So when you said that the "reason I posted the quote on the slowdown of production gain was merely to illustrate that production gains cannot be sustained indefinitely", you didn't mean to imply it illustrates such a thing?
I am saying that production gains cannot be sustained indefinitely. I am saying that there is a limit to production given that the Planet is finite, conseuently at some point there can no more gains in production achieved
We all agree on that. It is however relevant only insofar as demand is predicted to grow indefinitely. Which it isn't - population is expected to peak somewhere between 9 and 11 billions, sometime between the mid-21st and early 22nd century. Given that, as even your link says, "30 to 40 per cent of the food grown globally for human consumption never gets eaten", we'd be able to feed more than the expected peak population without
any growth in production, just with improved logistics.
And you weren't just saying that there must be a limit somewhere since the planet is finite. You were specifically using real or alleged patterns of sluggish gains to illustrate that we're nearing that point. Which, to repeat myself, it doesn't illustrate. As I've said
several pages ago: "A slowdown of the growth of production in absolute terms (raw tonnage) could mean that the growth potential is nearing exhaustion, that further gains come at increasing, prohibitive costs. Or it could mean that demand isn't growing as fast as it used to since population growth is in free fall. Or, in the case where you pick individual food commodities rather than food production as a whole, it could simply mean that dietary preferences are shifting. Or any of dozens of other things. It is compatible with, but not indicative of, your preferred conclusion."
Which is not to say that we are at that point right now. Nor does it mean wholesale starvation any time soon, not tomorrow or in ten or twenty years. This is a projection from mid century on.....as I've said what, twenty times now?
Yet some products do appear to have reached peak production:
This is the same article you've posted before. It uses "peak food" in a very idiosyncratic (not to say: misleading) way to indicate the point in time at which the growth rate starts to decline. Unless you can quote a second significant work that does so, I'll go with the conclusion that everyone else talking about "peak <commodity>" refers to when the production starts to actually drop. I've asked you this before, you never responded - also in post
https://talkfreethought.org/showthr...ing-Kilodeaths&p=717435&viewfull=1#post717435
The way they use "peak wheat" etc., it really tells us nothing. What if wheat production doesn't grow as fast as it used to? Is per capita wheat production still growing, or is it declining? If it is declining, is it because a growing portion of the world's population doesn't have wheat as a staple food (i.e., changing tastes), or is it because we've actually reached the points where further gains are difficult/expensive to achieve?
That's a newspaper article that doesn't even link the paper it refers to.
Here's the paper and
here's their raw data. I had a look on their raw data, and it's quite informative, but doesn't say what you (or maybe they) want us to conclude.
For example for maize, for which they calculate a "peak rate year" of 1985, average annual production increases by 24.75% from the decade 1980-1988 to the decade 1990-1999, and by another 28.77% from the 1990s to the 2000s. Given that population growth was only 18% from 1985 to 1995, and 14% from 1995 to 2005, this means
per capita maize production grew 5% from the 80s to 90s and
13% (!) 90s to 00s. Granted, the proportional increase (total tonnage) from the 70s to the 80s was even larger than from the 90s to the 00s, but because the 70s also saw faster population growth, per capita increases where higher in the 90s/00s than in the 70s/80s! If
that's what a post-peak-rate supply looks like, I shan't loose any sleep over it.
''The world has entered an era of “peak food” production with an array of staples from corn and rice to wheat and chicken slowing in growth – with potentially disastrous consequences for feeding the planet.
New research finds that the supply of 21 staples, such as eggs, meat, vegetables and soybeans is already beginning to run out of momentum, while the global population continues to soar.
Let me get this straight: eggs (increase in average annual tonnage produced from the 1990-1999 decade to the 2000-2009 decade: 32.6%, per capita: +16.4%), meat (+31.8%/11.9%), vegetables (+45.7%/+27.9%) and soybeans (+56.3%/+37.3%) is "beginning to run out of momentum", while the global population (+ a measly fucking 14% mid-decade to mid-decade) "continues to soar". (Their data go up to 2011, but year-to-year comparison are uninformative because there's too much noise, so I'm comparing the two last full decades decade to decade here).
Wow. Just wow.
And don't come on about how I'm missing the point and fixating on a typo. This is an intentional direct juxtaposition of food commodity growth vs. population growth designed to leave the impression that the former isn't keeping up with the latter as of the time of writing. No "begginning from mid-century" anywhere to be found".
