Michael Saunby wrote:

> "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!

Stated as it is, it is worse than a lie; it's an entire
fantasy.

Whenever "vegan" fruitcakes start ranting about the
eeeeeevils of feeding grain to livestock, they make the
most unbelievable, simplistic assumption that the VERY
SAME GRAIN could be fed to "starving" people elsewhere
in the world instead of to cattle. The fatuous belief
ignores two crucial points:

1. Much of the "grain" fed to livestock is not edible
by humans. Corn silage, for example, includes the
entire plant, chopped to bits; the stalks, cobs and
husks are indigestible to humans. A lot of the
true grain is of a quality that humans won't eat.

2. There are already massive, heavily subsidized
surpluses of human edible foodstuffs, in both North
America and Europe. That this food isn't simply
being given to "starving" people in Africa and Asia
ought to tell the "vegans" something.

This second point is really the key one. "vegans" seem
to think that if the livestock feed weren't being fed
to animals, it would simply be given away to "starving"
people. Exactly what is supposed to be the mechanism
for this? North American and European farmers don't
produce food merely to give it away; they expect to be
paid for it. Livestock feed is *bought* from farmers
by feedlot operators and livestock farmers; the grain
farmers expect to be paid by someone if they are to
grow the grain in the first place.

The idiot "vegans" also ignore the fact that in many of
the places in Africa where there are "starving" people,
there is plenty of food available. The problems are
distribution problems, not production problems. Some
of the distribution problems are deliberate actions by
despotic governments and local warlords, who use
starvation as a war tactic against minority groups.
The rest are from government destruction of market
mechanisms.

The problem of world hunger has NOTHING to do with
Americans and Europeans feeding grain to livestock.


>>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
>
>