I’ve looked into most of these, and generally found them much less spectacular than the headlines suggested.
phosphorus production/extraction will ebb or flow. After reading your post, I expect it’s something which won’t be too important, but I want to check that assumption by doing at least a shallow or medium-depth review of the topic.
“Reserves” refer to the amount assumed recoverable at current market prices and “resources” mean total estimated amounts in the Earth’s crust.[9] Phosphorus comprises 0.1% by mass of the average rock[12] (while, for perspective, its typical concentration in vegetation is 0.03% to 0.2%),[13] and consequently there are quadrillions of tons of phosphorus in Earth’s 3 * 1019 ton crust,[14] albeit at predominantly lower concentration than the deposits counted as reserves from being inventoried and cheaper to extract.
The world phosphate industry has revenue of $45 billion. The agricultural sector accounts for ~$5 trillion of world GDP, ~6% of the total.
So if phosphate really became a dire limiting factor phosphate prices could go up by more than 100x. That provides plenty of room to move to rocks with lower concentrations of phosphorus than current targets. There are also tremendous opportunities for recycling, reduction (higher food prices reallocating production from animal agriculture to human consumption), and so forth.
In a world with cheap energy from solar power and fully automated manufacturing phosphorus supplies would be trivial.
Another (set of) improvement(s) or technology(ies) which I believe may hold more potential than the ones you’ve mentioned are vertical greenhouses combined with hydroponic or aeroponic agriculture.
The thermodynamics make this nonsensical for staple crops.
is tension between two nuclear states like Pakistan and India is exacerbated by water scarcity for their respective populations in the region
Spending on water is small as a portion of GDP, and there are much bigger issues at play, e.g. Kashmir. There is a lot of exaggeration about ‘water wars’ on this issue, although it is nonzero.
Pollinator decline is a problem I need to learn more about myself
Pollinator decline is a problem I need to learn more about myself
Honeybee catastrophe is hugely exaggerated and not a serious threat.
That is a very misleading statement referring to a very questionable article based on questionable interpretation of the US-specific statistics.
Just some of the questions and counterarguments in the comments to that same article:
“All the article talks about is the number of colonies. Is this representative of the number of bees? (Has the number of bees per colony remained relatively constant?)”.
″...Making splits causes a yield of two weak hives, which is not the same as having the vigorous, healthy original hive. And just so you know, the splits the commercial folks are making from the survivors of pesticide, fungicide, herbicide exposure on industrial crops are the already weakened colonies that happen to make it.”
“The typical Consumerist answer to a problem—”just buy more” bees and queens is not addressing the real problems which are decline in clean forage from toxic chemical exposure, lack of forage diversity, trucking bees all over the country, narrow in-bred genetics. The loss of all pollinators, as well as decline in overall ecosystem diversity from the same insults, is the real issue.”
Speaking of some more credible sources:
For example: ”...wild bees have undergone global declines that have been linked to habitat loss and fragmentation, pathogens, climate change and insecticides 3,4,5,6,7″ (Nature, 2016).
“A growing number of pollinator species worldwide are being driven toward extinction by diverse pressures, many of them human-made, threatening millions of livelihoods and hundreds of billions of dollars worth of food supplies, according to the first global assessment of pollinators” (the UN, 2016, reports 2016, 2017).
By the way: ”...field results confirm that neonicotinoids negatively affect pollinator health under realistic agricultural conditions” (Science, 2017).
To be clear, bees are dying at high rates (and have been for some time) and this is imposing costs on agriculture, and that could get worse, and addressing that is likely a fine use of resources for agricultural R&D and protection.
But that is very different from posing a major risk of human extinction or civilization collapse via breakdown of the ability of agriculture to produce food (particularly the biggest, wind-pollinated, staple crops). That is the exaggerated threat which I say does not check out.
Well, thanks. I guess this saves me a lot of time in research I thought I might need to do.
Another (set of) improvement(s) or technology(ies) which I believe may hold more potential than the ones you’ve mentioned are vertical greenhouses combined with hydroponic or aeroponic agriculture.
The thermodynamics make this nonsensical for staple crops.
Do you know another, better starting point I can use to learn about food security, then?
I’ve looked into most of these, and generally found them much less spectacular than the headlines suggested.
Also from wikipedia:
Phosphate rock may have concentrations as ~20%.
The world phosphate industry has revenue of $45 billion. The agricultural sector accounts for ~$5 trillion of world GDP, ~6% of the total.
So if phosphate really became a dire limiting factor phosphate prices could go up by more than 100x. That provides plenty of room to move to rocks with lower concentrations of phosphorus than current targets. There are also tremendous opportunities for recycling, reduction (higher food prices reallocating production from animal agriculture to human consumption), and so forth.
In a world with cheap energy from solar power and fully automated manufacturing phosphorus supplies would be trivial.
The thermodynamics make this nonsensical for staple crops.
Spending on water is small as a portion of GDP, and there are much bigger issues at play, e.g. Kashmir. There is a lot of exaggeration about ‘water wars’ on this issue, although it is nonzero.
Honeybee catastrophe is hugely exaggerated and not a serious threat.
Hi Carl,
Have you or Open Phil shared the investigations somewhere?
That is a very misleading statement referring to a very questionable article based on questionable interpretation of the US-specific statistics.
Just some of the questions and counterarguments in the comments to that same article:
“All the article talks about is the number of colonies. Is this representative of the number of bees? (Has the number of bees per colony remained relatively constant?)”.
″...Making splits causes a yield of two weak hives, which is not the same as having the vigorous, healthy original hive. And just so you know, the splits the commercial folks are making from the survivors of pesticide, fungicide, herbicide exposure on industrial crops are the already weakened colonies that happen to make it.”
“The typical Consumerist answer to a problem—”just buy more” bees and queens is not addressing the real problems which are decline in clean forage from toxic chemical exposure, lack of forage diversity, trucking bees all over the country, narrow in-bred genetics. The loss of all pollinators, as well as decline in overall ecosystem diversity from the same insults, is the real issue.”
Speaking of some more credible sources:
For example: ”...wild bees have undergone global declines that have been linked to habitat loss and fragmentation, pathogens, climate change and insecticides 3,4,5,6,7″ (Nature, 2016).
“A growing number of pollinator species worldwide are being driven toward extinction by diverse pressures, many of them human-made, threatening millions of livelihoods and hundreds of billions of dollars worth of food supplies, according to the first global assessment of pollinators” (the UN, 2016, reports 2016, 2017).
By the way: ”...field results confirm that neonicotinoids negatively affect pollinator health under realistic agricultural conditions” (Science, 2017).
To be clear, bees are dying at high rates (and have been for some time) and this is imposing costs on agriculture, and that could get worse, and addressing that is likely a fine use of resources for agricultural R&D and protection.
But that is very different from posing a major risk of human extinction or civilization collapse via breakdown of the ability of agriculture to produce food (particularly the biggest, wind-pollinated, staple crops). That is the exaggerated threat which I say does not check out.
.
Well, thanks. I guess this saves me a lot of time in research I thought I might need to do.
Do you know another, better starting point I can use to learn about food security, then?