There question is logistic, not strategic: how long will it take to retrofit the entire's world food production system to feed 8+ bil people? Can it be done quickly enough if oil continues on a hyperbolic tragectory?
Perhaps to answer this question we would need to know the energy intensivity of food production for various locations around the globe. Obviously western food is produced with huge oil-supported infrastructure. I'm not so sure about Africa and the Far East, though...
European and American farming is optimised for greatest output per man-hour. Japanese farming is optimised for greatest output pr. area. African farming is optimised for greatest output pr. calorie of input.
I.o.w. after the oil crash, Africa will not be any more screwed than usually on the food front (or at least not due to a sudden need to scale back oil use in agriculture). Japan (and presumably much of China, which I expect to be a cross between African-style and Japanese-style farming) will be able to convert, but it may hurt. Europe and the US needs to start last decade. Fortunately, we still have superior infrastructure to pretty much anywhere else in the world, and a substantial industrial base to start from (Europe more so than the US, of course, but compared to rural China it's still pretty good).
- Jake If you only spend 20 minutes of the rest of your life on economics, go spend them here.
The hyperbolic price trajectory may ensure that we get to work on the logistics while we can still produce 90 million barrels a day. When the capital development of a country becomes a by-product of the activities of a casino, the job is likely to be ill-done. — John M. Keynes
