Agriculture in the XXI century, and how to stop starvation in the world

in agriculture •  8 years ago 

Hi everyone, so today I saw a really cool news, according to statistics our population will grow from 7,5 billion in 2017 to an incredible 9 billion in 2050 and 11 billion in 2100 (and I'm still single lol)
The biggest increase will come from sub-Saharan Africa and South East Asia, now into my point: 1- with more people coming out of poverty and starting to eat a diet stronger on calories and proteins and, 2- more people actually living in this world how can we feed everyone??
If you vegan you say to all of us "stop eating meat", if you are a survivalist you will say "just take it and eat insects" (highly nutritive), but, what if we feed everyone not changing diets? :D

I believe the answer is not on charity and turning countries into charity slaves (unless a disaster like a drought or war happens), we can not simply send the overproduction of the West to other countries and say "here take our food!", we need to start sending tractors and say "here start producing more!", remember the old saying give a man a fish and you feed him for one day, teach him how to fish and you feed him for a lifetime?
So to back my claim and somehow controversial standpoint on the global policy of food distribution I went research some sites and looking to data, here is what I found out:

All the statistic results you are about to see comes from the website of FAO (Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations) http://www.fao.org/faostat/en/#data/QI and from the World Bank http://data.worldbank.org/
The results are always from the earliest one available (2014)

Gross Production Value (current million US$)

Northern America: 283485.937487
Europe: 433363.417988
South America: 272127.800725
Oceania: 44680.089026
Africa: 239512.836063
Asia: 1778367.353769

So looking at these stats from FAO things don't look for Africa and South America, even though Europe is smaller than Africa the production in Europe is larger than in Africa, Asia takes the grand price in production, but they have the biggest population to feed.
disclaimer: I will not look country to country or sub-regions, I will go on a continent scale for simplicity reasons if you want to dig more go to the links above :)

Cereals, Total (USD)

Northern America: 80190.545108
Europe: 103258.414923
South America: 41239.47433
Oceania: 10811.028959
Africa: 51282.93473
Asia: 536213.708032

It doesn´t matter how many food stats I put in here, Europe and North America looking good, Asia also good, South America and Africa should be doing more, what´s wrong with them? oh, our friends in Oceania have a pretty weak score, but they are so few

Livestock (PIN)

Northern America: 67646.11728
Europe: 130470.269805
South America: 45470.828766
Oceania: 19078.606736
Africa: 21634.738977
Asia: 222963.704037

Most shocking to me in this stat are to look at Oceania and Africa, there is a huge difference in population in favor of Africa yet Oceania is close to Africa in the production of livestock.

It seems our world is on the ropes in what food production is concerned, we either start improving the farming in underdeveloped countries or political crisis, mass emigration and starvation will continue to be the norm in this century, remember that population will grow in those countries yet it seems to me international organizations like the UN are not doing enough. The investment should be on getting new farming techniques into those countries: heavier machinery, better irrigation systems like drop-to-drop and water collectors, new crops, the list goes on and on.
Sometimes I wish a magic orb was available to see the future, but for now, we have statistics, and they don't look good for the future, let´s hope my pessimism mindset does not take form.
Peace, if you liked the post you can always upvote, resteem or follow me ;)

Authors get paid when people like you upvote their post.
If you enjoyed what you read here, create your account today and start earning FREE STEEM!
Sort Order:  

You should look at Choice Humanitarian @choicehumanitary. They have very similar ideas! And an actual working model.

Thank you, I will look at them ;)

Very nice and complex post! Are you from Romania?

Thank you @jwolf, i had a very nice friend from Romania when i was in shcool :) but no I am from Portugal

interesting. man only 11 billion by 2100, that is not so bad. We will survive! song... I believe technology will improve and help us more efficiently feed everyone.

The 11 billion benchmark may change, it all depends on trends, some trends can lead us to over 12,5 billion in 2100 ;)
Totaly agree on the technology part bro, only real solution we have for this problem

Thank you! Very serious and informative post

nice information

Muito bom post!

Obrigado, abraço!!