Famine looms ........'they' tell us!

Now that the Green balloon of exaggeration, misinformation and doctored statistics has been popped, it is now time to turn the bodkin in the direction of another bunch of misleading wowsers, the population doomsayers who predict that an explosion in world population means that we will not be able to feed ourselves. Armageddon faces our descendants, they warn us.

 

Except that it is all tosh.

 

If the world is facing a population problem it is one of ‘less’, not ‘more’.

 

In 60 years the Total Fertility Rate has fallen from 4.95 to 2.36. The rate needed for a stable population is 2.1. so the world is scarcely reproducing itself at all, never mind burgeoning to starvation levels.

 

Most worrying is population decline in the most developed and productive countries, with 24 of the 27 EU nations showing negative growth. The one group to which this does not apply is the elderly, so we have the threat of a shrinking workforce having to support a swelling army of retirees requiring expensive pension, social and health benefits.

 

Four of the largest economies fall into this category: China, the US, Russia and Japan. Major EU economies facing the same trend include Germany, France and Italy.

 

As to projections of future world population, the present trend is for growth to flat-line with the current total population rising from 7 billion to 10 billion by 2100 and then levelling-out.

 

As for starvation, ‘not anytime soon’ sums it up.

 

Most of the world’s land surface that is suitable for agriculture is not cultivated. And we massively over-produce and trash the surplus. About 30% of world food production is wasted; most of it never leaves the farms but is simply thrown away. British food waste alone would feed 30 million people who are now under-nourished. About 40% of fruit and vegetables grown in Britain ends up as compost where it was grown.

 

Supermarkets feature heavily in the rogues’ gallery.

 

They grossly overstock and then entice people to buy more than they need by all kinds of blandishment and tricks. They regularly shift stock around so that customers have to search for their regular purchases and in doing so may be tempted to make impulse buys of stuff that they don’t really need Then there’s bogof; not a bargain  if you only need one of the item.

 

The ‘sell by’, ‘best before’, ‘use by’, ‘display until’ labels are a scam. They are not there for customer safety; their purpose is to lead you to believe that the product is safe and to throw it away if the date is passed after purchase. Of course, they give the game away by shifting some of the old stock to the ‘reduced’ display.

 

British households join them on the naughty step; they overbuy by around 25%, and waste more than 20% of the food they buy.

 

Famine? Gluttony and obesity are more likely.