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Comment by mhurron | Hacker News Reader

And leading us back to a time of poor nutrition for large parts of the world that currently rely on shipping to bring fresh and varied food.

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Fresh food is better than preserved food, I won't argue that. But people got by with preserved food for a long, long time. We've gotten used to eating fruits and such out of season, but maybe that's going to get expensive again.

People lived without medicine for a long time too, I'm not sure if we want to live in those days though.

Which parts of the world would those be? From what I've read the problem is often the opposite - cheap grain imports from the USA destroying agricultural economies in Africa for example.

I really don't think there are large parts of the world that would not be viable through local agriculture.

Obviously, there will be islands etc for whom this isn't viable, but I doubt they were getting food by massive ships anyway.

Most of the northern hemisphere. You know, all those places where nothing grows for 6 months out of the year where prior to shipping food we had to rely on canned and preserved foods.

Come on... "Most of the northern hemisphere... where nothing grows for 6 months"? In northern finland maybe, due to lack of sunlight. They grow greenhouse tomatoes and cucumbers all year round in the Netherlands, and cabbage, spinach, root vegetables can be grown in winter without heating.

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