On: 'Insect apocalypse' more complicated than thought

[Cthulhu_]

Maybe "in general", but they don't have that big a margin everywhere. Remember, food shortages is more of a logistics problem than a farming problem.

[ashtonkem → Cthulhu_]

Famine and other large scale hunger are often more political than logistical. The capability to feed everyone exists, the will to do it does not.

Or, in more tragic cases, the will to make certain some people can’t eat occasionally exists at the highest levels.

[BiteCode_dev → Cthulhu_]

We already have hunger despite our industry producing too much food.

The problem is political and economical, not technical.

[kaybe → Cthulhu_]

I am also a bit afraid for the future. The way we're going, harvests will fail more frequently, meaning some areas of the world will have to have overproduction to feed the rest, and which areas that are will be hard to predict. So it's safer to have some overproduction everywhere, at least of basics.

The current method of monoculture and cash crops makes that even worse since that means an area is susceptible to the same kind of weather problems, eg dry summers. If we planted more varied crops some of them can profit even if others fail.

[gcatalfamo → Cthulhu_]

This. You can can’t relocate certain products just because there’s more elsewhere. This does not work with all kinds of produce (it does for some but quality and taste go down fast). In other cases you can technically do that, but it’s not sustainable cost-wise.