the big operators do or attempt to. I know one farmer that works two ends of a county, transporting his equipment via flatbed. He's an exception not the norm. For me, a disturbing matter is tilless farming and the lack of rotation. Nobody grows milo anymore. Few plow. Either corn or beans where I'm at. If beans don't rise in price, they opt for corn. Over and over. As such, certain nutrients are depleted. Additionally, high fructose corn syrup is nasty stuff. It's in a LOT of processed food. Look around at the overweight population and the explosion in Type 2 diabetes. USDA is a joke. It's why 1 in 8 are on food stamps, subsidies to plant (or NOT to plant) or even the prime/choice gradings of beef. A prophecy about 2040 makes me feel like Moses and Jimmy Rogers is just running his mouth to serve his agenda. No wonder he and Soros parted. I'd like to put a sock in it and wrap it with duct tape.
No we're not but we could be. There's a fantastic urban gardening project in Milwaukee, and there's no reason there couldn't be a similar one in every city. Where I live there are amish farmers who couldn't care less about the price of crude. North America has supported human beings for 10,000 yrs. It's just the last 200 that have caused problems.
My grandfateher homesteaded ithink it was 120 or 140 acres in Iowa. When he died it was about 1200. Crops were rotated. He always had pasture land and cattle. Beans were kind of new. The first time they plowed up one of his pastures it broke the Iowa state record. 80 bushels/acre. Now it is 3000 acres of nothing but beans. Fence ro to fence row. They don't even mess with corn anymore. It's all computerized. They do whatevr MOnsanto tells them to do. In 1970 I talked to an Amish farmer in Ohio. He had 140 acres and said after taxes he cleared $42,000 per year, which was pretty good money back then. Of course his land was all paid for because they don't borrow. My family pays about a million dollars for a new combine and the yearly cost of fertlizer and runnining those combines across the field is dependant on crude. Meanwhile, the Amish farmer needs no more land, he's got all one man can work, and when his horse wheres out, he just breeds another one.
I am interested to hear about US government subsidies for farming not to mention the land certificates for 15 years that any farmer can buy which orders them not to farm on their land. Can someone elaborate on that issue? Basically what I am wondering is what will happen to Ag industry without govt subsidiy.
The pathetic thing is, when I was a stockbroker, I wasn't doing too well in stocks so I decided to try my hand at trading cattle. So I called up my uncle in Iowa (who had a pretty large herd at the time) and asked him what he thought about the price of cattle "Cattle?" he replied "What the heck do I know about the price of cattle? No one can predict the price of cattle. But say, you're a stock broker now? What do you think about the price of Navistar? It's at 8 bucks and that looks like a buy to me." So neither of us could predict the price of something we were supposed to know about, but both of us thought we could make money in something we knew nothing about.
All I can say is God Bless the Amish for keeping the knowledge alive. Yes, I realize how ironic that sounds.