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[Reelya]

Sadly, it really is a problem. There's many Dutch farmers that went to Africa to share knowledge and bring high tech equipment, only to find there's not enough educated people to understand the tech, and the machines are stripped for scrap metal by locals the minute you look away. I still don't think that the world can produce enough food to feed many more people than we already have, but surely Africa could produce much more of their own food if they only set their minds on it.

The problem is that wheat-belt crops don't grow in the tropics. Basically, all the "grain" type crops come from a single type of climate, which has a rainy spring and a warm, dry winter, so they drop dry seeds and wait for the rain to come again. Basically they were adapted to farm crops without any real effort. Bananas, taro and yams are what traditionally grows in between the two wheat belts, and those don't conveniently drop dry seeds that you can store and eat. Basically the ancient empire's boundaries were the wheat belt: anything too far north or south was never conquered because you couldn't grow anything viable there.

That's the reason the Mediterranean cultures stayed around the Mediterranean. Basically all the farming tech they had was useless to push south into Africa. Eventually, the Bantu worked out the Taro/Yams based farming system, which spread out of west Africa, but like I said, that had serious logistical limitations that no amount of trial and error could fix.

BTW if you give expensive high tech farming equipment to subsistence farmers, it's not their fault if they can't make a go of it. It was just extremely badly thought-out, not the locals fault. Combine harvesters and the like need large economies of scale and complex maintenance requirements. Probably what actually happened was that your guys didn't service the equipment, it broke down and the locals had no way to fix it.

"If only they set their minds to it" is actually pretty racist sorry. Almost the entire populations of those nations have a history of 100% subsistence farming. The plain fact is that tropical crops have very low calorie and protein yields compared to "Mediterranean" type crops, so surpluses have always been smaller, thus there's been little free energy to boost other sectors of the economy over the centuries. Wheat and rice give large energy surpluses vs work required to farm it, that's why wheat and rice-based civilizations dominated everyone else. Not through "setting their minds to it".

[ein]

Now if only Toady would ban all the no-caps posters, they're the real problem here. Urgh.

caps are an antiquated, obsolete relic. get with the times, old man

[Putnam]

Man, you people weren't worried for no reason a week or two back, my activity has been really dropping off recently. Wonder what's with that.

[ChairmanPoo]

Now if only Toady would ban all the no-caps posters, they're the real problem here. Urgh.

caps are an antiquated, obsolete relic. get with the times, old man

[Akura]

I learned that there is going to be an emoji movie, and that one of the characters is the poop emoji, and the poop emoji is going to be played by Patrick Stewart.

[Avis-Mergulus]

I learned that there is going to be an emoji movie, and that one of the characters is the poop emoji, and the poop emoji is going to be played by Patrick Stewart.

Black hole suuuuuuun, won't you come and wash away the raaaaaain 

[TempAcc]

Tis truly the end times

[martinuzz]

Sadly, it really is a problem. There's many Dutch farmers that went to Africa to share knowledge and bring high tech equipment, only to find there's not enough educated people to understand the tech, and the machines are stripped for scrap metal by locals the minute you look away. I still don't think that the world can produce enough food to feed many more people than we already have, but surely Africa could produce much more of their own food if they only set their minds on it.

The problem is that wheat-belt crops don't grow in the tropics. Basically, all the "grain" type crops come from a single type of climate, which has a rainy spring and a warm, dry winter, so they drop dry seeds and wait for the rain to come again. Basically they were adapted to farm crops without any real effort. Bananas, taro and yams are what traditionally grows in between the two wheat belts, and those don't conveniently drop dry seeds that you can store and eat. Basically the ancient empire's boundaries were the wheat belt: anything too far north or south was never conquered because you couldn't grow anything viable there.

That's the reason the Mediterranean cultures stayed around the Mediterranean. Basically all the farming tech they had was useless to push south into Africa. Eventually, the Bantu worked out the Taro/Yams based farming system, which spread out of west Africa, but like I said, that had serious logistical limitations that no amount of trial and error could fix.

BTW if you give expensive high tech farming equipment to subsistence farmers, it's not their fault if they can't make a go of it. It was just extremely badly thought-out, not the locals fault. Combine harvesters and the like need large economies of scale and complex maintenance requirements. Probably what actually happened was that your guys didn't service the equipment, it broke down and the locals had no way to fix it.

"If only they set their minds to it" is actually pretty racist sorry. Almost the entire populations of those nations have a history of 100% subsistence farming. The plain fact is that tropical crops have very low calorie and protein yields compared to "Mediterranean" type crops, so surpluses have always been smaller, thus there's been little free energy to boost other sectors of the economy over the centuries. Wheat and rice give large energy surpluses vs work required to farm it, that's why wheat and rice-based civilizations dominated everyone else. Not through "setting their minds to it".

SO basically what you're saying is, to diminish world hunger, we need to depopulate Africa, because there's no way in hell they are going to be able to sustain their food needs, especially when their population quadruples over the next decades (and the rest of the world can't physically produce enough excess grain to export to them)?

[Flying Dice]

Probably a victim of "It's Popular So It Sucks" syndrome, along with some of what you mentioned. A work of art it might not be, but J.K. Rowling did a reasonably good job of tying everything together and it's a competent work of fiction.

Good god, no. This is both why people hate it and why it's neck-and-neck with Naruto for most-fanfic'd work. It's absolutely full of holes and shit that doesn't make sense, and only worked because it was a children's series that nostalgia-hooked most of the readerbase before they developed critical thinking skills. When a work is exceptionally well strung together and self-contained you don't tend to see much being written about it because there's nothing major, mechanically speaking, to complain about or use as the basis for a story.

[MaximumZero]

Er, maybe not as much. The US produces far, far more food than even our fat asses can eat. The average American throws away a full quarter of what they buy without eating it. That doesn't count what gets left on the shelves, what goes bad in warehouses, what gets destroyed in shipping, what gets trashed in handling, what gets stripped out and pitched in processing, and what gets left behind in the fields. All told, we throw away 40%+ of the food we create. The problem isn't one of production, it's transportation, distribution, and economics. We see food as a commodity, not a right, and that's part of the problem.

A much more viable solution to the "between the grain belts" problem, one that doesn't involve the word "depopulate" at any rate, is to engineer a crop that grows in a tropical climate, is simple to grow, and is high yield. We have two that are excellent candidates for that: certain types of corn and rice. I realize that another major issue with agriculture  is that the tropics aren't exactly the sweeping plains that large swaths of Europe and North America are, and those rainforests need to be preserved.

[martinuzz]

Er, maybe not as much. The US produces far, far more food than even our fat asses can eat. The average American throws away a full quarter of what they buy without eating it. That doesn't count what gets left on the shelves, what goes bad in warehouses, what gets destroyed in shipping, what gets trashed in handling, what gets stripped out and pitched in processing, and what gets left behind in the fields. All told, we throw away 40%+ of the food we create. The problem isn't one of production, it's transportation, distribution, and economics. We see food as a commodity, not a right, and that's part of the problem.

At this moment in time, I agree. WHen world population hit 11 billion in 2100, as predicted by very optimistic studies, of which 5 billion will live in Africa, instead of the about 1.5 billion they have now, I don't think we will be able to produce enough food for everyone, even if it was regarded as a basic right, and transport issues were all solved.

Well, yeah, except if we cut down all the rainforests and replace the natives with genetically engineered superfarmers

[Loud Whispers]

Er, maybe not as much. The US produces far, far more food than even our fat asses can eat. The average American throws away a full quarter of what they buy without eating it. That doesn't count what gets left on the shelves, what goes bad in warehouses, what gets destroyed in shipping, what gets trashed in handling, what gets stripped out and pitched in processing, and what gets left behind in the fields. All told, we throw away 40%+ of the food we create. The problem isn't one of production, it's transportation, distribution, and economics. We see food as a commodity, not a right, and that's part of the problem.

A much more viable solution to the "between the grain belts" problem, one that doesn't involve the word "depopulate" at any rate, is to engineer a crop that grows in a tropical climate, is simple to grow, and is high yield. We have two that are excellent candidates for that: certain types of corn and rice. I realize that another major issue with agriculture  is that the tropics aren't exactly the sweeping plains that large swaths of Europe and North America are, and those rainforests need to be preserved.

Maybe not rice. Too much water is needed

[Dunamisdeos]

I liked Harry Potter not because of how solid the story was but because it did such a good job of painting a whimsical and magical world.

There was so much flavor to everything that happened.

[scriver]

Er, maybe not as much. The US produces far, far more food than even our fat asses can eat. The average American throws away a full quarter of what they buy without eating it. That doesn't count what gets left on the shelves, what goes bad in warehouses, what gets destroyed in shipping, what gets trashed in handling, what gets stripped out and pitched in processing, and what gets left behind in the fields. All told, we throw away 40%+ of the food we create. The problem isn't one of production, it's transportation, distribution, and economics. We see food as a commodity, not a right, and that's part of the problem.

A much more viable solution to the "between the grain belts" problem, one that doesn't involve the word "depopulate" at any rate, is to engineer a crop that grows in a tropical climate, is simple to grow, and is high yield. We have two that are excellent candidates for that: certain types of corn and rice. I realize that another major issue with agriculture  is that the tropics aren't exactly the sweeping plains that large swaths of Europe and North America are, and those rainforests need to be preserved.

Maybe not rice. Too much water is needed

We can grow it in Seattle.

[Loud Whispers]

SO basically what you're saying is, to diminish world hunger, we need to depopulate Africa, because there's no way in hell they are going to be able to sustain their food needs, especially when their population quadruples over the next decades (and the rest of the world can't physically produce enough excess grain to export to them)?

Alternatively, urbanize Africa and make it more efficient
With dense clusters of urban Africa, more specialization and advanced economies grow, birthrates lower because cities are weird and education and all that, and reduces environmental impact and shit

Either that or antibiotic resistant superbugs kill most of the world population in a 2nd Spain flu