European Tribune - Comments - Can The World Feed Its Population?

Can The World Feed Its Population? | 82 comments (82 topical, editorial, 0 hidden)

Re: Can The World Feed Its Population? (none / 0)

Efficient in the sense of getting as much food output as we can from the available resources.

by Colman (colman at eurotrib.com) on Thu May 8th, 2008 at 09:42:17 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Can The World Feed Its Population? (none / 0)

Then I don't see what is inefficient about people producing part of their needs (as far as possible) where they are, and with encouraging small farming in the less developed countries rather than see the land abandoned and the cities grow. While obviously understanding that what can be produced is more limited in some places than others, and without proposing to eliminate trade in favour of "autarchy".

Understanding also that regional policy, (eg CAP), can deal with the coordination of a lot of the differences between local capacities.

How far do you think that by "efficiency", you are in fact thinking of comparative advantage?

by afew (afew(a in a circle)eurotrib_dot_com) on Thu May 8th, 2008 at 11:57:08 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Can The World Feed Its Population? (none / 0)

Being locally self-sufficient means (to me) producing all their food locally, which is what I don't think is practical.

Isn't comparative advantage more-or-less about efficiency?

by Colman (colman at eurotrib.com) on Thu May 8th, 2008 at 12:09:58 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Can The World Feed Its Population? (none / 0)

I said "local and regional". I don't expect it's possible in most cases to be locally self-sufficient. I do think the EEC attained a fair degree of self-suffiency through the CAP (with problems and unintended consequences, sure).

What kind of efficiency is comparative advantage about?

by afew (afew(a in a circle)eurotrib_dot_com) on Thu May 8th, 2008 at 12:25:45 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Can The World Feed Its Population? | 82 comments (82 topical, 0 editorial, 0 hidden)

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