[ExI] Really? and EP

[spike]

> ...On Behalf Of Keith Henson
> ... 
> > Food shortages are much more likely to occur first in poor 
> countries... Keith
>


Certainly.  We currently use farm land in a lotta wasteful ways, such as
growing grain to feed to cattle for beef, as a good example, or my own farm
which is currently employed growing lawn grass seed.  One of the things I
hope modern humanity has going in its favor is that we have options for
producing food far more efficiently than we do currently.

What ways?  If we ancticipated widespread food shortages, what could be
done?  One of the things I had in mind was using the grain currently used to
feed beasts and use it for human food.  The type of grain used for cattle
feed is not considered human-usable, but I can imagine our attitudes would
change dramatically if many were faced with starvation.

We have plenty of wetlands currently being protected by the EPA.  Surely in
times of severe food shortage, all that would go out the window.  These
lands could perhaps be converted to rice cropland.  Rice has a big advantage
of being easily processed for long term storage.  Same with beans.  Rice and
beans together make a complete protein, so populations can survive on little
else, at least for a while.

We could theoretically institute strict birth control policies (China did
it, perhaps still does).

spike