Global dimming and warming.

[Epimethean]

This may have been linked already, but is it only me who thinks Osotimehin's perspectives are unrealistic?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/global-develop...osotimehin

[The Grand Nudger]

His perspectives on every issue, meh, I wouldn't know. As far as food security is concerned? Yes, we do know enough and we do have the tools to feed ourselves (and a great many more people) with what we already have. If it isn't an issue of will then what is it?

[Epimethean]

Whose will? The global one? Where is that housed, exactly?

[The Grand Nudger]

IDK if it's an issue of -global- will. Obviously if it were a global goal the "problem" is a whole hell of a lot less severe. On the other hand, top down solutions haven't worked for us very well on this count (which is why there's alot of focus on bottom up, local solutions currently- and for other reasons as well). There are actually tons of projects and extension research grants designed to find a way to translate the gains we've achieved in the first world to practical methods and equipment for the third world (and to deliver this stuff to them when they can't source it themselves). It has to be mentioned that food security isn't always an issue of food, but often politics. Successful ag requires some measure of peace and security, more-so if there's an outlay of investment involved. If you have technicals doing doughnuts in your fields every third tuesday you aren't going to get many yams out of it. If the local dictator has his thugs intercept aide shipments or flat out refuses them entry (it's usually the former not the latter) then outside help does nothing but fatten him and his.

One interesting case that does not involve instability is the case of Chrysanthemum cinerariifolium; a small mostly unremarkable looking flower that forms the base of IPM in most industrialized ag operations. Pyrethrum (and more recently pyrethroids) are sourced from this flower and the process is very labor intensive. Because the flowers are handpicked, hand sorted, and hand separated before they are shipped for processing into pesticides these operations are not economically viable in the first world (where labor costs are the majority of operating costs on any agricultural commodity). Nevertheless the product is required for first world ag as it stands and so the task is shifted to those areas that don't have a lot of capital to invest but do have a lot of (cheap or free) labor to throw at a problem. Some of the biggest producers of this particular commodity also happen to be countries with massive populations and huge problems with food security. So, what we have, in effect, is a situation whereby large amounts of agricultural land and agricultural workers are engaged in a zero-sum game in third word (and developing) nations to produce a product that supports a convenient (but not entirely necessary) method of managing agriculture in first world nations so that those growers can secure a higher price for their commodities (and largely ignore those third world and developing nations further down the chain - both in the slice of the profit pie and in that we let food rot on the docks rather than ship it due to the opportunity cost - even though these people have cash to pay in many cases). That's the situation surrounding just one little yellow flower.

Now, that doesn't sound like a global will issue, that sounds like a bottom line issue. It sounds like an issue decided by a very small number of people for whom the notion of food security is only useful as a scare tactic. They say "food security" when they petition local, state, and national governments for sweethearts deals all the while annihilating the same almost as non-chalantly as a cows tail brushes off a fly. You have to keep in mind here that third world and developing nations present a fantastic opportunity for profit for anyone who can sell themselves (or their operation) well enough to whatever authority (if any) operates in an area. I really feel for the people who re forced to make these decisions. On the one hand you ave Big-Ag courting you, promising you the world (and telling you just how horrible and hopeless your situation is without them) and on the other hand you have people starving with no real means to invest in Ag. That Big-Ag gets it's way isn't surprising, That they fail to deliver on those promises they make around the world far removed from our "watchful eye", also unsurprising.