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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
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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Sorry, my information about what happens to the world's food output was out
of date.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