"Russ Thompson" > wrote in message
...
> The Hunger Argument
>
> Number of people worldwide who will die of starvation this year: 60
> million.

Yet the global population will continue to rise at a significant rate.
Though of course Africa is affected significantly by starvation in many
countries, and of course the 2 million children a year who die from
diarrhea and the ever worsening problem of AIDs will take another 3 million
souls in 2004, and there are plenty of other diseases that aren't just
killing people but really destroying quality of life. Perhaps we could
feed more people, but what would they then die of?

See http://www.usaid.gov/our_work/global_health/

> Number of people who could be adequately fed with the grain saved if
> Americans reduced their intake of meat by 10 perc.: 60 million

A human being cannot adequately be fed on nothing but grain. Clearly this
is a lie!

> Human beings in America: 243 million
> Number of people who could be fed with grain and soybeans now eaten by
> U.S. livestock: 1.3 billion
> Percentage of corn grown in the U.S. eaten by people: 20
> Percentage of corn grown in the U.S. eaten by livestock: 80

Perhaps Americans don't wish to live on grain. Does anyone?

> Percentage of oats grown in the U.S. eaten by livestock: 95
> Percentage of protein waste by cycling grain through livestock: 99
> How frequently a child starves to death: every 2 seconds
> Pounds of potatoes that can be grown on an ac 20.OOO
>

Or potato. Which of course are a really bugger to store so populations
that become dependent on potatoes must have good harvests every year. With
really good pesticides and plenty of water I guess this can be done, but
would you want to bet your population on it?

>
> *** Much to my surpise I have discovered that there are certain people
who
> actually buy into the above.

Of course there are, though not as many as believe in alien abductions.
Still too many though.

> My question for those people is if you are under the impression that
> the above could be true what is your opinion of CRP?

Now you're expecting them to have some grasp of economics and politics
which they're unlikely to cover until they get to "big school".

> For those that don't know CRP is the program where the FSA pays
land
> owners not to grow crops on their land. Normal contracts are for 10 years
> and the land must me planted to grass and left alone. In exchange the
land
> owner recieves a direct payment that is usually about 150% of the local
> going rate for rented farm land. Currently there are millions of acres in
> this program in the USA.
>
> Kala Thompson
> Farmer
> Richland Center, Wi USA
>

Michael Saunby