What Works
This is a simple concept, displayed beautifully. The demand for food will outstrip our current ability to produce it.
What Needs Work
Since the timeline is already marching along the x-axis I want to see some context. Tell me when Nobel Peace Prize winner Norman Borlaug revolutionized agriculture and increased yields by orders of magnitude. Show me how global population maps onto the demand for food. Tell me if I should be concerned about the growing Chinese and Indian middle classes who will probably demand more meat (and hence more land per kcalorie). This data is out there and adding it to this graphic would have elevated it from simply beautiful, to being both beautiful and smart.
Relevant Resources
Doyle, Stephen and Zavislak, Zack. (November 2008) “The Future of Food.” in Wired Magazine. 188-205 [So sorry, but I cannot find this article online. If you want to see more, let me know, because the food info porn went on for pages and I scanned them all. There was a centerfold on cows.]
Nobelprize.org Norman Borlaug Biography
Naim, Moises. (March/April 2008) Can the World Afford a Middle Class? in Foreign Policy.
Watts, Jonathan. (20 May 2008) More wealth, more meat. How China’s rise spells trouble in The Guardian.
Comments 5
chuk — February 11, 2009
Just a quick question to anyone that might be able to answer it. How is "global demand" measured in this graph?" By inflation?
John Kempster — February 23, 2009
according to some experts the world's food production has increased at a greater rate than the population. When I read
between the lines the starving population is also increasing.
If civilization is to succeed we need to feed everyone. Is there a
point at which there is nowhere to go? Is our capacity to produce
food lesser than our rate of population growth? It seems to me that the only solution to the problem is inovative ways to grow
food or reduce population growth. It seems to me that this
question has been asked for at least the past 5,000 years
and until this point the usual method has been to curtail
population period. Any new ideas?
WhoKnows — July 7, 2009
Nature will self-regulate. We are animals and inevitably it will get messy and brutal like a snake pit or too many rats in a room.