Science has a paper on the changes to the current global food system required to support the expanded global population we'll see in a couple of decades time, noting that radical changes to agriculture will be required to support 9 billion people - "Food Security: The Challenge of Feeding 9 Billion People". The full text of the article is available here.

A threefold challenge now faces the world: Match the rapidly changing demand for food from a larger and more affluent population to its supply; do so in ways that are environmentally and socially sustainable; and ensure that the world’s poorest people are no longer hungry. This challenge requires changes in the way food is produced, stored, processed, distributed, and accessed that are as radical as those that occurred during the 18th- and 19th-century Industrial and Agricultural Revolutions and the 20th-century Green Revolution. Increases in production will have an important part to play, but they will be constrained as never before by the finite resources provided by Earth’s lands, oceans, and atmosphere. ...

Recent studies suggest that the world will need 70 to 100% more food by 2050. In this article, major strategies for contributing to the challenge of feeding 9 billion people, including the most disadvantaged, are explored. Particular emphasis is given to sustainability, as well as to the combined role of the natural and social sciences in analyzing and addressing the challenge.

The father of the "green revolution" in agriculture, Norman Borlaug, recently passed away due to cancer, at the age of 95.

Borlaug didn't approve of the "green revolution" moniker, dubbing it "a miserable term" (what he would have made of "The Agrichemical Revolutionary" isn't clear) but his work has had a far-reaching impact on the course of human development.

Borlaug received both praise ("More than any other single person of this age, he has helped provide bread for a hungry world. We have made this choice in the hope that providing bread will also give the world peace", said the Nobel peace prize committee, while the UN's Food and Agriculture Organization declared him “A towering scientist” and a “great benefactor of humankind”) from those impressed by the rise in agricultural productivity he engineered, and condemnation ("Aside from Kissinger, probably the biggest killer of all to have got the peace prize was Norman Borlaug, whose "green revolution" wheat strains led to the death of peasants by the million" is a typical example from Alexander Cockburn at Counterpunch) from those concerned by the impact of the introduction of industrial agriculture around the globe.

I tend to think of food in terms of the food system, which is the whole enchillada from farm to fork. What fascinated me when studying food from this perspective was that the greatest use of food system energy occurs at the household level. Therefore, I have spent a bit of time considering how to lower energy consumption in food storage and preparation.

If I wasn't taking a food system approach and was only interested in lowering energy the consumption at household level I might suggest buying highly processed foods that can be reheated in the microwave, or precooked grains such as parboiled rice and instant oats. But with a wide-boundary perspective I am starting with the premise that the household is buying foods that are primarily local, seasonal and in raw or whole forms. (In a previous posts I went over strategies to store whole foods and low energy methods to preserve foods). Just last week Craig Bergland discussed some of the equipment and techniques used to cook stored food without your typical modern kitchen. I thought this post would be a nice addition to those previous articles.

Much of what I discuss below probably describes how folks got by with little income, as in Great Depression Cooking with Clara. Might it be possible during energy descent, the Long Emergency, or a simple bout of under employment to save energy, learn useful skills, and eat healthier than ever?

In his book, Collapse of an Empire: Lessons for Modern Russia, economist and former Russian Prime Minister Yegor Gaidar, suggests that between 1966 and 1990, 80 million Soviet farmers urbanized stalling grain production and putting pressure on the government to use revenue from oil and natural gas production to buy grain from abroad. When fossil fuel production did not expand in such a way that provided increased profits for purchasing food the Soviets had to borrow foreign money to buy bread. Loans from the West came with strings attached. Those offering the credit demanded that the Soviets no longer use force to keep their states in line and political collapse, not famine, visited The USSR.