> Is this more of an issue with problems of access to
> water treatment systems or is it because of increased
> population? I don't want to think it's the
> latter...KRD
>
>
...
>
> Agricultural scientists say irrigated farmland has to
> expand by up to 20 per cent over the next 25 years to
> feed a rising population. But environmental scientists
> have warned that water consumption has to fall by at
> least 10 per cent on current levels to protect rivers,
> lakes and wetlands.
>
It seems to me that an obvious solution is to eat lower on the food chain, reducing the total amount of food we have to grow.
This invites the question of how much of the food grown gets fed to meat animals. Anyone have good numbers on that?
A Google search turned up the following gem, from the US Pork Board:
http://www.porkboard.org/000426USexports.htm
I particularly like the proclamation that "More pork will be needed to feed the world," and the complaint about "non-scientific sanitary or animal disease regulations."
________________________________________________ Alan Post alan.post at cs.stanford.edu