Food versus fuel: is farmland use out of balance? | FT Food Revolution

[@CitiesForTheFuture2030]

This is a complex issue. It's not just food or fuel. How much land is used to grow crops for alcohol (hops, vineyards etc) and what about tobacco or the comnercial flower industry or for perfumes or... crops to feed cattle for dairy & meat production? Another aspect is food availability vs food accessibility. Much of the cost of food for consumers is from transport, warehousing, refrigeration, packaging, marketing & ads, staffing & retail overheads etc. Many farmers live at the edge of ruin while food producers & farming input suppliers earn billions in profits. Farmers often throw away tons of produce as waste either due to overproduction or to manipulate prices. In fact 30 - 40% of food is wasted from farm to fork. Our whole food production system is broken. As the realities of enhanced global warming & climate change begin to accelerate, a complete rethink of global food profuction system is required - lives depend on it.

[@alfaeco15]

Use nuclear energy to capture CO2 and generate sintética fuels

[@alfaeco15]

@@guff9567 switch off the sun then, biggest nuclear reactor in the vicinity. Stop also fission reaction in earth core (nuclear decay) , which keeps it molten creating a magnetic field around earth preventing our atmosphere from being stripped out.

[@willtheoct]

we dont have any technology that could capture co2. its hyper complicated and almost certainly requires oil products. The right solution is to stop burning fuels, build wind farms to heat our homes, and return to organic farming

[@josephpiskac2781]

I think biofuel is used as an octane booster and not simply for combustion. Biofuel replaced extremely toxic lead for this purpose.

[@willtheoct]

if it can be burned, it can spin a turbine. Historically biofuels were mixed into car fuels, but now that oil is running out, people are using biofuels for energy generation. Scaling up with new tech, we would burn through the worlds biomass in 20-50 years

[@Trag-zj2yo]

Biofuel from food crops is insane. Biofuel from waste is okay

[@willtheoct]

problem is you can just call it 'waste' if your logistics suck. If you build the biofuel engine, someone will find an excuse to use it.

[@Christiane069]

Economically it only make sense, for the oil and agribusiness (witch often are the same.) Big money don't care about hunger. What's new!

[@mrhappyface20111]

Not really. Moving away from ethanol production means gas prices would skyrocket.

[@Christiane069]

@@mrhappyface20111 I don't agrea with you on this point since the US is self sufficient on oil and gas production. This is not Europe or even the rest of the world. It really has to do with oil companies controling the price though Wall Street. Don't forget that 80% of the agriculture sbsidies are controleled by 10 large agribusiness, some of witch are own by oil conglomerates. Welcome to America.

[@willtheoct]

@@mrhappyface20111 good. thats the point. Fuels should not be usable by anyone, biofuels included. Use your legs, use wind power.

[@luisfernandoalves2748]

Video description is utter nonsense. The world already produces more food than it consumes. This is not a hunger or food shortage problem. Hunger is a political issue and a logistics problem. Biofuels have nothing to do with it. Let prices work and the market will supply the necessary adjustments. If grain prices are higher than usual, more people will be encouraged to plant wheat and other grains. This is already happening in Brazil. High wheat prices are incentivizing producers to switch their crops to harvest wheat. You don't need to coordinate this process, supply will eventually show up. While it may seem smart at first, since we would be increasing grain production and thus grain prices should subside, the aftermath will not be pretty. Producing more grains and less ethanol and biodiesel will lead to an increase in gasoline and diesel prices, which in turn will make all other crops more expensive by default, because of an increase in production costs across the board. So, wheat and corn may get cheaper at first, but soybeans, cotton, rice, cocoa, coffee, orange juice etc will all get more expensive. Same will happen to corn and wheat after a while when prices adjust.

[@willtheoct]

biofuels and fossil fuels cause droughts which harm food production. I paid 50 bucks for 8 liters of strawberries this summer. wtf is your post? nothing but logic errors

[@luisfernandoalves2748]

Yes. Your answer proves my point actually. If you want to keep betting on restricting oil, gas and biofuel supply irresponsibly to save the planet, prices will keep rising across the board, like I said. This needs to be done intelligently, otherwise it will only exacerbate the effects of droughts on supply. Everything will keep getting more and more expensive, as we produce less and less of everything we need.

[@willtheoct]

@@luisfernandoalves2748 the local strawberry shortage was due to droughts caused by fossil fuels. please never make decisions for anyone and stop commenting on global problems, and read next time

[@pollutingpenguin2146]

There’s no food without fuel

[@willtheoct]

organic farmer here, you're wrong

[@pratamaridho6754]

Europe is very anti with palm oil from Indonesia. The problem is, what can replace palm oil? some alternative such as coconut oil, soybean oil, and sunflower oil. However, this commodity requires a large area of ​​land. The comparison is, 10 hectares of soybean land is equal to one palm oil land. So, instead of using 10 hectares of land for soybean oil, you are better off receiving palm oil from Indonesia. You don't want to accept it, you need a large area of ​​land (instead of planting large land for soybeans, you can plant corn or potatoes).

[@richardamullens]

Some noodles contain palm oil, but some contain no oil at all, so it seems to me that adding oil to food is optional.

[@harukrentz435]

Palm oil is a great source of biodesel.

[@kelvinbritz9051]

I would beg to differ I would like to see a biofuel plant in the US of a that does not use full grown mature trees as a component of biofuel! Also if the USA did not facilitate a coup d'etat in 2014 in Ukraine the Russians would have been able to supply all of the needs of the world as the number one supplier of grain! But as it stands now the green ships that leave Ukraine, where do they go?, I wonder where? 60% of them are going to Europe they're not even going to Africa!, if the US thinks that Africa is going to play ball with them they are sadly mistaken and rightfully so, it's the end of the US dollar very soon!

[@willtheoct]

america had nothing to do with that. Yanukovitch was taking russian bribes, sabotaging their entrance into the EU, and then ukraine got rid of him. Then 2 years later, crimea. Just like Georgia and chechnya. Good callout on biofuels though - trees are almost certainly the main fuel source, while we apes desperately need them to live.

[@kelvinbritz9051]

@@willtheoct well as it stands now the🤡 and his oligarchs which most of them are Nazis are way more corrupt than yani kovich ever was!

[@willtheoct]

@@kelvinbritz9051 how come you didnt call these unarmed ukrainians nazis and oligarchs before february 23? why did you need to BE the nazis and fire missiles on february 23? Nazi Russia must be disarmed, or flattened.

[@phucyouse5316]

The #1000yr will adjust at its leisure and to its maximal profit.

[@Thomas-us4wq]

Many countries with famine will also suffer grately from climate change.. we need to tackle climate change. And one thing that should be done is to move away from fossil fuels.

[@armandomedina5687]

Reducing CO2 in the atmosphere is the most important thing right now or you won’t be growing anything anywhere In the future in the long run EVs are the answer but we’re in the midst of a energy transition hopefully with biomass’s we’ll make it there.

[@maybev1nce]

Evs are not the future hydrogen is

[@willtheoct]

@@maybev1nce hydrogen for air travel only. It is unsafe to store compressed hydrogen everywhere. EVs are also not the future. Make cities walkable and cyclable - your body is built for transport, not EVs.

[@julianshepherd2038]

Truss is only interested in the view so she will love this. Probably frack it too.