In the past hundred years alone our population has grown from around 2 billion to over seven and a half billion just 20 years ago our population was only six billion our species
srchas expanded tremendously over the course of our time on earth and we now inhabit many vastly different environments around the globe there's very little that the human race can't overcome and that's led some ,
to ask the question are we too successful will there come a point at which we simply have too many mouths to feed and not enough food to go around in this episode we'll examine
the current state of food production around the world and determine roughly how many humans our agriculture is capable of supporting let's get one thing out of the way up front
we're nowhere near the earth becoming overpopulated the only people who make this claim are acting in bad faith usually to push reprehensible agendas like eugenics depending on the population models
you use the planets carrying capacity could be up to 40 billion people it's just a matter of how those people consume now let's take a look at the current state of agriculture and hunger around the world as of 2018
about 800 million people around the world experienced a lack of sufficiently nutritious food earning them the designation hungry most of these people live in regions with underdeveloped agricultural systems like
sub-saharan Africa but a lack of agricultural infrastructure is only part of the problem regions that are embroiled in conflict or that have high levels of poverty also suffer from widespread hunger war leads to poverty poverty to hunger
and hunger reinforces poverty it's a deadly cycle that is very difficult to break but even while nearly a billion people lack reliable access to nutritious food global food production is humming along nicely it's estimated that the world's farmers
produce enough food to feed one-and-a-half times the total world population that's over 10 billion people a population we're not expected to reach for another 30 years at least if we produce that much food why do so many people suffer hunger
and starvation this is a multi-faceted problem waste in efficient distribution and climate change all play major roles in preventing the efficient disbursement of food to the world's at-risk populations
let'start with the problem of waste it's estimated that globally 30 to 40 percent of all food is waste that is a massive amount of food the reasons for this waste vary by country India for example loses 30 to 40 percent of their fresh produce
because they lack cold storage infrastructure in many regions in other countries like the u.s. famous for its massive portions much of the waste comes from people simply throwing away large amounts of food
because they have too much on their plates and large grocery chains just dump excess food because it's cheaper than transporting it to places that could put it to good
use this is where distribution comes in why repackage and distribute unused food if there's not a financial incentive to do so in recent months.
we've seen American farmers leave mountains of potatoes to rot and dump hundreds of gallons of milk down the drain because the market dried up then there's the looming threat of climate change.