Prospects for Tuesday, 15 April
- 15 Apr 08, 11:14 AM
Robert Morgan is today's programme producer - here's his early email to the team.
Good morning everyone,
How do we feed the World in the future?
Rising food prices, rising population, growing poverty and climate change are becoming a major problem for the world. I hope to devote the programme today to the problems and solutions on the day an international report sets out its answers.
We've lined up some correspondents in the main hotspots and Susan and Liz have done films. Do come to the meeting with ideas on the best people to get and how to do the top VT.
Playout ideas welcome.
Robert
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>>How do we feed the World in the future?<<
we feed the world? How liberal imperialist is that?
Closer to home.
By continuing to pay millionaire farmers in the uk 4 billion a year not to grow food but to play park keeper? [multiply that across the eu].
By closing down allotments? In theory by right every family in the uk is entitled to an allotment. Which provides enough veg to feed a family of 4.
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FEEDING THE WORLD OF THE FUTURE
I was glancing at Saviour Blair鈥檚 speech to Conference, October 2nd 2001. I am sure he uttered the immortal words: 鈥淟et them eat bombs鈥 somewhere in it. If we are to achieve any grand-scale plan in the world 鈥 food or other 鈥 we shall need to get away from the idea of 鈥渢he just war鈥 鈥渉eroism鈥 鈥渧ictory鈥 鈥渓iberation鈥 etc and reject the charismatic, rhetoric-intoxicated leaders who espouse such folly.
Britain is strong in 鈥渋nvisible exports鈥 but they are all about money and our other more visible exports are death and destruction. How much more beneficial to the world it would be, if we developed 鈥渋nvisible鈥 wisdom, honour and real democracy, to such a degree that we had some left over to export! I make no apology for returning to the Mote and Beam analogy. Britishness, particularly political Britishness is now best described by substituting the 鈥淏r鈥 with an 鈥淪h鈥. While we are starved of integrity, we will do more harm than good in the wider world. We should confine Brown, Miliband et al to these islands until they have put our own house in order 鈥 if they know how.
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The major steps the EU can make is to stop paying farmers to stop paying farmers for keeping fields out of use and scrapping all production quotas.
The other is to properly address something the EU side stepped during EU expansion and that was investment in East European agriculture. Places such as Romania and Poland offer vast untapped agricultural resources and the added jobs and wealth bought to those countries might reduce the immigration crisis to boot.
Any surplus grain,rape seed, sugar etc not used for human food or animal feed can either be exported or turned into ethanol or biodiesel that should reduce demand on international supplies and also reduce demand for rice as abiofuell source.
The fact The Eu are paying western farmers to sit on their hands and making little or no attempt to invest in east european farms is irresponsible at best.
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"We" aren't going to feed the world. But it may be that feeding ourselves will become much more expensive before too long. One way to soften this blow - and actually do something that will have a positive environmental impact - would be to eat less meat. The science on this is pretty good now, see the UN FAO report and Monbiot today in the Grauniad. On a personal level, I can tell you that this is an easy move. I went from being a devoted carnivore to a non meat eater (not, I hasten to add, a vegan) with no trouble at all.
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"We" aren't going to feed the world. But it may be that feeding ourselves will become much more expensive before too long. One way to soften this blow - and actually do something that will have a positive environmental impact - would be to eat less meat. The science on this is pretty good now, see the UN FAO report and Monbiot today in the Grauniad. On a personal level, I can tell you that this is an easy move. I went from being a devoted carnivore to a non meat eater (not, I hasten to add, a vegan) with no trouble at all.
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Dear Mr Morgan
Perhaps someone could be brought onto the show to discuss whether less is actually more and that perhaps consumerism is a drug we use to mask a deep emptiness?
I once felt this when shopping one Christmas,
Perhaps you could ask a Christian person onto the show to discuss the alternatives?
I'm sure people of other faiths would suggest someone representing their perspective on this?
best wishes, hope helpful
Bob
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Nullius (post7) I like my food either to have looked over a fence or through it. My wife is a veggie-totally boring unles you are a rabbit.
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Slight nitpick, but what does Liz MacKean mean by "about twenty tonnes of energy is used up for every one tonne of food that is produced"?
By giving energy in mass I can only assume she's referring to the energy-equivalence equation E=mc2.
So...we really are in trouble. Producing one tonne of food requires 1.8 billion trillion joules of energy!
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