In a week where we see more issues with the Ukraine, issues on Nigeria (which are disturbing indeed) and what I personally call a waste of TV time, which is the Oscar P. trial live on TV. That trial has all the makings. Established Olympic champion, beautiful, now dead woman and so on. The court papers interest me as a law graduate, where I did pass my Criminal aw, but overall, I do not care, simply because I am not working on it. I will be very interested to read the Judges verdict, but that would be all for now.
The part that did interest me was of a slightly more sustained side; the article on ‘future foods’ gave us a few tit bits that are, pardon the pun, delicious!
Stated was that “when the population grows to 9.1 billion by 2050, food production would have to grow by 70%“. As our population has gone past 6 billion now, the interesting consequence from this statement is that food is already growing in short supply. One statement made was that people in the western world seem to chuck 50% unused or unfinished. This is HUGE! I know that I chucked two things myself last week. Two packages that I had forgotten about, and when I saw the ‘May 2012’ last night, I thought it would be OK (read essential) to chuck them and not try to inflict food poisoning on myself.
50% of wasted food is a huge amount and I am for the most still trying to wrap my brain about that part. Another side to this is that engineers are looking into solutions where we can eat the packaging. The man made references to the apple (not the Steve Jobs products). This approach makes perfect sense to me. Go to any place where they have a green section and we see the apple, the tomato and other articles, where we can basically rinse of the skin with a little water and start eating these ‘goodies’. Here is a novel idea (actually not that novel). What if we pick up a prepared paprika pasta salad, filled with salad components and we can eat on the move or sit down, spoon out the salad, eat the package and our lunch is done. It will drastically reduce the solid municipal waste on many levels. But that does not get us that 50% wasted food we need to deal with, will it?
Consider that retail is all about profit. Would we pay the same $1.35 (99p) for that package of chips when we get 30% less? This is at the heart of it all. This is what those big malls rely on in the US; get much more for the $1 package. I get that and most families will never not eat the very last chip in the package, so we have an issue with the ability to get rid of 50% of food that is not eaten.
In my mind this is a first sign, that greed driven economics are driving us to starvation. And my evidence for this is?
This is of course the issue with any thought. If we need to grow production by 70% in one generation and we see the shortages on space to grow crops, we should expect that our goose be cooked to some extent. Add to this the fact that whatever path we take we will have to pay more, and that is only a reality if our income go up by a decent amount. Yet, it is not about the money. The Swipe article (on Sky TV) also showed us a 3d printer, were food is getting printed on crackers, then this is not an immediate concern if you have seen the narrative of Stephen Fry talking about a 3d chocolate printer. Now consider that this is a protein paste that is processed from insects. How hungry are you now? Is this the future? Well I saw that in the Lion King, and I say Hakuna Matata to you too, I need a steak!
Am I short sighted in that regard? Well, quite possibly, but the food shortage that some face even today, whilst many in the (at the moment) not so hungry western worlds are chucking 50% is cause and reason for concern for all.
I think that food is at the centre, and perhaps even at the core of waste we need to deal with, but that core is for now greed based. I agree that the consumer side is not greed based, but getting more for that same dollar is at the heart of our food needs as we are trying to make ends meet in these harsh times. We buy from places that are all profit driven, which is the first part of that problem and I see no solution at present for that obstacle.
Greed remains our number one foe!
That side is shown in even more clarity when we consider Twitter (the Tweet and Send company). So, not too long ago, the results of Twitter were shown and the stocks dropped! Why? Twitter did its business and is still doing its business. It even nearly doubled its advertisements income in just over a year. I see that this should be reason for a massive party on all levels. Getting well over 90% growth from a division that was making some nice coin is just good and those people should be given a large bottle of bubbly (and there will be no waste when that bottle is drunk, believe me). Yet, analysts claim that Twitter is not growing its base of new members enough, which caused the decline.
So are these analysts just morons, enemies of the people or is it THEIR greed that is the real danger? It seems to me that Twitter is not a saturated market at present, but what is saturation? In my view Twitter is a much more usable business tool then Facebook ever will be! I see a real daily need for Twitter (I never saw a daily need for Facebook). This is at the core and these two issues do link. Our food needs are not set by us either; they are dictated to us by our internal fears and by economists driving these fears for THEIR needs.
Consider my Australian example. “Which single person has rejected a full loaf of ‘nameless’ at $3.99 for a 2/3rd loaf of Lawsons (Stonemill) at $4.35?” This is the serious question. Apart from the fact that I personally think that Lawsons bread tastes better, it was about the 1/3rd less. At the third day the bread is at the edge of what I call ‘just for toasting’ and as I have 2 slices left it is not an issue for me. I stated ‘single’, as families have these smaller elements (kids), which tend to be hungry all the time. To buy what you need is at the core, and even though it would be nice that this is a little cheaper, getting what you need, not what you can get, remains at the very centre of the feeding frenzied danger we are all facing within the next two decades.
When people decide to completely disagree on these matters (which remains a fair call), then consider he past we had. In the mid 70’s we saw a movie called ‘Soylent Green’. This movie gave us a scary view of a future, which was denounced by many as a possible future. Spokespeople from every walk of life (economy and politics) did not see this as any reality ever. The shot with the crowded streets in New York (a similar view is already reality in India), the fact that real jam was extremely expensive, an option we are still racing towards when you consider that in some places you pay $8 for a small slice of Salmon, which is almost 120% more then what I paid for in 2010. So the movie ends up giving us the small fact that the seaweed extract ‘Soylent Green’ turns out to be made out of processed dead people. Well, we are not there yet, but considering that processed insects are a possible new protein source, is that future really so farfetched?
We need to start getting clever about the needs we actually have, not about what we can get for the $20 we get to live on. We have come at the mercy of analyst, they seem to condemn places that achieve 90% revenue growth, but they will set us in a place where our lives revolve on the $0.02 share increase at whatever cost it takes. People and Politicians are setting a stage and state where we are listening to the wrong voices.
I am not stating that I have the right voice, but I do know that these economic analysts are definitely the wrong voice to listen to.
Lawrence van Rijn - Law Lord to be 