Discussion on:

Which countries will run out of food first?

All we hear is that so many people are starving now in Africa. Yet the population of Africa has increased 6 fold since WW II while the populations of the US and Europe have hardly doubled in the same time frame.

So please tell me how their food shortage it is my problem when the UN is predicting the populations of these nations will be doubling again by the years listed below?

Congo 2038
Burundi 2046
Zambia 2035
Angola 2037

I am sorry to be the cold realist here, but they are not starving as bad as you think if they are reproducing so fast as to expand the population like that.

40 years of western nation food aid and we are still being told people are starving, yet the African population continues to explode.

Are we only exasperating the eventual collapse of their entire existence by sending massive food aid now? When will the day come when the oil and gas supplied fertilizers run out in the US and elsewhere and we can no long feed these people? No one knows for sure, but many say SOON. Right now Africa has over a billion people. Will we be shutting off the food to 3 billion people by the time the oil runs out for the fertilizer?

The harsh reality brings the tough question. Should we stop sending food aid now and strictly focus on trying to teach them self sustainable farming? Should we make them feed themselves and let the population naturally stabilize? Even if it means people dying by the millions.

We are at the point where we must ask, do we act now when changes can be done humanely to wean them off food aid or do we deal with it later when the food just runs out?

Tragically, Haiti is a lost cause for many reasons.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_African_countries_by_population

A lot of the reason why Africa is rife with aids and exploding populations is the religious missionaries that spend billions a year converting people and essentially eliminating condom use. The unfortunate thing is that, because they also help people, if they were urged to stop they would claim whoever was behind that was not in favor of helping people.

First Food!

My souls secure when I must muse
how words endure from sages cues
about their insight for mans health,
which all men cite yet trade for wealth.

First commandment in all creeds
remains constant for basic needs:
no civil man forsakes the farm
that bears his bran and breeds the balm
of Ceres gift of daily bread
that all men lifts from hungers dread.

The second is like unto it:
societies that dont admit
the need for grain for all their folk,
do thus profane, and pain invoke;
for nevers man calm peace enjoyed
when food is scant and hope destroyed,
not goods nor gods, not gain nor greed
increase the odds to live and breed
if farm and food doth fail, then war
will more preclude till all are poor.

From dying lips the calls arise
for leadership to realize;
that granries filled all else secures,
that soils tilled gives arts tenure,
that civil life needs feeding first,
that crimes made rife by hungers thirst.
For tis truth yet all need examine
Lest we forget until next famine.
30 July 2010

the vast majority of population growth is in the underdeveloped countries, most Western nations are flat or even declining (Japan, Germany, Italy). These countries are least able to provide for themselves, and any intensification of agricultural production on given land requires investment and know how which they do not have. Population growth has reached critical mass, we are expecting 1 billion more people on the planet within the next 12 years, given current patterns.
I also agree with Hates, harsh as it may sound, that more food means more people in countries that do not have either an educated population or a population policy in place. That is a vicious circle no one has an answer for.
In regard to total calories produced at global level; the number is misleading. 50% of all grains are used for animal fodder. The calorie conversion rate for beef is 15:1, for pork 6:1, poultry 5:1. Also much of the food in underdeveloped countries goes to waste, between inadequate transport, storage, distribution systems.
We are now experiencing a convergence of influence factors: population growth, environmental damage (30% of greenhouse gases come from agriculture, ground water depletion), and a nutrition related health crisis. All 3 lead towards a clear path of changing diets in the developed world, and we don't know yet to what in the crisis countries.