Jul. 1st, 2007

fivemack: (Default)
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,,2115773,00.html

has the content-free (given that it's from the Observer) title "Organic food under threat".

As far as I can see, they've just discovered that food grows on farms, that there are only finitely many farms, that each farm has only finite yield, and that the reason that farmers moved away from organic food in the first place is that a given amount of land produces a whole lot more food when sown with aggressively-bred grain, fertilised with carefully-bound phosphorus, and freed of pests with targeted insecticides. The demand for organic food in England has just reached equality with the supply, at which point it has to grow at a rate in which new farms can be brought into production, rather than at the rate by which a consumer whim can inflame.

England can't feed England even with the utmost available refinements of agricultural technology. England hasn't been able to feed England with the greatest available refinements of agricultural technology since about 1900 - ask any U-Boat commander. So I'm surprised that people are now surprised to find that England can't feed England if its inhabitants request it to do so with one fertiliser factory tied behind its back.
fivemack: (Default)
The FAO wheat site offers one page per country, so I've taken the transpose to produce the table below.

One ton per hectare is 9.5 bushels per acre, these are figures from 2000.

It has been pointed out that they're in intercalated alphabetical order, which is in almost no case the right order to use. You can pick them up more usefully at Google Spreadsheet.

Because I suppose Polish cereal productivity is duller than your average friends page )

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