Population: is it about food supply or food distribution?
7 December 2007
Trinifar commented here: “Some regions with plenty of food have low or negative growth (Japan, for example, has a negative growth rate in 2007…)“.
Not quite accurate here. True, the Japanese population is decreasing, but whether food production is meeting the needs is questionable. Japan is largely an importer, whether this be food or raw material (and an exporter of finished goods) of food. In other words the food supply is largely something purchased from others.
The shear complexity of import and export as well as migration makes for an unclear picture. But can we say at the global level that growth will occur in proportion to food supply? The argument seems false. A look at the distribution of food against where actual population growth (not population growth due to migration) is occurring will make this point clear.
Most industrialized countries are experiencing population decrease even though they are food rich. While industrializing (poor) countries have real natural growth even though they are food poor. so if food supply is a function of population growth then these numbers don’t make sense.
I believe supply is still greater than demand today. Otherwise the African situation cannot occur. This is still true even when the affluence of industrialized nations is taken out of the food demand equation. Eventually though food will be a function of population growth. It is a question of when.
And when that happens it will not be so much food supply but food distribution that will be our focus. In the future those hamburgers will probably have the same fat content as now. And even though population may be decreasing by then it will once again be about the haves and have nots. The fat (read: rich) stay fat and the thin (poor) get thinner.
Vico was right. History does come in cycles. We are forever doomed to say ‘we have gone back to the 1950s’ or some other past period.
7 December 2007 at 5:25pm
I was thinking of regional counterexamples to Hopfenberg’s proposition. Japan has not come to a stagnant/decreasing growth rate because its people lack food. As you say, the Japanese have a great ability to purchase food from others — which of course does not mean that all Japanese have the diet they wish.
The US is a different kind of example. Here we have the most industrialized food production system the world has ever seen — all those enormous corporate farms with their monocrops, often GM strains, maximual use of fertilizer and pestisides — and it produces an enormous amount of food. Yet with all this food we have a 2.1 fertility rate, our growth is mostly immigration driven.
Of course the US still imports food, even from China. (!) We also have in this land of plenty people who are malnourished.
10 December 2007 at 11:34pm
Actually I agree with you, Trinifar.
Later you said that regional levels must be looked at for a clearer picture. The example of Japan made it seem they do not have a food problem (Japan has but it is largely solved by their large imports). So being placed in the same sentence with the US makes it sound like they have similar conditions. This is what I wanted to point out.
12 December 2007 at 3:51am
Point well taken! Dialog is a lovely thing.
I expanded on my thoughts here.
Japan is, for me, quite unique in its circumstances. Physically small with few natural resources (I’m thinking as an American here) but with a vast, powerful, modern economy and large, educated population.
During the first Persian Gulf War I learned about the constant stream of supertankers that shuttle oil from the Middle East to Japan, and during my lifetime I’ve experienced quite directly the output of Japan’s economy. Between my partner and I, we’ve owned finely made Japanese cars, electronics of all sorts, and watched classic Japanese movies like Rashômon. My initial introduction to Buddhism was reading D. T. Susuki and I’ve studied with people who were taught by Shunryu Suzuki (founder of the San Francisco Zen Center) and his “descendents.”
Still, as an American, I grew up with the WWII movies and our history of being at war with Japan — as well as the history of making peace and the history of interning (imprisoning) everyone in the US of Japanese heritage.
What a complex relationship between two very different countries/cultures, in many ways different right down to the core. Yet, we’re all human beings with the same fundamental needs.
I’m wondering now what you think about Japan’s future and how it might change as peak oil, climate change, and an emphasis on localization come to pass? Not expecting an answer here in the comments, but perhaps this question might inspire a future post or two.
12 December 2007 at 7:27am
This is one of the main arguments against Hopfenberg’s (and Pimentel’s and Quinn’s) hypothesis. Russ did address it in his previous visit to GIM. Whether it’s an adequate explanation I’m not sure. I seem to recall Jason Godesky (who subscribes to the same idea) arguing the same thing by attributing it to globalization and associated food imports and exports.
In some ways the hypothesis is very compelling, and does seem to apply globally (It’s best shown in the graph in Russ’s article in the journal Population and Environment which unfortunately seems to be nowhere online anymore. But I think he has a similar graph now in his online slideshow.) But it makes for some very tricky questions when it comes to considering policy implications. I’m still not sure what Russ would say about the question, “So should we merely stop growing the global food supply, or would we also need to cut off food aid?” Ironically, as Magne pointed out on GIM, climate change (and peak oil) may cap the growth of the global food supply before any discussion of Russ’s hypothesis makes it to the international discussion table.
12 December 2007 at 10:58am
Trinifar,
Yes, if I can have time I will do some of my old blog magic. I took a look at my early posts on STD and I see I had a good thing going. Time is a problem now but still I have the passion to write.
John,
I am glad you have the time and energy to keep everyone including me updated to what is happening. I’m afraid I don’t have the time to go through every that happens on GIM or elsewhere.