Feeding 40 billion people and the Green Revolution in Africa

The biofuels debate is not one about future scarcity of resources (land, water) or about a conflict between food and fuel. However, reactionary forces try to get a grip on the discussion by introducting neo-Malthusian perspectives. These forces typically think about human development in static terms and forget that all factors that drive it are instead highly dynamic in nature: population, agriculture, economics, scientific and technological progress.

Scientists do not engage in neo-Malthusian mythical thinking. Instead, they do science. In the following interview Prof. Dr. Ir. Rudy Rabbinge, Chairman of the Science Council of the CGIAR (the leading body comprising the world's top agricultural science institutions that made the Green Revolution happen), professor of Sustainable Agriculture and Food Security at the agronomic University of Wageningen, and member of the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA) which recently announced the start of its activities, explains the challenges and opportunities of 21st century agriculture.

Prof. Rabbinge, candidate chairman of the FAO, is known in Europe as one of the key thinkers in the field of global agriculture, rural economics in the developing world and food and fuel trends. In one famous lecture, he said the planet has the carrying capacity to feed not 10 or 12 billion people, but... 40 billion. Thus, given the fact that world population is expected to max out and stabilize at 8.9 billion soon (by 2075), it is easy to see why the bioenergy potential is rather large and fundamentally poses no threat to food markets whatsoever. Likewise, Prof Rabbinge's collegues in the energy community point out that by 2050 it will be possible to produce around 1500 Exajoules of bioenergy without major impacts on food, feed and fiber markets.

This is a great article and not really Leftist at all.

The critique of anti colonialism at the end is excellent.

A more candid assessment would be that Mugabe is starving his people to death in the name of being anti colonial.

These forces typically think about human development in static terms and forget that all factors that drive it are instead highly dynamic in nature:

Conservatives understand Dynamics and it's subset Statics. Liberals (who have limited brain power) only understand Statics. And hence that's how they perceive the world.

Dynamics is an order of magnitude more difficult than Statics, as any engineer will attest.

In one famous lecture, he said the planet has the carrying capacity to feed not 10 or 12 billion people, but... 40 billion. Thus, given the fact that world population is expected to max out and stabilize at 8.9 billion soon (by 2075), it is easy to see why the bioenergy potential is rather large and fundamentally poses no threat to food markets whatsoever.

Several thoughts:

1. The 8.9 billion figure is correct. There are well established biological-mathematical models that have predicted this number as early as the 1950s. The population has tracked very nicely in comparison to predicted values. These models are based on closed systems of lower organisms.

2. The reason that the population will be limited is because easily available resources are limited, especially food.

3. If we allocate a portion of our food for fuel, the simple economics of supply and demand would dictate that the price of food-to-eat would escalate to the point that it is competitive with food-as-fuel. Even with 200% excess capacity, the price for food would become unaffordable for more and more people.

4. Thus, if we start using food-for-fuel, the peak population will be less than 8.9 billion, possibly closer to the present 6.1 billion. When we reach the population peak, we do not simply sit at a comfortable level of people. This is the point where people die from hunger, disease and war as fast as people are born.

5. We are not prepared for peak population at the present time. It will be ugly. We do not need to bring it on any earlier than necessary.

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