Not really much to say here. I think the pictures say it all. Take a look at the Environmental cost of China’s rise to economic glory and think about these photos the next time to run to Walmart for that $4 dollar toaster.
http://www.chinahush.com/2009/10/21/amazing-pictures-pollution-in-china/
In an earlier post this year I wrote about the challenges of feeding a planet that will have 9 Billion people. One of the main concerns was where we will find the land to grow all of this food and I had mentioned that we need a land mass the size of the Amazon rainforest in order to feed an additional 3 Billion people expected over the next 30 years.
Today I want to focus on the other important factor to growing food which is fresh water. As you can see from the above chart Brazil has the most abundance of natural fresh water in the world followed by the U.S and S.E Asia. China and India have almost none. So, it should not come to a surprise to everyone that Brazil is one of the fastest growing agriculture plays in the world. The Chinese are investing heavily in Brazil to grow Soybeans for export to China. Investing in Brazilian agriculture seems like a no brainer except for one problem. Although Brazil has an abundance of water the soil is not rich in nutrients. Brazil has a large tropical savanna known as the cerrado. It’s an area of about 250 million acres but requires vast amounts of Potash. In fact it takes nearly 14 times the amount of Potash to fertilize this land than comparable land in the United States.
The conclusions: Brazil is a great place to invest in Agriculture for the future as China and India (The two most populous and fastest growing countries) need to feed their populations. Investing in Potash is going to be a very lucrative business, and the U.S. will still be an Agricultural leader.
The picture above is from a Time magazine article regarding the clean bio fuel energy myth. This article along with a NY Times article on Brazilian farm land paint a bleak picture for Forests around the world. Although the articles focus mainly on the planting of Soy Beans for the creation of biofuel I thought that I would analyze this issue from a food production view.
There are currently 6 Billion people in the world and currently 40% of the Earth’s land surfaces are used for agriculture. It is estimated that by 2030 the us population will be 9 Billion. That is a 50% increase in the amount of people who will be on the planet withing 20 years. How will we provide food for all of these people?
An astounding 70% of the carbon dioxide emission for Brazil come from deforestation. In fact 20% of all of the world’s carbon emissions come from the clearing of forests around the world to plant crops. It is estimated that to feed a population of 9 Billion the amount of farmland needed would be the equivalent of the entire Brazilian rainforest.
Farming is also responsible for roughly 70% of fresh worlds fresh water usage and requires huge amounts of fossil fuels to grow which I will detail more in an upcoming post.
If we plan of having Tropical rain forests (or and forests for that matter) in the next coming decades we are going to have to come up with a new farming method that no longer requires large amount of land use, water or the need to transport crops over long distances. I believe the answer is hydroponic urban farming. I have been looking into it for the past few years and I think I have something that I hope to share with everyone in 2010.
