Only One Country in the World Produces All the Food It Needs, Study Finds 92
Out of 186 countries, only Guyana produces enough food to self-sufficiently feed all its citizens without foreign imports, according to new research. From a report: The study, published in Nature Food, investigated how well each country could feed their populations in seven food groups: fruits, vegetables, dairy, fish, meat, plant-based protein and starchy staples.
Worldwide, the study found that 65% of countries were overproducing meat and dairy, compared to their own population's dietary needs. It also found that Guyana, located in South America, was the only country that could boast total self-sufficiency, while China and Vietnam were close behind, being able to produce enough food in six out of seven food groups. Just one in seven of the tested countries were judged self-sufficient in five or more categories.
Worldwide, the study found that 65% of countries were overproducing meat and dairy, compared to their own population's dietary needs. It also found that Guyana, located in South America, was the only country that could boast total self-sufficiency, while China and Vietnam were close behind, being able to produce enough food in six out of seven food groups. Just one in seven of the tested countries were judged self-sufficient in five or more categories.
Re: Stop eating animals (Score:4, Funny)
Soy bois count as plants.
Re: Stop eating animals (Score:2)
Soy boi protein is what you get when you're rude to your waiter. It don't make you a vegetarian.
Re: Stop eating animals (Score:1)
Protein? Nah. Protein substitute. Kinda looks the part but just doesn't get the job done.
Re: Stop eating animals (Score:2)
Ok, short king.
Re:Stop eating animals (Score:5, Insightful)
Why? The article is talking about countries producing their own food. Is importing food a bad thing? I mean, Canada isn't going to be able to grow oranges or bananas. And if importing is a bad thing, how does that lead to a conclusion that we shouldn't eat meat?
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Considering that one of their groups is fish and there are lots of landlocked countries without massive fresh water sources for fish either. Importing is generally going to be a lot more logical than, for example, creating a massive indoor aquaculture operation to meet the self-sufficiency requirements for this research.
Re: Stop eating animals (Score:2)
What's stupid about the whole thing is that plenty of people have thrived without fish at all. In fact the entire concept of food groups is basically a crock of shit. Your body just needs a specific set of micronutrients that it can't make on its own, basically all of which are available from pretty much any meat as long as you also eat the fat.
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They are talking about food groups. Congrats any land-locked country fails because they can't produce a certain food group. A group that some people don't even like.
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And if importing is a bad thing, how does that lead to a conclusion that we shouldn't eat meat?
There are many arguments going back and forth about raising meat for food, but given the fact humans could get their protein from many sources, it’s not likely the most energy efficient food source.
And anything we’re overproducing that is also something we need to feed, is a problem being compounded.
And if you’re wondering why you shouldn’t eat meat, dare to audit an American CAFO. You’ll probably never eat meat again after you find out what classifies as “food”.
Re: Stop eating animals (Score:2)
As far as I know it is near impossible for humans to survive without some source of animal protein. India which has a large percentage of vegetarians who receive significant animal proteins through dairy.
Once you are old enough you can get by for a long time without animal proteins, but babies cannot survive without animal proteins (and yes mother's milk count as a source of animal protein).
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/u... [nbcnews.com]
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Everything you know is wrong. [youtube.com]
Re: Stop eating animals (Score:2)
Once you're old enough you can survive the rest of your life without animal protein.
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Animals have been eating other animals for as long as there have been animals. If doing so weren't the most efficient food source, at least for carnivores, why would evolution have produced carnivores? Evolution has a way of finding very finely-tuned diets.
There is no problem finding food for our livestock. There is more than enough feed to go around. In fact, the share of the world's land area dedicated to agriculture has gone down over the last 100 years, despite the world's population more than doubling.
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Growing fruit like banana's and oranges isn't impossible in Canada, and it won't be at sufficient scale for the whole population, but there are ways to do this. And no, those methods don't cost you an arm and a leg regarding energy/heating costs either. See here [lowtechmagazine.com].
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You think digging those trenches is cheap?
The article was literally talking about countries being able to produce their own food at a scale big enough to feed the entire population. Saying, "Well you can do it, just not at scale" doesn't enable a country to feed itself.
Re: Stop eating animals (Score:1)
Are the rich more human than soi boys or are you cherrypicking?
Misleading (Score:5, Insightful)
While a balanced diet is good for health, its not strictly required. It also ignores that agricultural resources can be redirected if needed. As long as a country produced a sufficient amount of food to meet the *caloric* needs of its population (regardless of what groups those fall into), then I'd consider it self sufficient.
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Yeah, but "it's good enough" isn't a crisis, and without a crisis, nobody is going to give them grant money to lead the charge against it.
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While a balanced diet is good for health, its not strictly required. It also ignores that agricultural resources can be redirected if needed. As long as a country produced a sufficient amount of food to meet the *caloric* needs of its population (regardless of what groups those fall into), then I'd consider it self sufficient.
Given the political stranglehold the crop has, I’d say California is bound and determined to survive on almonds alone.
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Re:Misleading (Score:4, Interesting)
Almonds require less human labor to grow and harvest.
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Almonds require less human labor to grow and harvest.
But they do require a shit ton of water, thirsty bastards. Also we have hit peak almond with some orchards being cut down.
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Re:Misleading (Score:4, Interesting)
A quick Google search without much backup research shows lawns in California use ~5% of state water usage and Almond crops use ~14.5%-16.5%, so about a third give or take?
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To understand how to correctly use statistics, consider that the percentage of California water used to grow papyrus rounds to 0.0%, and yet papyrus needs a lot more water than almonds.
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Almonds also require a hell of lot of water. A commodity that is in notably short supply in Southern California.
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We'll surely avoid scurvy if we all eat an orange.
Stay away from the Flavoraid (Score:3, Funny)
Impossible math (Score:1)
Out of 186 countries, only Guyana produces enough food to self-sufficiently feed all its citizens without foreign imports
So only one nation is exporting enough food to support the food needs of 186 countries? And that one country is Guyana? It seems like there is something wrong with their math here....
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self-sufficient /slfs-fshnt/
adjective
Able to provide for oneself without the help of others; independent.
So those countries have enough food, they just choose to trade it for something else. If they all decided to stop trading, then they would still have enough food, right? That fits the definition of "self-sufficient" in my mind.
Re: Impossible math (Score:2)
Nothing wrong with the math. You're ignoring trade. If Mongolia produces meat and dairy, but insufficient fruits and vegetables, and Ukraine produces wheat, but insufficient meat and dairy, they enter into trade, they both get the food they need, and neither produces enough food for domestic consumption.
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You're ignoring trade. If Mongolia produces meat and dairy, but insufficient fruits and vegetables, and Ukraine produces wheat, but insufficient meat and dairy, they enter into trade, they both get the food they need
So you're saying that if they ate everything they made, instead of trading it, then they would be "self-sufficient"? In other words, they have enough food, just not all of the items people prefer to eat? I don't get why this is a story. Isn't that how everything works? I am "self-sufficient" but I don't literally grow my own food, I produce something the food grower wants, and then I trade them for food.
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No, it's only saying that Guyana is not a net importer of any of the 7 specified food groups. For example, the USA and Canada are net importers of fruits, vegetables, and fish, and are self-sufficient in dairy, meat, legumes/nut/seeds, and starchy staples.
Guyana (Score:2)
Just looked it up to verify. Guyana is almost one of the world's wealthiest countries and is getting richer. Seems like only 20 years ago they were one of the poorest. Nowadays in terms of per-capita GDP purchasing power they rank higher than the USA. The secret -- they found oil just a few years ago. Reference: https://www.statista.com/stati... [statista.com]
Random video of what it's like in Guyana: https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
I havent been there, but looks worth checking out.
Re: Guyana (Score:2)
Venezuela is on the verge of invading Guyana. Hold off on buying plane tickets.
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Just looked it up to verify. Guyana is almost one of the world's wealthiest countries and is getting richer.
Sort of. Large oil reserves were discovered in 2015. According to Wikipedia, Guyana "is now ranked as having the fourth-highest GDP per capita in the Americas after the United States, Canada, and The Bahamas. According to the World Bank in 2023, very significant poverty still exists and the country faces significant risks in structurally managing its growth." A case could be made that Guyana the country is rich, but it's certainly obvious that much of Guyana the people is poor.
Step 1... (Score:5, Insightful)
Step 1: Create arbitrary definition of self-sufficiency. ...
Step 2:
Step 3: Publish stupid article and become famous for a day.
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I wish i was the one on watch.
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The definition isn't completely arbitrary, but it also isn't useful. Having availability of a balanced diet is a good thing but in times of war or international supply chain disruption you'll be perfectly fine if you skip a couple of food groups. Heck I've been skipping fish for years.
Why is importing food a bad thing? (Score:3)
Not every part of the world, can grow every crop. Oranges and bananas and rice don't grow in Canada, and countries in desert climates have trouble growing any kinds of crops. On the other hand, those countries can export other things, such as minerals. Trade is a benefit, not a harm. There is no reason countries should strive to grow all their own food.
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There is no reason countries should strive to grow all their own food.
Other than wanting to eat, if they are cut off by war, or embargoed or sanctioned for some reason.
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I see all of these risks as good things. If you don't want to be cut off by war, or embargoed or sanctioned, find ways to make peace with your neighbors. If it hurts when those things happen, don't let those things happen! We, and especially countries, are not powerless.
Growing everything at home on security grounds, makes it easier to be obnoxious to your neighbors.
Re: Why is importing food a bad thing? (Score:2)
When there are world issues, preventing trade, then the countries that import food heavily risk famine.
The USA and France (two countries I'm familiar with) produce enough food for their internal need and export a lot of surplus food. They do import a lot of food as well but things that are less cost effective to produce locally such as some common fruits and vegetables. Bananas and oranges were luxury items in most of Europe 100 y ago.
Japan is one country that would be in trouble if they could not get food
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World issues that prevent trade, are precisely why we *should* trade more with each other. If we are deeply embedded in each other's economies, we are less likely to be obnoxious to our neighbors, because cutting them off will be as difficult for us as for them. Countries that are self-sufficient, are more likely to be belligerent to their neighbors.
Shortcuts (Score:2)
Clearly these guys missed this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com] with a few famous faces. Wikipedia explains it https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org] but really how much can take from a study which has clearly taken shortcuts.
But what if I don't like (Score:2)
The taste of guyana?
wrong assumption leads to wrong conclusion (Score:2)
Meat and Dairy aren't being overproduced or overconsumed, even if they have risks, they are standing against the biggest problems facing world health. Dieticians might be asking people to replace meat and dairy with asparagus and quinoa but people are fat and malnourished because they're eating too much corn and other low nutrition density, high calorie foods.
This stands as a good reminder that if your assumption is that everyone else is wrong there's a good chance it's actually you.
Re: wrong assumption leads to wrong conclusion (Score:1)
What about examples such as Aristarchus whom everyone believed was wrong for proposing a heliocentric theory of the solar system? Or Ignaz Semmelweis who advocated washing hands before surgery when every other doctor (such as President Garfield's) thought that what you can't see can't hurt you?
Yet another map that doesn't have New Zealand (Score:2)
It is a conspiracy!
https://youtu.be/HynsTvRVLiI [youtu.be]
"national self sufficiency" (Score:1)
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Look at the US and the EU. Or the US and the ASEAN countries. Or the US and Canada. Or the US and Mexico.
Sure, the US was always mercenary, but did you ever expect to see it go full evil? Threatening invasion or economic destruction to any nation that isn't rendering tribute? Just a little over a decade or so I'd have said it would never happen, but here we are.
That's why every nation should be able to support its own population. Even with a really great mutually beneficial partnership, you're one gen
hardly an honest attack (Score:2)
"[The US] started with a puritanical streak a mile wide, then threw slavery into the mix." - first, what does a puritanical streak, assuming such a thing were real and mattered at all, have to do with importing vs producing food? Second, EVERY region on the surface of the Earth and EVERY culture in human history had slavery at some point, and SOME STILL DO. Indeed, the very word "slave" is a throwback to the servitude of white slavic peoples. The Europeans had slaves (Roman empire ring any bells?). The Asi
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One global economy where multiple points exist that are a single point of failure is already showing signs of being a real problem that we are blindly ignoring.
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I think this is probably the most insightful comment in the thread, being able to produce everything in our own countries should not be the goal. Getting along so we can have fair trade should be the goal.
More countries could produce all of the food they needed, if they tried. But they would have to lean heavily on certain foodstuffs which work where they are in order to do that, and diets would become necessarily less diverse as a result for almost everyone.
That's impossible (Score:2)
Why aren't they starving to death then?
Deceptive garbage "study" (Score:2)
First, note the slippery words used:
The post says "only Guyana produces enough food to self-sufficiently feed all its citizens without foreign imports..." - it's NOT saying only Guyana is CAPABLE of doing it (though that's implied). That sentence alone also implies, by saying "without foreign imports", that countries other than Guyana that are sufficiently feeding their people are NEEDING to do it with imports. If you drill down to the actual study, you find the line "Over a third of all countries cannot me
No country (Score:2)
Produces everything it needs; it must trade. That's why Trump's tariffs are a disaster. Autarky doesn't work and every country that has tried it has ruined its economy. This is Economics 101, people.
By what metric? (Score:2)