'Epidemic of food riots' could trigger society collapse by 2040, warn scientists
First lets have a look at what is going on in Australia in regards to homelessness and going hungry.
This about par for the course as far as reports go.
https://www.foodbank.org.au/hunger-in-australia/the-facts/
Are there really hungry people in Australia?
Yes there are, but hunger is largely a hidden social problem and many victims suffer in silence. Each year two million people rely on food relief – around half of them are children. That’s one in every ten Australians in need.Despite almost two decades of economic growth nearly a quarter of Australians still live in low economic resource households and 10% live in actual poverty. The prices of essentials like food, health, education, housing, utilities and transport have climbed so much in recent years that people who are already struggling are susceptible to sudden bill shock and financial disadvantage.
The current economic climate means people are turning to charity who would never have dreamed of seeking such support in the past. So it’s not just traditionally vulnerable groups such as the homeless seeking food relief, but also the aged, single parents and the working poor.
Children, a casual worker or an elderly couple could be going hungry in any given street. When bills have to be paid, food becomes a discretionary item.
Some statistics about the unlucky people in our lucky country:
105,000
people are currently homeless
2.2 million
Australians live in poverty
10.9%
of children live in poverty
1 in 4
pensioners live in or close to poverty
Charities are experiencing an alarming increase in demand. According to the Foodbank Hunger Report 2014, in the last twelve months there has been an 8% increase in the number of people seeking food assistance. Charities report that every month they are turning away almost 60,000 Australians seeking food relief due to lack of food and resources.
Some useful references:
Some useful references:
The main article.
http://rt.com/news/269113-food-shortages-society-collapse/
'Epidemic of food riots' could trigger society collapse by 2040, warn scientists
With the global demand for food on the rise, our society could collapse as soon as in 2040 due to fatal food shortages and "unprecedented epidemic of food riots," if counter measures are not taken, researchers have warned.
Food security experts and analysts in the field of the economics of sustainable development were asked to develop the worse-case scenario illustrating a "plausible, relatively-severe production shock affecting multiple agricultural commodities and regions."
According to a report from Lloyds of London prepared with the help of Anglia Ruskin University’s Global Sustainability Institute, "the global food system is under chronic pressure to meet an ever-rising demand, and its vulnerability to acute disruptions is compounded by factors such as climate change, water stress, ongoing globalization and heightening political instability."
Researchers say that the food system is becoming “increasingly vulnerable to acute shocks,” driven by the world’s population growth and shifts in consumption patterns as countries develop. The UN's Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) projects that global agricultural production will need to more than double by 2050 to close the gap between food supply and demand, the report, supported by UK's Foreign Office says.
"A shock to the global food supply could trigger significant claims across multiple classes of insurance, including (but not limited to) terrorism and political violence, political risk, business interruption, marine and aviation, agriculture, environmental liability, and product liability and recall," the report warns, adding that these losses could be aggravated by the potential for a food system shock to last for years to come.
The Director of the Global Sustainability Institute, Dr. Aled Jones, told Insurge Intelligence that "based on plausible climate trends, and a total failure to change course, the global food supply system would face catastrophic losses, and an unprecedented epidemic of food riots."
"We ran the model forward to the year 2040, along a business-as-usual trajectory based on ‘do-nothing’ trends — that is, without any feedback loops that would change the underlying trend," he said.
"In this scenario, global society essentially collapses as food production falls permanently short of consumption," Jones added.
According to new research, thousands of children in the UK are being pushed into severe poverty and hunger because their parents cannot work or receive government benefits. Researchers from the Centre on Migration, Policy and Society at the University of Oxford say children appear to be the “ultimate losers,” with thousands subsisting on as little as £1 (US$1.57) per person per day.
Families across the UK are being forced to cut spending on essential items such as food, clothing and heating as a result of government cuts to child benefits, with low-earners among the hardest hit, as always. The number of British people relying on food banks is soon expected to reach one million, according to the Trussell Trust.
In New York, about 2.6 million people have trouble affording food, and must make a life-threatening choice between eating and paying for other necessities like rent, medication, child care or transportation, according to the Food Bank For New York City. Some 17 million elderly Americans are in need of government-funded meal services, but according to a new report by the Government Accountability Office, 90 percent of them don't receive it. About 83 percent of those adults in need are food insecure.
Meanwhile, according to the UN, one-third of food globally (1.3 billion tons each year) is spoiled or wasted before it is consumed by people, causing losses of $750 billion, as well as significant damage to the environment.
Last month the French government took measures to minimize food waste, banning large supermarkets from destroying unsold products. From now on they will be forced to donate unsold, but still edible goods to charities or farms. Food that is past a firm expiration date would go to farms to be used as animal feed or compost. The new law, along with an education program about food waste introduced in schools and businesses, is part of an effort by Paris to halve the amount of food waste in France by 2025.
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And you can take it from me, insects are YUMMY!
Terrmites fresh from the nest, a little saw-dusty but rather nice. Fresh oil fried crickets / grass hoppers / locusts - like a cashew / nutty - delish.
Totally support all of this.
http://rt.com/news/269098-food-worms-insects-switzerland/
Bug burger anyone? Insect-based grub could hit Swiss groceries next year.
Next year, insects might be on the shelves of Swiss grocery stores alongside Switzerland’s national sausage, mustard and cheese, after the Federal Food Safety and Veterinary Office suggested commercializing crickets, grasshoppers and meal worms.
On Monday, the Swiss Veterinary Service endorsed the sale of the three species as part of a planned revision of law regulating food stuffs, reported the ATS, the country’s national news agency.
In 2014, the Swiss authorities promised to put edible insects on the market following a food-from-bugs tasting organized by Isabelle Chevalley (member of the National Council of Switzerland) for her fellow MPs.
The menu included burgers with meat produced from mealworms, rissoles made from crickets, grasshopper chocolate biscuits and meal worm lemon cakes. Believe it or not, these delicacies tickled the MPs’ taste buds.
“It was a great discovery for many of my colleagues. I am delighted they recognized its environmental benefits,” Isabelle wrote in a post on her Facebook page on March 11, 2014.
“It doesn’t differ from a classic burger at all!” said counselor Robert Cramer, biting into a bug-burger.“It tastes delicious,” said Maya Graf, president of the Swiss National Council, chomping on a cricket-rissole.
Edible insects contain high quality protein, vitamins and amino acids, according to the US Food and Agriculture Organization. “Crickets need six times less feed than cattle, four times less than sheep, and twice less than pigs and broiler chickens to produce the same amount of protein,” its website points out.
As a result, bugs are viewed as a potential source for the production of protein-rich food.
The UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization issued a 200-plus-page report in May, 2013. It gave the first comprehensive assessment of insects' current and potential uses as food for humans and livestock.
"It is widely accepted that by 2050 the world will host 9 billion people. To accommodate this number, current food production will need to almost double," reads the report. "We need to find new ways of growing food."
Within the EU, bugs have not yet been officially approved as a source of food, although stores in some EU countries, such as Holland and Belgium, have been selling bug-enriched grub.
The European Commission “is working on a new proposal on novel foods. At some point it could facilitate placing on the market food from new sources, for instance insects,” said Vytenis Andriukaitis, a health and food safety commissioner, at the EU Food Innovation Summit in February 2015.
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Some links from within the story.
2 bn people eat edible #insects. Find out where & nutritional values http://t.co/149EPQtjOu pic.twitter.com/ewKZDRJVxX@VantommePaul@FAOnews — EU Expo 2015 (@EUExpo2015) April 22, 2015
Insect meal has potential as a future animal feed, #UNFAO study finds: http://t.co/FKfZYMty0W — FAO Newsroom (@FAOnews) November 12, 2014
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