Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84; site oddjob.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!cbosgd!ihnp4!gargoyle!oddjob!eva From: eva@oddjob.UUCP (Eva Browder) Newsgroups: net.politics.theory Subject: Re: Let them eat the Gross National Product Message-ID: <975@oddjob.UUCP> Date: Fri, 27-Sep-85 17:31:40 EDT Article-I.D.: oddjob.975 Posted: Fri Sep 27 17:31:40 1985 Date-Received: Sun, 29-Sep-85 05:21:59 EDT References: <3476@topaz.UUCP> <28200078@inmet.UUCP> <1790@psuvax1.UUCP> <192@gargoyle.UUCP> <119@oberon.UUCP> <202@gargoyle.UUCP> Reply-To: carnes@gargoyle.UUCP (Richard Carnes) Organization: U. Chicago, Astronomy & Astrophysics Lines: 27 [This article is by Richard Carnes -- I am borrowing someone else's account while our machine is down.] Sorry, my information about what happens to the world's food output was out of date. In 1981 livestock consumed about one-half of all grain produced. Today it is likely that OVER HALF of all grain is fed to livestock. And not only grain: some of the staple foods of the poor are used as livestock feed, e.g. the cassava, a staple in Africa. A large proportion of the soybean harvest is fed to livestock, and I think fish are used in some livestock feed. (Sources available on request.) Since a very large proportion of the world's food output is fed to livestock, and since livestock in general yield much less nutritional value than they consume when they eat grain and soybeans, this amounts to a huge waste of food when 15-20% of the world's population doesn't get enough to eat. In general, this is not the result of governments decreeing that livestock must be fed at the expense of the poor. It is the result of marketplace transactions: the poor can't afford the grain, the big landowners and ranchers can. Brazil is a good example, where the majority of the rural poor are malnourished while about half of the basic grains are fed to livestock. Now I am waiting for some economist type to explain why this colossal misallocation of resources is really the most efficient, since it is the result of free-market transactions. Richard Carnes, ihnp4!gargoyle!carnes