"The Future of Food" by Warren Belasco
As we have all learned throughout the semester, corn, grain, and soy play major roles in our food system. Without them, we would not be in the same place today. With the world's population growing by six fold in the past two hundred years, changes in corn, grain, and soy production have helped to keep up with the population increase. Because of the technological changes in food production, people have yearned to consume more items produced by corn, grain, and soy including meat, dairy, beer and produce. One study done by the International Food Policy Research Institute has shown that meat consumption in developing countries will double from 1980 to 2020 thanks to the increased use of CAFOs throughout the world. However, even though this will help malnourished people in these countries, it also has the opposite affect of increasing obesity, especially in China. More than sixty million people were obese in China in the 1990s due to more meat and egg consumption. What has allowed this? Mass production of corn, grain, and soy of course. "Corn and soy are the basis of the meat-based convenience food diet." As demonstrated in Michael Pollan's The Omnivore's Dilemma, corn and soy feed the cattle used to produce the meat for big companies such as McDonald's. These mass production methods don't only cause obesity, but sicknesses such as e. Coli infections as well. However, it seems that with the world's constantly growing population that these methods are the only way to keep up.
It seems like this is a topic that is, and will always be discussed. It's something we just can't get away from. There are so many pros and cons to mass production of corn, grain, and soy, but if we were to stop it is evident that the world's population (the part that is not hunger- and poverty-stricken) will not be fed. The social issues from this are major, but there are also environmental issues as well. Fossil fuels in fertilizers and pesticides and oil used in the whole production process affect the environment enormously. Studies have shown that it takes at least fifty gallons of oil to produce one acre of corn. Will there ever be a way to fix these problems in food production?
1. We've talked about organic production methods on the small scale. How long will it take for these methods to potentially be utilized on a larger scale?
2. Hunger is already a serious global issue. If mass production methods were to cease, even more people will become hungry, but other things will be saved or helped. So, how are the pros and cons of mass production weighed in order that we continue to use them?
