How much food supply is left on Earth?

[warpmass]

Just wondering with our current population growth how much food supply is left on Earth?

What do we do when we run out of food?

[MythOfProgress]

To answer the first question in brief, we are already in ecological overshoot and exceed about 7 out of the 9 planetary boundaries that exist(climate change,land use, biodiversity,freshwater, chemical pollution for a few starters) harping back to the Limits of Growth book and William Catton's Overshoot, i'd give it a few years worth of "good" harvests until food starts getting really hard to come by(as in crop failures becoming more prominent, farmers and the increasing expenses they have to account for, cheap fossil fuels approaching its heyday and the fast decline that follows ,not that food isn't hard to come by nowadays, its just more expensive).

as for the second question, can't really answer that as a collective response -since there's no actual plans put in place by most governments or organizations to avoid this from happening and most workarounds for this issue tends to be temporary, insubstantial or reliant on other parts of society functioning(supply chain for one), if there's a scientific miracle that somehow allows us to avoid the risks, harms and damage associated with industrial agriculture i'm all for it.

but again it's a multi-faceted issue that would require us to be more cognizant of our population levels and rate of consumption, the latter being a little bit more easier to manage(in theory) whereas the former would require a sustained, concentrated effort on elevating a portion of the population(women's empowerment through education and reproductive freedom as studies have demonstrated a correlation with those in higher education having less or waiting longer before having children)

as an individual response, i'd advise prepping and buying in bulk(if you can, if you can't- try building your stock slowly), stick with getting non-perishable foods and stockades, figure out if there's any mutual aid communities in your area in the case of localized disasters/emergencies.

as for long-term plans, you'd probably have to leave/relocate for more rural areas- farms/ranches/etc come to mind, but chances are these places will be bought up and/or are difficult to get to, that's not factoring in any differing politics in these communities(often times filled with conservative folks who may or may not take too kindly to city/suburb dwellers settling near them-if you're anything other than the standard hetero-normative, white, christian, male it'll probably become a force-multiplier against you, but disasters have a tendency to unite even the most unlikely of allies, so it's not set in stone what kind of life is to be had in these places)

beyond that though, you'll notice there isn't a whole lot of solutions in regards to something like this, it's mostly delaying the inevitable or buying time when it comes to some of the suggestions made, but worth trying out anyways.

[R8Z]

Potential food supply on Earth is effectively infinite for the current population. Malthus was wrong.

But actual food supply is region dependent and can't be answered on a global basis. For example, Singapore hasn't got their food produced locally, so they have to import i; it gets expensive; on the other hand the country I live produces such a surplus of food that we could feed ourselves several times over.

The real answer is always going to be found in how much something costs as scarcity drives the price of something. Governments can try to stablish fake price ceilings but the real price is always looming there.

As the above comment mentions, it's possible to ease one's feelings by prepping and storing months worth of food at home (or more). Having your own growth produce and maybe a few animals also is very helpful in that regard. If you're down on this direction then you should also plan on how to defend these when a crisis arrives (be it natural like flooding or human-made like a collapse).

[wjfox]

Currently, about 1/3rd of total food production is wasted, so with improved efficiency we could potentially feed upwards of 12 billion people.

But climate change will affect (and is already affecting) arable land. It's unclear exactly what percentage of our food supply will be diminished, but a crisis is coming, and likely soon. Perhaps as early as 2030.

At the same time, however, a number of medium to longer-term developments may help to "climate proof" our food supply chains. These include genetically modified plants (some have achieved yield increases of 50%+ in lab tests), cultured meat and fish, the use of AI/robotics for better management of crop cycles and weeding/pest control, etc. Also hydroponics and vertical/urban/indoor farming, desalination, and so on. These are relatively new and emerging technologies right now, but will massively scale up in the coming decades.

In summary, I think we'll see a global food crisis from the 2030s, but the situation may stabilise in the second half of this century. I mean, it has to stabilise if we're to survive with modern civilisation intact, since we all need to eat. So there'll be huge and rapid efforts to transform our current agricultural paradigm into something more sustainable.

In the more distant future, with a fully circular economy and post-scarcity, technology could potentially allow us to feed trillions, but we're a long way from having that capability.

[MythOfProgress]

Potential food supply on Earth is effectively infinite for the current population

source?

Malthus was wrong.

as mentioned in previous contexts, the whole green revolution happening on part of Norman Borlaug and the Haber-bosch process being perfected doesn't necessarily prove him wrong so much as it did buy time on account of what was happening, Norman's use of chemical fertlizers, pesticides and cross-breeding of plants may have been effective in the short-term of civilization by providing a solution that could account for the larger population at hand, but its temporary and damages the soil quality- becoming dependent on industrial agriculture(which in turns relies on cheap fossil fuels still being readily available).

admittedly, organic farming as sustainable as it is; probably wouldn't be much of a solution considering the current population we have, we wouldn't be able to feed enough folks even with the necessary changes to distribution of food. looking to Sri Lanka as an example, it's pretty clear we couldn't switch from chemical fertilizer to organic even if we wanted to- farmers struggled with the Rajapaksa family/government switching from chemical to organic as a result of their farms becoming accustomed to the use of chemical fertilizer throughout the years if not decades.

while i already know the obvious outcome provided we stick to our regular patterns and continue on business as usual, i truly don't know what will happen in people's pursuit to stave off their hunger when the time comes. perhaps i just don't want to know, but its certain the atrocities committed will be unimaginable.

[joe00uk]

Just wondering with our current population growth how much food supply is left on Earth?

What do we do when we run out of food?

Population will start declining long before we get to any situation where we literally run out of food. However, there will continue to be famine in some parts of the world and localised, temporary breakdowns of food supply.

[R8Z]

Potential food supply on Earth is effectively infinite for the current population

source?

Malthus was wrong.

as mentioned in previous contexts, the whole green revolution happening on part of Norman Borlaug and the Haber-bosch process being perfected doesn't necessarily prove him wrong so much as it did buy time on account of what was happening, Norman's use of chemical fertlizers, pesticides and cross-breeding of plants may have been effective in the short-term of civilization by providing a solution that could account for the larger population at hand, but its temporary and damages the soil quality- becoming dependent on industrial agriculture(which in turns relies on cheap fossil fuels still being readily available).

admittedly, organic farming as sustainable as it is; probably wouldn't be much of a solution considering the current population we have, we wouldn't be able to feed enough folks even with the necessary changes to distribution of food. looking to Sri Lanka as an example, it's pretty clear we couldn't switch from chemical fertilizer to organic even if we wanted to- farmers struggled with the Rajapaksa family/government switching from chemical to organic as a result of their farms becoming accustomed to the use of chemical fertilizer throughout the years if not decades.

while i already know the obvious outcome provided we stick to our regular patterns and continue on business as usual, i truly don't know what will happen in people's pursuit to stave off their hunger when the time comes. perhaps i just don't want to know, but its certain the atrocities committed will be unimaginable.

Not a source for my 1st claim but instead, please do check the following reasoning on an attempt to arrive at the same conclusion (conclusion: we're fine on this field):

- NPK (nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium) is the most common fertilizer we use, being nitrogen the bulk of what is required on soil to have good yields;
- ~78% of our atmosphere is nitrogen; using the process you even mentioned on your comment we should be able to fix/collect as much nitrogen as we require to continue using the fields we have;
- For phosphorus we know that it is abundant on Earth's crust but unfortunately heavily diluted; the mining process will take this into account if concentrated mines are depleted and technology solves it via price mechanics: it is there, we just have to collect it;
- Potassium is abundant and cheap to mine/produce; won't be a problem any time soon;
- Climate change (global warming due to CO2) is good for crop production: both arable land increases due to temperature and CO2 is a potent "air fertilizer" on its own. Warmer temperature is better for most plants.
- Population will peak in this century and won't require much more production than we currently have (our main losses are logistical).

But you're right, with the tools we had at the the time Malthus was alive we wouldn't be able to have such a big population, but times change, technology improves and so does everything else accordingly.

[DanielMrsr]

Agree with joe00uk. I will also express the opinion that the food shortage in some parts of our planet will be more palpable, allowing many countries to prepare for various scenarios. The pandemic has shown that people still know how to adapt.

[MythOfProgress]

Not a source for my 1st claim but instead, please do check the following reasoning on an attempt to arrive at the same conclusion (conclusion: we're fine on this field):

while i might be guilty of this myself on more than a few occasions, usually asserting something as truth doesn't necessarily make it so, which is why i'm asking for a source- it's not as if i haven't done any due diligence and haven't made any efforts on my end to research the aforementioned topic at hand-making claims like these oftentimes means backing them up with evidence.

- ~78% of our atmosphere is nitrogen; using the process you even mentioned on your comment we should be able to fix/collect as much nitrogen as we require to continue using the fields we have;

yes, the same process that runs on fossil fuels. if you noticed closely, i wasn't just arguing for the fertilizer shortages we'd face, but the (top)soil degradation/erosion that follows as a consequence of the overuse of these chemicals, depleting them of the necessary micro-nutrients that are needed for sustenance. the overuse of nitrogen fertilizers leads to eutrophication, another process that is marked by an over-growing of algae blooms in rivers, which in turn leads to dead-zones incapable of supporting life.

Climate change (global warming due to CO2) is good for crop production: both arable land increases due to temperature and CO2 is a potent "air fertilizer" on its own. Warmer temperature is better for most plants.

considering wjfox just alluded to this in their second sentence- im pretty sure extreme heat tends to kill off and decrease crop yields to a significant margin, not just extreme heat, but other events like droughts and floods which could play a part in affecting crop production. you're not wrong when it comes to rising CO^2 levels being able to stimulate plant growth but as a consequence it reduces the nutritional value of food crops, more precisely reducing the concentration of proteins and essential minerals in plant species like wheat, soybeans and rice.

For phosphorus we know that it is abundant on Earth's crust but unfortunately heavily diluted; the mining process will take this into account if concentrated mines are depleted

not quite abundant, at current consumption rates the world would exhaust all supplies of phosphorous in just 80 years, its peak would be reached sometime around the 2030's-2040's, you can take a look at at this slightly old book if you want more information but for a more brief explanation of some of the important parts- "The supply of phosphorus from mined phosphate rock could ‘peak’ as soon as 2033, after which this non-renewable resource will become increasingly scarce and expensive." .

moving on from that, they go in-depth and indirectly acknowledge the 2008 economic crisis ..."The current price of phosphate
rock is approximately twice that of 2006. When demand for phosphate fertiliser outstripped supply in 2007/08, the price of rock phosphate rose 800%. ".

lastly they note the mining activities of certain countries when it comes to rock phosphate..."In 2009, 158 million metric tonnes of phosphate rock were mined worldwide. 67% of this resource was mined in just three countries - China (35%), the USA (17%) and Morocco and Western Sahara (15%). China has now restricted, and the USA has stopped, exports of phosphate." .

but times change, technology improves and so does everything else accordingly.

if you say so, only thing i'll say definitively is that time will tell.