Manfred Bartz <md7f2ac91d@xix.com> wrote in message news:<m2r809tiol.fsf@logi.cc>...
markplus@hotmail.com (Mark Plus) writes:

If you study the chart at the following link, which is current through
this year, you can see that the total world grain harvest has been
declining by about 8 million tons a year on average since 1997, or
about 0.4% a year:

http://www.earth-policy.org/Updates/Update27_data.htm

Since this year's harvest amounted to 1830 million tons, I'm willing
to speculate for the public record that next year's harvest will net
about 1822 million tons, plus or minus 5 million.

Your prediction may turn out correct, but for different reasons.

I think it is much more likely that the declining grain harvest is
the result of market forces. IIRC, there are considerable stockpiles
of grain and they may still be growing.

So, the subject of this thread should possibly be changed to:
"Eating habit changes well underway?" ;)

FAO's data indicate that grain stockpiles have been falling rapidly as
well (scroll down to "WORLD STOCKS"):

http://www.fao.org/docrep/005/J0381e/J0381e02.htm

Mark Plus

markplus@hotmail.com (Mark Plus) writes:

If you study the chart at the following link, which is current through
this year, you can see that the total world grain harvest has been
declining by about 8 million tons a year on average since 1997, or
about 0.4% a year:

http://www.earth-policy.org/Updates/Update27_data.htm

Since this year's harvest amounted to 1830 million tons, I'm willing
to speculate for the public record that next year's harvest will net
about 1822 million tons, plus or minus 5 million.

Your prediction may turn out correct, but for different reasons.

I think it is much more likely that the declining grain harvest is
the result of market forces. IIRC, there are considerable stockpiles
of grain and they may still be growing.

So, the subject of this thread should possibly be changed to:
"Eating habit changes well underway?"

Lester Brown predicted China's imploding grain production back in
1995, in his book "Who Will Feed China?":

What's the problem?

If you study the chart at the following link, which is current through
this year, you can see that the total world grain harvest has been
declining by about 8 million tons a year on average since 1997, or
about 0.4% a year:

http://www.earth-policy.org/Updates/Update27_data.htm

Since this year's harvest amounted to 1830 million tons, I'm willing
to speculate for the public record that next year's harvest will net
about 1822 million tons, plus or minus 5 million.

Mark Plus

A Malthusian catastrophe has been predicted...well since Malthus. What
Malthus didn't factor in was technology. Technology has improved
output of foodstuffs and allowed an exponential decrease in the number
of people involved in agriculture.

Tim <timothytn@my-deja.com> wrote or quoted:

A Malthusian catastrophe has been predicted...well since Malthus. What
Malthus didn't factor in was technology. Technology has improved
output of foodstuffs and allowed an exponential decrease in the number
of people involved in agriculture.

Malthus suggested resource limitation - not catastrophe. He wrote:

``Assuming then my postulata as granted, I say, that the power of
population is indefinitely greater than the power in the earth to
produce subsistence for man.

Population, when unchecked, increases in a geometrical ratio.
Subsistence increases only in an arithmetical ratio. A slight
acquaintance with numbers will shew the immensity of the first
power in comparison of the second.

By that law of our nature which makes food necessary to the life of
man, the effects of these two unequal powers must be kept equal.

This implies a strong and constantly operating check on population
from the difficulty of subsistence. This difficulty must fall somewhere
and must necessarily be severely felt by a large portion of mankind.''

- http://www.ac.wwu.edu/~stephan/malthus/malthus.1.html

He suggests a level of stress between resources and the inclination
towards exponential population growth.

Whether Malthus's argument pans out in the long term is a question
of physics and cosmology - it depends on whether resources behave
the way he assumed that they do or not.

Tim Tyler <tim@tt1lock.org> wrote in message news:<Hox7nM.DJ9@bath.ac.uk>...
Tim <timothytn@my-deja.com> wrote or quoted:

A Malthusian catastrophe has been predicted...well since Malthus. What
Malthus didn't factor in was technology. Technology has improved
output of foodstuffs and allowed an exponential decrease in the number
of people involved in agriculture.

Malthus suggested resource limitation - not catastrophe. He wrote:

``Assuming then my postulata as granted, I say, that the power of
population is indefinitely greater than the power in the earth to
produce subsistence for man.

Population, when unchecked, increases in a geometrical ratio.
Subsistence increases only in an arithmetical ratio. A slight
acquaintance with numbers will shew the immensity of the first
power in comparison of the second.

By that law of our nature which makes food necessary to the life of
man, the effects of these two unequal powers must be kept equal.

This implies a strong and constantly operating check on population
from the difficulty of subsistence. This difficulty must fall somewhere
and must necessarily be severely felt by a large portion of mankind.''

- http://www.ac.wwu.edu/~stephan/malthus/malthus.1.html

He suggests a level of stress between resources and the inclination
towards exponential population growth.

Whether Malthus's argument pans out in the long term is a question
of physics and cosmology - it depends on whether resources behave
the way he assumed that they do or not.

Seems the Victorian English used this logic to deny the Irish food
during the Potato Famine of the 1840's [...]

Not a dissimilar view from some of those who want to prevent longevity
research.

How will China feed its people?

They could try what the Pilgrims did after they abandonded their

Tim <timothytn@my-deja.com> wrote or quoted:
Tim Tyler <tim@tt1lock.org> wrote in message news:<Hox7nM.DJ9@bath.ac.uk>...
Tim <timothytn@my-deja.com> wrote or quoted:

A Malthusian catastrophe has been predicted...well since Malthus. What
Malthus didn't factor in was technology. Technology has improved
output of foodstuffs and allowed an exponential decrease in the number
of people involved in agriculture.

Malthus suggested resource limitation - not catastrophe. He wrote:

``Assuming then my postulata as granted, I say, that the power of
population is indefinitely greater than the power in the earth to
produce subsistence for man.

Population, when unchecked, increases in a geometrical ratio.
Subsistence increases only in an arithmetical ratio. A slight
acquaintance with numbers will shew the immensity of the first
power in comparison of the second.

By that law of our nature which makes food necessary to the life of
man, the effects of these two unequal powers must be kept equal.

This implies a strong and constantly operating check on population
from the difficulty of subsistence. This difficulty must fall somewhere
and must necessarily be severely felt by a large portion of mankind.''

- http://www.ac.wwu.edu/~stephan/malthus/malthus.1.html

He suggests a level of stress between resources and the inclination
towards exponential population growth.

Whether Malthus's argument pans out in the long term is a question
of physics and cosmology - it depends on whether resources behave
the way he assumed that they do or not.

Seems the Victorian English used this logic to deny the Irish food
during the Potato Famine of the 1840's [...]

Not AFAICS - but it's not clear what you mean.

Not a dissimilar view from some of those who want to prevent longevity
research.

Channelling prospective longevity research funds elsewhere is likely to
slow down progress in the area - which seems likely to disadvantage the
existing elderly population somewhat.

This is well known. He also opposed birth control on the grounds it
was immoral and it was illegal to disseminate any literature
pertaining to it till 1877. John Stuart Mill was actually arrested for
doing this. After 1877 the British population stabilized.

It was his
thesis that population growth was good for the economy and would
improve the standard of living. This of course is untrue.

Tim Tyler <tim@tt1lock.org> wrote in message news:<HozDsw.3yx@bath.ac.uk>...
Tim <timothytn@my-deja.com> wrote or quoted:
Tim Tyler <tim@tt1lock.org> wrote in message news:<Hox7nM.DJ9@bath.ac.uk>...
Tim <timothytn@my-deja.com> wrote or quoted:

A Malthusian catastrophe has been predicted...well since Malthus. What
Malthus didn't factor in was technology. Technology has improved
output of foodstuffs and allowed an exponential decrease in the number
of people involved in agriculture.

Malthus suggested resource limitation - not catastrophe. He wrote:

``Assuming then my postulata as granted, I say, that the power of
population is indefinitely greater than the power in the earth to
produce subsistence for man.

Population, when unchecked, increases in a geometrical ratio.
Subsistence increases only in an arithmetical ratio. A slight
acquaintance with numbers will shew the immensity of the first
power in comparison of the second.

By that law of our nature which makes food necessary to the life of
man, the effects of these two unequal powers must be kept equal.

This implies a strong and constantly operating check on population
from the difficulty of subsistence. This difficulty must fall somewhere
and must necessarily be severely felt by a large portion of mankind.''

- http://www.ac.wwu.edu/~stephan/malthus/malthus.1.html

He suggests a level of stress between resources and the inclination
towards exponential population growth.

Whether Malthus's argument pans out in the long term is a question
of physics and cosmology - it depends on whether resources behave
the way he assumed that they do or not.

Seems the Victorian English used this logic to deny the Irish food
during the Potato Famine of the 1840's [...]

Not AFAICS - but it's not clear what you mean.

This is well known. [...]

Malthus's argument does not depend on whether the English found it convenient
to cite it 50 years later in defense of their oppression of the Irish.

If having your argument abused by the wrong folk to justify their poor
behaviour discredited it then Darwinian evolution would have been
binned long ago.

I don't see that it much matters anyway. The truth or falsehood of
Malthus's argument does not depend on whether the English found it
convenient
to cite it 50 years later in defense of their oppression of the Irish.

If having your argument abused by the wrong folk to justify their poor
behaviour discredited it then Darwinian evolution would have been
binned long ago.

Hi Tim and Michael,
I think it shows the pitfalls of applying economic theory to actual
living humans. Think of Stalin's collectivization of farms which
produced mass starvation in the USSR. He used the Kulaks (wealthy
farmers) as scapegoats and exterminated them. Mao Tse Tung did the
same in China with his "Great Leap Backward" Here is an economist
that correlates total world population growth with GDP pre WW II and
it may support Malthus but not post WW II when technology became more
of a factor in economic growth.


http://econ161.berkeley.edu/TCEH/1998_Draft/World_GDP/Estimating_World_GDP.h

Here's a comparison of population growth and GDP as of 2002 from the
CIA World Factbook. While it can be argued that this is an unfair
comparison as the people presently born are not actually in the
workforce in Malaysia and India many of them will be in a few years
and these are somewhat representative of long term trends. Other
factors would include resource availability, education and technical
skills of the workforce etc. To be fair to Malthus this may be
applicable to subsistence economies and he could hardly have predicted
the rate of technological change in industrialized nations


Population growth GDP

Russia .3% 4.2%

China .6% 8.0%

Malaysia 1.86% 4.2%

USA .92% 2.45%

Phillipines 1.92% 4.6%

India 1.47% 5.0%

Netherlands .5% 4.0%

Zaire 2.9% 3.5%


Not a very good correlation


Tim