Latest Moan From You and Me 2024

All new builds should have Solar Panels fitted as part of planning consent.

 

Plant breeders are hard at work trying to produce rape varieties that are unpalatable to the flea beetle that causes the problems.
They are also looking to develop sugar beet varieties that are resistant to the virus yellows that cause loss of yield in sugar beet.

 

It sounds good, but another pest is bound to come along.
You cant beat nature, it will always win in the end.

The way I see it, its only technology that is keeping us all fed ATM, without it we would be starving.

 

@pete, I think the pressure for using all these pesticides comes from the giant corporations with a stranglehold on much of the western world's food production/manufacture.

Solar panels create vegetation deserts and may really become a problem down the line, especially as AI will need land for energy production over food.

I agree population growth control would be the most beneficial thing humans could do for the future of the planet.

 

If only I could grow edibles in the same quantity as I could grow weeds, and with the same amount of input, I wouldn't have to buy food.
Except chocolate!!

 

I've always thought if the whole world became carbon neutral over night, the biggest problem will always be feeding an increasing population.

Big business has lots to gain, on both fronts.
But I think we would struggle without them.

 

But would we be starving? At the moment, a lot of the "food" produced is empty calories with negligible nutritional value. We could manage without it and funnel the resources expended (water and energy in particular) into making nutritionally dense products. Plus, ditching the empty calories stabilises blood sugar meaning you feel fuller for longer and eat less anyway. Of course, the food conglomerates really do not want that to happen.

 

Sounds delicious.
Not sure I want it to happen either, there is a difference between living and surviving, and I prefer to live.

 

My old ma grew up in a working class but comfortable family with three siblings. They were born in 1908, 1910, 1912 and 1915.

She used to tell me, when as a child in the 1950s, I whined for a bar of chocolate, that every weekend her father, my grandfather, would go to the local corner shop and buy the children a bar of Cadbury’s chocolate. Just one bar between four. Just a small bar of milk chocolate with the word “Cadbury’s” inset into it. My mother, as the youngest, got the first section which she always said was broken off after the capital C. Her brothers and sister got the other three parts of the bar, broken off into quarters.

That was a treat. Once a week.

Expectations have got out of hand when it comes to sugar and sweet things. So many children these days are spherical. Something has to be done to save them from themselves.

 

So are you suggesting we go back 120yrs.
I agree food is bad these days, but the choices are there, it up to us how we spend our money.
Not sure I want governments telling me what I can eat and what I cant.

The big problem is everything is based on convenience these days and take aways and deliveries, the fat ones dont cook, you can spot them in a crowd.

 

Why not go back 120 years if 120 years was healthier than now? My mother and her siblings lived in a small village and the nearest primary school was three miles along the coast in a town. They all walked to school and back from the age of five. They were all fit. My uncle, a bit of a tearaway, on snowy winter days used to steal “tumshies” (sheep food) and eat them straight from the soil on his way to school. He used the snow to wash off the soil. He had a fine set of teeth and could swim for miles until he was in his 70s.

 

Global oufits like Bayer-Monsanto have made fortunes out of binding farmer sto glyphosate and GM seed contracts. They are not alone. Kraft, Cocoa Cola (particularly high pollution quotient) and their ilk have invested millions in finding cheap foods full of chemicals and addictive ingredients that rob the uninformed of their health and longevity. It is immoral and should be stopped rather than condoned by govts who have a duty to inform themselves and then take measures to protect their citizenry, icluding teaching them about nutrition.

There is a major problem across the world, particularly in poor countries, with food being produced but not consumed. This can be due to war but is most often due to poor transport links so it can't get to some communities and poor storage so food rots and is wasted before it gets distributed. If that could be sorted out food availability would increase by significant percentages.

In the UK households throw out an amazing amount of food and so do supermarkets and food outlets. In France SMs are obliged to offer excess food to food banks rather than just dump it.

As for solar panels, there is absolutely no excuse for solar farms on agriculturally viable land. There are car parks, warehouses, factories, public buildings and so on that could all be covered with PV panels. Rolling out loft insulation to every home and office building would cut down energy use enormously.

There are creative, long term projects that can be introduced quite easily with a bit of imagination and thought and a wee look around to see how other cultures are doing it.

 

Were into rose coloured glasses territory here

People were dying of malnutrition in city centers, people were dying of all kinds of disease and it really wasn't as good as it might seem looking back.

I've recently seen some pictures of the turn of the century in London and it was diabolical.

My own Mother lived in London in the 30s, some of the stories she told me about queueing up saturday mornings in the rain and snow with a push chair to get some coke from the gas works were awful, no, it was a terrible time for many.

 

and just when I thought I'd read all the weird things about Toronto..

'IT MAKES NO SENSE': Toronto residents asked to stop throwing feces on workers

Toronto residents asked to stop throwing feces on workers | Toronto Sun

I can understand their frustration but really?

 

Even if the worlds population was not growing, the demand to grow and produce more food will still increase. As prosperity spreads across the world so does our eating habits, as the demand for meat, eggs and dairy products increases, so does the demand to grow more corn and soybeans to feed more cattle. So it's not just about feeding a growth in population but also a growth in richer diets. They reckon to feed a population of 9 billion you have to double that when you take into account countries are becoming more wealthier. They reckon by 2050, we will need to double the amount of crops we grow to feed both, a growing and richer population.