{"id":15073,"date":"2012-11-07T12:03:40","date_gmt":"2012-11-07T18:03:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wordpress-367309-1145705.cloudwaysapps.com\/?p=15073"},"modified":"2012-11-07T12:03:40","modified_gmt":"2012-11-07T18:03:40","slug":"full-planet-empty-plates-quick-facts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sustainablog.org\/articles\/full-planet-empty-plates-quick-facts\/","title":{"rendered":"Full Planet, Empty Plates: Quick Facts"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/sustainablog.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/11\/bean-farming-drought-nicaragua.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-15076\" title=\"bean farming drought nicaragua\" src=\"https:\/\/sustainablog.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/11\/bean-farming-drought-nicaragua.jpg\" alt=\"farming beans during a drought in nicaragua\" width=\"500\" height=\"333\" srcset=\"https:\/\/sustainablog.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/11\/bean-farming-drought-nicaragua.jpg 500w, https:\/\/sustainablog.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/11\/bean-farming-drought-nicaragua-300x199.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 500px) 100vw, 500px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><strong>Editor&#8217;s note:<\/strong> If you haven&#8217;t yet had a chance to read Lester Brown&#8217;s new book <em>Full Planet, Empty Plates<\/em>, its definitely worth your time. Take a look at <a href=\"https:\/\/sustainablog.org\/2012\/11\/the-new-global-food-crisis-lester-browns-full-planet-empty-plates\/\">our review<\/a> published earlier this week.<\/p>\n<p>With <a href=\"https:\/\/sustainablog.org\/2011\/07\/water-shortages-grain-harvest\/\">falling water tables<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/planetsave.com\/2010\/11\/15\/conserving-and-rebuilding-soils\/\">eroding soils<\/a>, and <a href=\"http:\/\/ecolocalizer.com\/2009\/05\/22\/new-study-global-temperatures-to-rise-9-degrees-by-2100\/\">rising temperatures<\/a> making it difficult to feed growing populations, control of arable land and water resources is moving to center stage in the global struggle for food security. What will the geopolitics of food look like in a new era dominated by scarcity and food nationalism? Here are a few of the many facts from the book to consider:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>There will be 219,000 people at the dinner table tonight who were not there last night\u2014many of them with empty plates.<\/li>\n<li>As a result of chronic hunger, 48 percent of all children in India are undersized, underweight, and likely to have IQs that are on average 10-15 points lower than those of well-nourished children.<\/li>\n<li>Food prices are rising dramatically. The U.N. Food Price Index in June 2012 was twice the base level of 2002-04.<\/li>\n<li>More than half the world\u2019s people live in countries where water tables are falling as aquifers are being depleted.<\/li>\n<li>A startling 80 percent of oceanic fisheries are being fished at or beyond their sustainable yield.<\/li>\n<li>Between 2005 and 2011, the amount of grain used to produce fuel for cars in the United States climbed from 41 million to 127 million tons\u00ac\u2014nearly a third of the U.S. grain harvest.<\/li>\n<li>In 2011, China consumed 70 million tons of soybeans, 56 million of which had to be imported. Almost all went into livestock feed.<\/li>\n<li>Today, with incomes rising fast in emerging economies, there are at least 3 billion people moving up the food chain, consuming more grain-intensive livestock and poultry products.<\/li>\n<li>Data for India indicate that 175 million people are being fed with grain produced by overpumping. For China, there are 130 million in the same boat.<\/li>\n<li>In Ethiopia, a prime target for foreign land acquisitions yet also a major food aid recipient, an acre of land can be leased for less than $1 per year.<\/li>\n<li>The 464 land acquisitions identified by the World Bank in 2010 totaled some 140 million acres\u2014more than is planted in corn and wheat combined in the United States.<\/li>\n<li>It\u2019s not all bad news: 44 countries have reached population stability as a result of gradual fertility decline over the last several generations.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>\u201c<em>In this era of tightening world food supplies, the ability to grow food is fast becoming a new form of geopolitical leverage. Food is the new oil. Land is the new gold.<\/em>\u201d \u2013Lester R. Brown<\/p>\n<p><em>Full Planet, Empty Plates: The New Geopolitics of Food Scarcity<\/em> is available for purchase <a href=\"http:\/\/store.earth-policy.org\/Full-Planet-Empty-Plates-p\/fpep.htm\" target=\"_blank\">online<\/a>. Get a sneak peek by checking out <a href=\"http:\/\/www.earth-policy.org\/books\/fpep\/fpepch1\" target=\"_blank\">Chapter 1: Food the Weak Link<\/a> or watch this five minute video and hear from Lester Brown himself about the main issues raised in the book.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Lester Brown on Full Planet, Empty Plates\" width=\"1170\" height=\"658\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/MBH75p7QX4I?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Data and additional resources at <a href=\"http:\/\/www.earth-policy.org\">www.earth-policy.org<\/a><\/p>\n<p><strong>Image credit:<\/strong> <a href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/ciat\/5471268183\/\">CIAT International Center for Tropical Agriculture<\/a> via <a href=\"http:\/\/photopin.com\">photopin<\/a> <a href=\"http:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by-sa\/2.0\/\">cc<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>With falling water tables, eroding soils, and rising temperatures making it difficult to feed growing populations, control of arable land and water resources is moving to center stage in the global struggle for food security. What will the geopolitics of food look like in a new era dominated by scarcity and food nationalism? Here are a few of the many facts from Full Planet, Empty Plates.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":37,"featured_media":16889,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,13],"tags":[18,1197,19,6156,1717,1906,104],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v22.0 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>A Roundup of Facts from Full Planet, Empty Plates<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Lester Brown&#039;s new book Full Planet, Empty Plates explores the challenges we face in feeding a growing population. Here are some quick facts from the book.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/sustainablog.org\/articles\/full-planet-empty-plates-quick-facts\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"A Roundup of Facts from Full Planet, Empty Plates\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Lester Brown&#039;s new book Full Planet, Empty Plates explores the challenges we face in feeding a growing population. 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