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Feeding the World

T

Traditional Farmer

Well-known Member
Location
Virginia
Well a lot of folks here seem anxious to feed the World so here is your chance.Down in Venezuela there people actually dropping dead from starvation so there is your market bunch of hungry folks that will eat anything.Now up here in the USA we are over run with extra corn,soybeans and dairy products.Sounds like the perfect match they are hungry we have the food.One little
problem, the people that need the food have no financial resources to buy any food.So here we all sit.Seems to be the one thing all starving people have in common is No Money.So how is it going to work out for you folks to feed the world if every time a prospective hungry person comes up they can't pay for the food? Doesn't sound like much of a business plan to me.
Think I'd rather be selling organic food items to well off American citizens who have the cash and are willing to spend it for what they want.
 
That's why some people donate a portion of their crop to the food grains council. To give back a portion of their blessings to help save a family from starvation. It's truely a shame how much food is wasted in North America that could have some how fed others that do without. That's why we give to our churches so that outreach programs can help starving souls in other nations. No one is condemning you from growing organic foods to those who are fortunate enough to afford it please dont condemned us for producing conventional food for those who can't.
 
So all these farmers that are talking about feeding the world are actually planning on giving the needed food away? Might be a nice thing to do but hard to see how they can afford
to stay in business.
 
No it's not ,there's a saying around here though,you farm the way you wanna farm and I'll farm the way I wanna farm and you leave me the *^%# alone lol
 
Would not starving people have no food in common? Hell you can be rich and starve! Another thing they have in common is they reproduce like rabbits! If you can't feed them dont breed em.
 
I'll bet there is a whole lot of poor people that starve for every rich one that does,a rich person can leave the area they are in easily.I can't think of one case of mass starvation by people that were rich can you?
 
How do people get food in this country with no money - food stamps. On a country basis its called foreign aid. Our country spends billions every year with foreign aid and some of that aid is food. On this discussion of who is going to feed the world, maybe we don't want to but who else is going to and you know we are going to try it.
 
Every year we donate large amount of green beans and sweet corn(RR) to the local church food banks.
 
True enough ,what's really in your bonnet anyways? Not trying to be mean but what's bothering you enough to start a thread like this? You knew right away it was going to be more gas on the fire. So other than watching the flames what gives? Just asking a legitimate question.
 
Wars make the monied people more money and they have no concept of people being hungry in this country or any other.
 
Church up the road from me wanted me to give them some stuff out the garden for their food bank.So I said fine anyone that wants some vegetables to come on by and work in the garden awhile
and I'll fix them up with some vegetables.So far no one has showed up that actually wanted to work for their food.Probably just as well most folks I see going in there would have caused
compaction problems in the garden anyway.I'm from the Little Red Hen school of thought.
 
The people who actually need it probably are unable to do it for various reasons. What goes around comes around,if you are generous with your good fortunes in life,and be smart about it and take the time to help others how and when you can good things in life will be passed back on to you.
 
They export oil and petro products, steel and iron ore concentrate among other things. Their neighboring country to the south is Brazil which exported 2-1/5 billion bushels of soy beans last year and it looks like more to China this year so that is affecting US farm prices. Why doesn't Brazil sell to their neighbor which should have cheaper transportation costs being much closer?
 
Just wanted to see if anyone has really thought the "Feed the World" stuff out themselves and how'd it all work or are they just parroting Big Ag's talking points.I cannot see how it would ever work as labor is too cheap in many countries for the US to compete growing food and selling it.Who is going to work cheaper than a person needing food?
 
Venezuela is flat broke and nothing works now as the socialist,communist gov't has run the economy in the ground,they used to be the richest country in South America truly a sad situation.
 
What is the real reason people are starving in Venezuela? Is there food in the stores but they have no money to buy it or is there just food not available period to them?
 
Made a post above the country is flat broke the gov't is terrible and most of the people are broke,people are dying of starvation in the streets,eating rats or anything else they can to survive.You look at most of these situations over the world its lousy gov't that makes people starve.
 
I cannot ever recall a time when there was a shortage of hungry people, starving in some corner of the world. And I also cannot ever in my life ever remember a time when there wasn?t a surplus of food, just always a shortage of money in the hands of the hungry to pay for the food.
The western civilization has since the close of WW 2 constantly been cable to over produce their domestic markets. And have often sold this surplus into the markets of developing countries , for less price than their local farmers can produce the same products, inevitably forcing the local farmers to go broke. And further leaving the developing countries even more dependent on cheap imported food supply.
The people in developing countries need to be able to develop their own agricultural infrastructure, and feed themselves, and not be dependent on the west to ? feed the world ?
 
It's desperate situations like those that foreign aid need to step in and help these people from dying unnecessarily.
 
In the national budget for this year there is 38 billion dollars in foreign aid. Don't know if foreign aid is right or wrong but that is roughly the budgeted amount. I would guess that a percentage of that money is used to purchase commodities produced here in the US for other country's overseas that have a starving population and no money to buy food. Our gubbermint can buy the food , process it into foodstuffs and send it where it is needed , since we usually have bumper crops, way more than we can use here.
 
Big problem in Venezuela is sense the communist takeover their money has no value. Read someplace that they at times have had their inflation rate go up 234% in one month. One US dollar is worth 248,409.00 Bolivar.

And what a lot of people miss in starving countries is that often any foreign aid that gets into the country is seized by the government and or the local strong man and the people starve anyway. More than one case where the governments allowed the poor to be photographed with aid items only to take them back at gun point as soon as the news media departs.

Then political stuff gets in the way too! And what forked tongued devils we are too! Cry about people starving then embargo food? Go figure?

Rick
 
Then country's in Africa or the Mideast have the same commodity production ability to feed all their population same as we do in the American Midwest. Then they should not be calling the grain terminal in Baltimore and ask for a shipload of grain say to make bread. And China has all the resources to produce all they soybeans they need for their people and their hogs in China.And their land base is adequate to grow enough food for all their people. So all the country's of the world with food shortages have rich natural resources, plenty of cropland and the capability to feed themselves.
 
Actually, most of Africa and especially the middle East don't have the resources to grow their own food- have you seen pictures of the deserts of the middle East and central Africa? If they didn't have oil to export, they'd have starved out years ago. The tropical areas of Africa aren't much better off- the poor soils and excessive rainfall are best suited to forests, and if they clear the forests and try to farm, production is very poor.
 
Well at least there is something we can agree on, the socialist movement there failed once again. A sad situation.

Paul
 
That aid model isn't going to work in the future.Why should the US Taxpayer be stuck with the bill to solve the problems these people in other countries create? Makes no sense to me for us to borrow money
then turn around and give it away.And to top it off many in these places we help hate the USA anyway.Who is paying for all this surplus? The US Taxpayer is being ripped off.
 
quote "One US dollar is worth 248,409.00 Bolivar."
understand we the US are making ourselves GREAT.
AGAINST THE WORLD
Not sure where the US dollar stands against the world as we isolate ourselves, create false wealth with self loans out
of thin air, Tariff all our allies and expect our stock of wasted labor force to somehow pull us out of it.

The wealthy will find the way. MAKING AND FIGHTING THESE DEMONS
And have you believin.
(somebody) bless us all
or give us distractions
Dont stop believin
 
The hardest part of food shortages for me to understand is that starving people still find the desire to "reproduce".
 
If that were true how did people live there since the beginning of time? Israel has a very good food production system.There were people in the Middle East and Africa long before there
were people in North America.The food production system in North America is very new to the scene and can only be substained by a very rich country.
 
They were able to live there since the beginning of time because there were so few of them. Arabs were largely nomadic- their livestock ate up the sparse vegetation in one area, and the people moved to new pasture. Africans were "hunter-gatherers". Populations are now much too large for either system to support, so modern agriculture is needed.
 
I agree 100% with you,, I always raise a big garden to give the extra to my friends and family,, I have cut back to growing taters, onions, carrots,corn and a few tomato plants,, used to have peas and green beans,, I would have them calling and asking me to drop off peas and beans,, I said to them I have no time to pick them and deliver them please come and pick them yourself,, NO ONE had the time or will to do it,, the last two years I grew them I took my tiller to them,, you should have heard them Howl!! almost zero was harvested unless I did it,, love helping people but if I have to do 100% of it I will do the easy to harvest crops,,
cnt
 
I used to raise a few acres of sweet corn to sell after the corn was done I'd disk up each strip and plant Blackeye Peas.Had a lot of people say they wanted some of the Blackeye peas
I said fine pick as many as you want.My aunt was the only one that ever came and picked any she loved Blackeye Peas,Me too.
 
From what I've read the problem is with their government and dates back to 2010. It's not that they can't produce enough food to feed their own, the people are so poor they can't afford to buy it.
 
Gets back to my original post its a dead end deal to try to sell anything to people that apparently have no means to buy and pay for it.And if they had the money they'd buy from their
own farmers not from the USA.Of course food production is very low there now not because as you point out they don't have the ability to produce food but the farmers can't afford to produce food and
give it away.Worse yet the Gov't would probably confiscate the food for their troops.
 
It might come as a surprise to you, but the American economy is booming because of President nnalert's decision to demand equality in trade. Ever look at what tariffs we get hit with by foreign entities?
What we have had for many years is the United States being the guy buying the beer when every one else in the pub was picking our pockets.
Venezuela's problems didn't start with President nnalert, they started with Hugo Chavez.
 
what you say is largely true. But if the world went to all organic farming, which is what started all this, there would be many more millions on the list of those who can't afford food. Yes they would be from the poor countries and those who can't raise their own. And all so that we can grow food that is less nutritious and in most cases less safe than what we have now.

I'm not against those who want to grow or buy organic food, just don't try to tell me it's better for me or the world. If its what you want more power to you.
 
What really tics me off is when people buy food and then it gets old or freezer dried and ends up being tossed out. Just burns my behind. The wife is guilty of this too. I always say if ya buy it use it. Saw a piece not long ago that we Americans toss out approx. $2000.00 worth of food a year.
 
I couldn't care less what the rest of the world does,I'm concerned what happens in the USA.And BTW there are a whole lot of people that think organic is better plus more all the time.And I do think chemically grown food is inferior in quality and nutrition.
 
(quoted from post at 04:04:02 08/18/18) quote "One US dollar is worth 248,409.00 Bolivar."
understand we the US are making ourselves GREAT.
AGAINST THE WORLD
Not sure where the US dollar stands against the world as we isolate ourselves, create false wealth with self loans out
of thin air, Tariff all our allies and expect our stock of wasted labor force to somehow pull us out of it.

The wealthy will find the way. MAKING AND FIGHTING THESE DEMONS
And have you believin.
(somebody) bless us all
or give us distractions
Dont stop believin
Click to expand...

If they were really allies and not making us pay for their national defense we could trade without tariffs.

But they create an artificial trade deficit for us by taxing goods from us out of reach of their consumers. Then get us to pay of their nation defense? So I think you are barking up the wrong tree. Tariffs should match. They want to charge say 5% on imported products from us then we charge 5% on products from them. What's unfair about that? No they and people like you want to let them charge 30% on goods from us and only charge 5% to them then you want us to foot that allies nation defense budget too?

Anyone who is foolish enough to believe that we can eliminate nationalism hasn't watched fans of competing nations at a succor match. Ain't going to happen. Ever bother to look in to the happenings in the Serbia, Bosnia, Herzegovina, Kosovo mess a few years back? The only time these people have not been fighting each other in recorded history is when they have been occupied and forced at gun point to behave. All over 2 things. Religion and nationalism.

Rick
 
It is nothing new, starving in Africa was due to government and corruption

We as farmers must make a profit, our we will not be able to keep in business.
 
(quoted from post at 09:16:54 08/18/18) what you say is largely true. But if the world went to all organic farming, which is what started all this, there would be many more millions on the list of those who can't afford food. Yes they would be from the poor countries and those who can't raise their own. And all so that we can grow food that is less nutritious and in most cases less safe than what we have now.

I'm not against those who want to grow or buy organic food, just don't try to tell me it's better for me or the world. If its what you want more power to you.
Click to expand...

Jon look it up. There is over 18 million acres for farmland idle in the US this year. That doesn't count land owned by local, state or the federal government that can be farmed.

And much of the middle east with irrigation can produce too. Jungle areas can make good crop land too.

I'm not saying to do away with GMO or Roundup. Just that all these claims are not true and the world still has way more than enough land to feed itself for the foreseeable future. Will it feed itself is another question. Farmers in general are not going to farm for free. They want paid for crops. So poor nations are not going to be able to afford to buy that food.

But look at the reality of it. All this fuss about GMO's. Hybrids are what allowed corn to hit the 200 BPA benchmark here. Not GMO's. (GMO being a modification that could never occur naturally. Cross pollination to achieve desirable traits could conceivably occur naturally but are generally controlled or happen in a controlled environment). So GMO's really only account for what? Maybe 10%?

Now here is the math. About 40% or corn grown is made into ethanol. That's a lot of crop land that could be used to raise edible crops. And about 1/2 of the bean crop goes directly to China with a lot more being converted into bio. Again more land that has been diverted from edible crops. Heck we import over 400 million gallons of bio fuels a year.

So what the real deal is is that if there was a world food crisis governments around the world would stop making fuel out of crops and farmers would have to grow edible food to feed the worlds population.

Now look at this another way too. It really helps to try to see things from other people's perspective. Most GMO crops don't go to feed anyone. They are made into fuel that a lot of people don't what to burn. Most corn goes into ethanol and animal feed. Very little is consumed. Most people eat little if any soy product. And most goes to fuel and animal feed. So eliminate the fuel. That land can now be used for other things. Crops to feed animals, edible crops......

According to one thing I read and you as a trucker should be interested. About $1.30 per gallon of 20% bio diesel is the cost of the fuel made from soybeans. They said that bean fuel cost the american consumer about 5.4 billion dollars a year extra!

Rick
 
The problem with your math is that bio fuels take almost nothing
out of the grain supply, especially with corn, as what's left is
still used as feed. So claiming stopping bio fuels would add
significantly to food supplies is incorrect. Now as far as the
cost, I agree with you. And no matter how many acres are not used
in this country, most all those are low quality land as good land
is kept in production.
 
(quoted from post at 20:21:59 08/17/18) Well a lot of folks here seem anxious to feed the World so here is your chance.Down in Venezuela there people actually dropping dead from starvation so there is your market bunch of hungry folks that will eat anything.Now up here in the USA we are over run with extra corn,soybeans and dairy products.Sounds like the perfect match they are hungry we have the food.One little
problem, the people that need the food have no financial resources to buy any food.So here we all sit.Seems to be the one thing all starving people have in common is No Money.So how is it going to work out for you folks to feed the world if every time a prospective hungry person comes up they can't pay for the food? Doesn't sound like much of a business plan to me.
Think I'd rather be selling organic food items to well off American citizens who have the cash and are willing to spend it for what they want.
Click to expand...

The basic definition of feeding the world is any person that raises more food stuffs than they can eat themselves, at which point if they give, trade or sell that extra food stuffs to another person for them to eat or distribute for others to eat, then they in some small or large part have helped to feed the world.

I'm glad you have found a market for the organicity grown products you raise and are able to make a profit from that.

Now you ask us to give our commercially grown products to those than can't afford to pay, so let's even the playing field and you give your organic product away as well.
We can't afford to do that for long before we are amongst those that are broke and starving, how long can you or are you willing to do the same.

In the world of humanitarian aid, volume per dollar of commercially grown foods feds more than quality per dollar of organic, and I don't think those starving people are going to care how it was grown as long as they have something to eat.

I do agree with the philosophy of: Feed a man a fish and you've feed him for a day, teach him how to fish and you've feed him for a lifetime.

For those that demand organically grown food I'm glad there are people like you that can provide it for them and are able to make a profit from it.
For the rest of the world that can't afford organic or don't care, well that gives the non organic growers a market to sell their products.
For those that over use or abuse chemical usage and use bad growing practices in the name of profit, I truly hope their days are numbered.

On a side note, there's been considerable discussion in my area as to what the exact definition is for organically grown.
Is it simply commercially grown products without the use of chemical herbicides and pesticides?
Must you use some type of organic fertilizer as well?
What qualifies as organic fertilizer?
Must the seed come from a organic seed producer or you own seed stocks?
As for organic meat production it seams to get even more complicated.

Any organic grower out there that can give us a national standard for what you can and can not use to be a organic grower.

Here's an example of my confusion.
I am a commercial grower of broiler chickens, I've been told the litter from my chickens doesn't qualify has organic.
A friend has egg laying chickens for the same company but I'm told his litter does qualify as organic.
We both get feed from the same feed mill that uses the same commercially grown grains in both feeds.
We use the same sawdust bedding from the same supplier.
His eggs are hatched to produce the chicks I raise.

So how does his litter qualify as organic and mine not?

WHAT IS THE DEFINITION OF ORGANIC??
 
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