HACKER Q&A
📣 andrewstuart

how can the food supply NOT collapse in the next ten years?


It's winter in Melbourne, but its not cold, it's warm.

Beautiful days outside - lovely perfect weather.

Which would be fine except its meant to be cold.

The trees are flowering - spring has come too soon.

On the other side of the world it is hotter than ever before.

How can our food supply survive this?

How can this NOT lead to the collapse of the global food supply within the next ten years?

I find this terrifying.


  👤 ggm Accepted Answer ✓
Firstly, it's normal to worry. So, although I council optimism it's important to be realistic.

Secondly, although there is a global problem it's a worldwide set of somewhat discrete problems not a single problem. This risk is in synchronisation: as long as on average some of the food sources are viable in any given season, then longterm food supply is available. Yes, at massively increased risk and yes closer to starvation levels for everyone but food has never been distributed equally.

Thirdly, Australia is huge, and we don't use all climate zones equally. Even domestically the problems in Victoria don't align with the NT or WA climate. So there is some reason to believe farming practices of hedging risk by moving stock north/south and between arid and wet zones, and matching cropping patters to hedge risk will continue to work. Farmers and agribusiness have been dealing with the problems you see for decades.

Maintain the rage, and worry, but don't doomscroll. Watch "landline" and get connected to rural and agricultural communities. Vote for environmental upsides.


👤 LinuxBender
how can the food supply NOT collapse in the next ten years?

I don't think anyone will like this answer but you asked and I think it's an interesting set of problems to tackle.

Assuming all else remains the same or worsens, countries could start mass freeze drying everything they have as just one of the steps required to break free from the just-in-time food delivery from massive mono-crops and massive farms full of unhappy animals. It costs a lot, takes a lot of time and power but food that costs 8x more is better than no food or food that inflation drives to 400x the current price especially if food trade routes are cut off and grains start rotting in silos. This could also be crowd sourced much like solar power in that every circle of friends could chip in to buy a couple freeze dryers and a bunch of water storage tanks and containers. Probably not everyone but a number of people could also start building greenhouses and people with enough land could start raising animals to break their families dependency on the just-in-time logistics networks for food shipment. This would include collecting and freezing heirloom seeds. Some communities may be able to share some land to contribute as a collective to fields, greenhouses and animals but this will not work everywhere. People could sell their excess resources at the local farmers market or just trade/barter within small communities and small regional community forums.

There are videos online for how to build greenhouses, manage natural forms of heating and cooling, building raised plant beds, irrigation, recycling water through hydroponics, grow lights, using compost to create heat, etc... Water storage should also be researched by everyone. It's not as simple as throw it in a large tank. There are techniques to keep the water drinkable for long periods of time. Some groups of people already do all these things such as the LDS church and emergency preparedness groups.

It would take a significant number of people doing all or most of these things to make a dent in the problems but I could envision government incentive programs and tax rebates assuming lobbyists stay out of the way. With time each state and region that can support growing their own food sources may need to transition away from global trade looking to regional neighbors for help instead.


👤 Ekaros
Move production to locations and growth cycles where it make sense. There is likely plenty of enough arable land left where we could grow stuff with modern western technology. Or that will be less impacted and we could increase yields with industrial agriculture.

Probably means food might be more expensive, but even now many areas are left unfarmed because marginal gains are not there. If prices go up we could start farming there.


👤 archo
A rather tongue-in-cheek comment; Not while 'Soylent Green' is available!

But, Yes.. if we continue it may well be bye-bye to life on this tiny rock spinning in space.


👤 soueuls
We need to reduce world population.

Converging toward 12,000,000,000 is the tragedy of the commons.

Everything else is micro gains.


👤 polski-g
The IPCC report states that airable farmland is set to increase by 6% due to climate change.