Population Growth & Food

Was Malthus wrong because food production has kept up with population growth or will he be right sometime in the future? If so, what will the secondary impacts of increasing food production be?

I personally believe that Malthus is wrong about Food Production vs. Population Growth. While it's obvious that Malthus was a very intelligent person, I think he may have overlooked the unlimited possibilities of mankind. He did mention that population would influence production, but then further production would create even more growth in population.

We have sent men to the moon. We operate many parts of our daily lives by little chunks of metal constantly falling around the curvature of the earth sending and receiving signals. I heard rumors of a plan for a space-plane, which would make it possible to fly with the control of an airplane outside of earth's atmosphere. In this sense, not even the sky is the limit to what humans can do.

I believe there are endless solutions to the endless answers that arise on this planet, and if forced to, people are capable of doing some pretty impossible things. Sure, as population grows, so will food production, and as production grows, so will population, creating and limitless cycle on a limited landmass, but I don't think we've seen even a glimpse of what is going to be in our future.

Maybe I'm looking at this from a too optimistic view, but I really don't see in my head what can prevent humans from overcoming what's ahead.

If population control must be implemented, I suppose measures such as one-child policies are a possible solution. The only problem I see with this is that some families (or so I've heard) see a girl as less profitable, so they will get rid of the child in order to have a boy. How true is this? I'm not certain, but if this is the case, then something else could be done. I have also heard that families in China who wish to have more than one child can simply move out of the country, have their child, and then move back, but it's definitely still a method to reduce the number of children in the country as a whole.

This may sound ridiculous, but I think another option would be to work on making people more tolerable to homosexuals. If more homosexuals were to be married and faithful to each other, then that would be one less pair of people producing offspring, which could equate to quite a difference.

Ultimately, I believe Jesus is coming back, and probably will before the World is strained beyond human consumption.

I'm usually a pretty logical person basing all of my ideas off of hard truth, but in the case of Human Population and Food Production, I don't believe I could ever learn enough to REALLY estimate what will happen and how to prevent, or promote, what may come.

Federal Lands Grazing

Should grazing of livestock be allowed on publicly owned lands? Why or why not? (Remember to support your claim and to cite sources of information). If so, should the fees be the same as what is charged for private land leases? Why or why not? Try to be inclusive of as many viewpoints on this issue as possible when formulating your response.

If I understand everything I've read correctly, there isn't anything wrong with farmers allowing their livestock to graze on publicly owned land. For more information on the topic, I visited WorldNetDaily.com and found an article at the following URL: http://www.worldnetdaily.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=22039

After reading through that article (hopefully it was on the right track as this topic), I don't believe that farmers should be restricted any farther than the previous laws have restricted them regarding grazing on publicly owned lands, and they shouldn't be required to pay any additional fees. According to the article, they are entitled to a portion of the public land by law. If they're already entitled to the land by law, why should they need to add to the government's funds for its use?

Additionally, by allowing the cattle to graze farther out from only the private property, doesn't this reduce the risk of hazardously overgrazing? If they're restricted to the farmer's own property, the protection over the top soil would be worn away relatively quickly, allowing for rains to come and wash away top soil with no resistance. Should the farmer's be charged to prevent one piece of land from being over used?

Farm Subsidies

I'm embarrassed to say, but before today, I didn't really know anything about Farm Subsidies.

After reading both of the articles, I went and found another website filled with many opinions on the recent bill.

http://www.ewg.org/farmeditorials

To me, it looks as if it's something along the lines of welfare, or well, that's maybe what it should look like. Farmers who are doing very well off don't really need the extra money to be wasted on them, but farmers who maybe experienced a natural disaster would need the extra money very much.

Looking into it, I guess Welfare was reformed to be a limited deal while I was younger (in the 1990s) instead of being available for a person's lifetime. Maybe they should think about implementing the same idea with farming? If somebody goes over their limit for legit causes, maybe they just weren't destined to be in the farming business.

People may still be able to cheat the system, but I think it would still save us some money as a whole over all.

The Diversity of Food

The fact that wheat, rice and corn supplied half of the calories people consumed never occurred to me before, I liked to think that I ate pretty diversely, but maybe not?

There are many, many, MANY different plants possible for consumption being grown in the world, some that I'd never heard of included:

-Chickpea; Which is apparently comparable to the garbanzo bean is a source of zinc, folate, protein, dietary fiber and carbohydrates. It can also be ground up into Gram flour.

-Aronia; It looks like this is used in some juices for coloring. I'm not sure about it's nutritional content, but it's being contemplated to add it into some farmer's fields.

-Mashua; A plant grown in the Andes. A study was done which revealed a side effect of this vegetable lowers testosterone levels, but it has also been used to treat Nephropathy.

This is just a hunch, but I think that by mostly farming only the same crops over and over, our bodies have to do without some nutrients that are very beneficial to their well being. I also believe that by continually farming the same crops, the same nutrients that those crops require are being pulled out of the soil, while having multiple different ones may provide for more fertile soil in the beginning as well as later on after harvests.

After reading the homework from this week, it almost worries me that we actually depend on only a few types of crops. Such as in Ireland, with the potato famine, it wouldn't be difficult for our choices to be further limited, whereas some diseases may not affect other plants that we do

Worst Mistake

While I understand the concern of Jared Diamond, I think to consider what has happened "a mistake" would be a mistake of its own. If he would like to return to the hunter/gatherer way of life, I'm sure he very well can, just because we now embrace agriculture doesn't mean everyone has to, it would just be a little more difficult in the now than it was then.

Regarding Diamond's concern about the average height:
"One straight forward example of what paleopathologists have learned from skeletons concerns historical changes in height. Skeletons from Greece and Turkey show that the average height of hunger-gatherers toward the end of the ice ages was a generous 5' 9" for men, 5' 5" for women. With the adoption of agriculture, height crashed, and by 3000 B. C. had reached a low of only 5' 3" for men, 5' for women. By classical times heights were very slowly on the rise again, but modern Greeks and Turks have still not regained the average height of their distant ancestors."

I fail to see exactly how this proves as a mistake for mankind. People range in height drastically, in today's society; it doesn't really make much difference. With the extra help from being in a "clumped" society, inventions (such as the step ladder, the ladder in general, stepping stool, stairs, etc.) have been created in order to assist people who may not be able to be tall enough for everything they need to do.

Also, according to his last sentence, heights are on the rise again, so if the lack of height had ever been a concern, why would it need to continue to be?

Another of his paragraphs bring up two other interesting points:
"First, hunter-gatherers enjoyed a varied diet, while early farmers obtained most of their food from one or a few starchy crops. The farmers gained cheap calories at the cost of poor nutrition. (today just three high-carbohydrate plants: wheat, rice, and corn; provide the bulk of the calories consumed by the human species, yet each one is deficient in certain vitamins or amino acids essential to life.)"

Regarding the early farmers, I recall reading in Plants & Society that the move to agriculture was a gradual event, meaning the early farmers wouldn't be limited to only the crops they farmed. For today, even though only three high-carbohydrate plants are commonly consumed doesn't also mean that's all that is available. Are we required to only purchase those three plants? No, many other options are still available to us. Nobody forces today's societies to ONLY purchase wheat, rice and corn, as far as I'm aware of.

The next part of the paragraph stated:
"Epidemics couldn't take hold when populations were scattered in small bands that constantly shifted camp. Tuberculosis and diarrheal disease had to await the rise of farming, measles and bubonic plague the appearance of large cities."

While I have no doubt that these statements are true, I believe that Diamond is looking at the wrong side of this event. Because of the epidemics, I assume, people decided they would need to find cures, in turn creating paths for evolutions to occur in the world of science.

Throughout the entire essay by Jared Diamond, he makes many very valid points, but I believe in the long run, he's only looking at the negative side of what Agriculture may be responsible for doing, it's sort of like that old saying about the glass being half full or half empty, however, in this case, I think the glass is closer to 3/4's full, and only 1/4 empty. :)

Nutritional Extremes

I never stress this fact enough: As a citizen of America, we are way fortunate. We have more than enough, even when we thing we have nothing at all. For example, our homeless can easily receive food three times a day for free because of programs which reach out to America's homeless, and for only a few dollars, even, it's easy to have a filling meal at a fast food restaurant. On almost every street corner there is somewhere which provides food; not only food, but also food that's convenient to eat. While we can eat ourselves to death here, there are families who die from lack of food all over the world. While some may say, "It's not our problem," or, "How does that affect me?" I think it's worth looking a little deeper to decide whether or not these people deserve help or not, and I believe the answer is pretty easy to come by.

I don't know a whole lot about most of these countries, but I do know that in some of them, primarily in Africa, have very rich soil, and to create a garden takes no more effort than throwing down a few seeds. I wonder in my head, why haven't the natives of these lands figured out this process yet? Or have they, and their "government" is interfering? I do know, sadly enough, many of the leaders use military force to get anything they want, and allow only their military to eat supplies that are sent. Maybe the best way to go about assisting the less fortunate around the world wouldn't be to send them supplies, but fund education so that they can be self sufficient in the future, rather than learning to rely on assistance from the outside.

I know my thoughts are a little mixed, that's how they're coming and going in my mind.

But anyway, ironically enough, on my myspace I had created a small section which I advertised this same point, with a little link to the company I am working through to do a little something about this problem around the world. Currently, I'm paying $35 a month, which may seem like a lot, but when it comes down to it, I believe that that is the best $35 a month I could ever be spending.

Anyway, here's my copy/paste job from my previous entry:
You know, we're way fortunate, being in America and all, why not help out the rest of the world
too? Sure we've got problems here, but that doesn't mean we can't spend a few minutes for other countries. I'm personally acting on this challenge by sponsoring a child in Uganda, it's real easy to do too! Click on the picture below for more information on how you might help out too! (I promise I'm not being paid to advertise by World Vision):