> India cannot really support more than 300-400 million people with a high quality of life with its geographic size and exhausted resources
Source for this carrying capacity?
Source for this carrying capacity?
India has roughly ~18% of humanity but only about 4% of global freshwater resources, and agriculture consumes roughly 80–90% of India's water. The World Bank estimates that around 600 million Indians already face water stress. (The number is actually higher in many estimates)
https://www.worldbank.org/en/brief/2026/03/19/how-india-is-a...
There is also substantial pressure on land. Government data report about 97.85 million hectares, or ~30% of India's geographical area, as affected by land degradation/desertification.
https://www.pib.gov.in/newsite/PrintRelease.aspx?lang=2®=...
If you want long-term, sustainable agriculture, we need to heavily move to organic farming. This yields ~30% less food produce. I forgot the popular paper on this - can dig it up.
India has also exhausted its mineral reserves. This is not fully our fault. We were fully strip mined and utterly bankrupted by the British in WW2. https://www.pib.gov.in/newsite/PrintRelease.aspx?lang=2®=...
(IMHO that is the real reason why we got independence - the Brits didn't want to keep holding to a distressed asset and immediately liquidated. Look at Bengal famine of 1943)
We are having heavy import dependency on minerals - a ridiculous 80%!!! dependency, which is causing significant problems in our trade/current-account deficit.
So, if we want maximum ecological comfort, and long-term, prosperous standard of living, we need a significantly reduced population. You can get the number by just halving our population simply taking into account high-availability to water and then reduce further for sustainable agriculture and sustainable mineral consumption.
Not normal. Not encouraged. Not the trend line. You’re projecting a problem from other countries onto a demographic context within which it doesn’t exist. Unfortunately this is a topic where one has to actually look at the numbers.
This is deeply unsupported by the evidence I’ve seen. Organic farming tends to look far more resource intensive than modern methods. Often for little discernible gain in flavor and nutrition.
> You can get the number by just halving our population
I agree with your conclusion given the data, particularly around mineral exhaustion. (Though there is also the issue of severe mismatches. Lots of lithium, for example, yet no battery industry to speak of.)
What ? This is well-supported unless you have been sadly influenced by the brainwashing of corrupt American Agricorpos - who btw do a terrific job of FUD & misinformation. I even learned about the benefits of organic farming in high-school biology class.
"organic farming generally had higher soil organic matter, lower nutrient losses per hectare, lower energy requirements and generally better biodiversity outcomes"
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22947228/
“Organic farming enhances soil microbial abundance and activity - A meta-analysis and meta-regression” (2017)
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371%2Fjourn...
Land‐use intensity and the effects of organic farming on biodiversity: a hierarchical meta‐analysis
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4299503/
Actually, there are dozens of papers. The research is extremely supported for sustainable agriculture with the corresponding caveat of lower yields like I mentioned. No idea how you got "deeply unsupported".
Right. Modern agriculture with minor modifications (atmosphere-derived fertilizer) can yield more on less land with less water input more or less indefinitely, i.e. sustainably. To get the same yield with organic methods you need more resource inputs. It’s more resource intensive.
By the way! I like shopping at my farmer’s market. I do think the eggs and vegetables are fresher and taste better. But I don’t pretend it’s more sustainable. If everyone did what I do, we’d need to divert even more land and water and energy to farming.
India can easily become a green energy super power due to its enormous solar productivity. Think of all the industries in the 21st century that thrive with cheap power.