September 27, 2010

Let them eat s... cake

Originally published on December 27, 2009

At the last reckoning, the world population was about 6,8 billion; divided by 1 million tons, that gives 0,294 pounds, or divided by 365, 0,3656 grams per day. So if 100 millions tons of a given good is produced annually in the world, the equal share of each inhabitant comes to 36,56 g.

I went and perused production statistics of various basic food products. Some numbers dated back to 2006, and their accuracy is not always rigorous, but as a whole they give a rather good picture.

Whenever possible I substracted whatever was destined to cattle feed, or the production of ethanol fuel. So there is what each person on earth should be expecting to find on his plate every day:

23 grams of beef
35 grams of pork
6 grams of mutton
31 grams of poultry
19 grams of egg (about 1/4 of one egg)
44 grams of fish
200 grams of milk, 31 grams of cheese and 22 grams of butter
322 grams of vegetables and 135 grams of fruit
33 grams of maize
153 grams of wheat
36 grams of soy
149 grams of rice
152 grams of vegetable oil

If you have a hard time believing those figures, you are not the only one: I checked three times and I'm still convinced I fucked up somewhere, and if someone could point it out me where I would be very grateful cause I find it quite surreal that there are people starving to death on a planet capable of delivering nearly a kilo and a half to each and every one of its inhabitant.

I didn't factor in the food destined to pets; ah ha, here it is, the cause of world hunger, our cats and dogs. We should kill them all and eat them (yeah, I know, it's not funny).

As a closer, if each of the 6,8 billion earthling had a Toyota Prius, there would be enough gasoline at this moment to let each one of them drive 4,400 kilometers each year.

http://www.21food.com/news/detail10748.html
http://www.beef.org/uDocs/IssuesUpdate/Insight%20Jan-Feb%202009.pdf
http://www.pig-international.com/ViewArticle.aspx?id=27106
http://www.thepoultrysite.com/articles/918/food-outlook-global-market-analysis-poultry-meat
http://www.mydigitalfc.com/commodities/global-wheat-production-be-a-record-2008-09-report-261
http://nue.okstate.edu/crop_information/world_wheat_production.htm
http://www.foodproductiondaily.com/Supply-Chain/Record-world-wheat-production-forecast-in-2008-09
http://www.mydigitalfc.com/commodities/global-wheat-production-be-a-record-2008-09-report-261
http://www.rice-trade.com/world-wide-rice-production.html
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2148362/
http://www.greenfacts.org/en/fisheries/l-2/01-fisheries-production.htm#0
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m3779/is_n48/ai_11907856/
http://www.fao.org/docrep/010/ai466e/ai466e09.htm
http://www.internationalegg.com/corporate/eggindustry/details.asp?id=18
http://www.dairyco.net/datum/milk-supply/milk-production/world-milk-production.aspx
http://www.rabobank.com/.../The%20world%20of%20vegetables_intro_tcm43-34783.pdf
www.fas.usda.gov/.../World%20Fresh%20Fruit%20Market%20(08-04).pdf
(and numerous others...)