Soylent green is people!

Of course the title refers to the 70’s sci-fi movie Soylent Green starring Charlton Heston. It is the best example I can think of, of a fictional movie dealing primarily with overpopulation (For non-fiction, check out Koyaanisqatsi). It features scenes of rioting crowds being bulldozed off while they try to get their hands on the last supplies of Soylent Green, one of few foods in existence. Whenever Charlton Heston goes home, he has to step over hoards of sleeping people as he traverses the crowded stairwell of his apartment block. He’s never tasted strawberries, brandy, meat, since these are scarce and only affordable to the most privileged. It’s doom and gloom, but a great movie nonetheless.

The movie was based on Make Room! Make Room!, a 1966 novel full of predictions that haven’t come true. Like the work of Malthus, or early work by Ehrlich, people are quick to point out these predictions haven’t come true. Read this review of the novel for instance.

So, where I am getting at. Nothing really, I just wanted to introduce the topic of food. As I pointed out in my last post, the FAO has reported it sees no problems with global food production up to 2030. However, I came across some criticisms of the FAO as an organization while browsing Wikipedia. Main criticisms are focused on its inefficient, bureaucratic organisation, but more relevant to my blog on its tendencies to promote Western-style agriculture and new technologies such as biotechnology. Critics feel this shows some bias as stakeholders in new technologies are always multinationals based in the developed countries. Also, I have often read that intensive, export-geared Western-style agriculture has desastrous results on both soil conditions and the local social and economic situation, when applied to developing countries in tropical climates. In any case, in my mind this kind of taints the conclusions by the FAO.

Anyway, I have yet to find any consensus on food production sustainability and limits, but maybe this is because I haven’t had the time recently to read enough on the topic. I plan to checkout publications on IFAD, an organization focusing on agriculture in poverty-stricken areas of the world. I do hope to focus on the topic as a global issue, and not wander into matters of rural poverty, though these are very important to the general quality of life at the moment and in years to come.

Some sources on grain production showing trend of increased grain production since 1950:

• FAO Statistical Yearbook – Cereals production in the world 1980, 1990, 2000, 2003 and 2004 (link) (scroll down)
• FAO Statistical Yearbook – Per capita agricultural production has increased (link)* (scroll down)
• UNEP – World Grain Production 1950-1995 (link)
• UNEP – Pessimistic projection of grain production for 2050** (link)

*How much of this is for actual human consumption?

**Though this is a 1996 source, it is noticeably contradictory to FAO statistics and 2003 projections. Both are UN organisations. If you read this article from the WorldWatch Institute, you might even say that the FAO is quite selective when it comes to data, since the Statistical Yearbook data all refer to years of relatively high world production.