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Comment by halpert | Hacker News Reader

Not super related, but one interesting thing mentioned in the article is that the population will increase from 8 billion to 10 billion by 2050, "increasing global food demand by 50%." Why would a 25% increase in population cause a 50% increase in food demand?

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Increased consumption per-person as more people have improved economic circumstances. See "How to Sustainably Feed 10 Billion People by 2050, in 21 Charts" [0].

"There is a big shortfall between the amount of food we produce today and the amount needed to feed everyone in 2050. There will be nearly 10 billion people on Earth by 2050—about 3 billion more mouths to feed than there were in 2010. As incomes rise, people will increasingly consume more resource-intensive, animal-based foods."

[0] https://www.wri.org/insights/how-sustainably-feed-10-billion...

It could be increased standard of food as the world develops. More meat for consumption would increase the amount of food grown to raise the animals we slaughter for meat even with a static population.

That would definitely make sense. Something about the wording made it seem like the increasing population specifically was responsible for the increase in food demand, but it was probably an editing oversight.

Rising living standards, for one?

There are a lot of people who want to eat better than they currently do.

Food waste.

Half of the food grown is thrown out instead of eaten.

That doesn't make sense, unless the amount of food waste, measured as a percentage of total food, increases as the total amount of food produced increases.

I've no facts to back that up, but my bet is that a) this is true in well off countries, and b) not true in non-well off countries.

I remember reading a while back that food waste was roughly similar between developed and undeveloped countries. The reason for the waste was different though. In developed countries it was consumers throwing out uneating food and in undeveloped countries it was due to poor storage environment before the food got to the consumer.

I always wonder what the ideal amount of food waste is supposed to be. Zero is a post apocalyptic hellscape.

In primary production most things you don't consume yourself have either to earn income or cost you money to dispose of, and suddenly zero waste is a big win. Pig slurry has massive costs associated either with remediation of water or cartage. If you can make methane, drive a generator or heat or cool something or run pumps, and then have (in disease terms) sterile and nutrient rich water to use.. it's better.

Ploughing in your unsellable fruit is said to be heartbreaking. Suicide in farmers is high.

Growing less and getting a better price for it might be better than growing more but losing half the produce to skin taint or bruising. Less inputs, more value per acre worked.

When I looked into the figures, a large proportion (a majority?) of the "waste" occurred before the consumer even bought the food, so although the statistic is designed to shame people for their "wasteful" behaviour, the problem can't actually be substantially fixed without forcing people to eat lower quality "food" or otherwise reducing the food options available.

isn't lower quality food employed in different ways? E.g. recycled as animal food.

I hope the engineers that wrote the software for this tractor are better at math than the marketing people that wire this article!

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