THE GREATEST ENERGY TECHNOLOGY OF ALL TIME - The Moral Case for Fossil Fuels - page 49

MORE FOSSIL FUELS, MORE FOOD: HOW THE OIL INDUSTRY SOLVED WORLD
HUNGER
Paul Ehrlich declared in the 1968 sensation The Population Bomb that “the battle to feed humanity is
over”—and he was in good company. 21 In 1969, the New York Times reported: “While there have always
been famines and warnings of famine, food experts generally agree that the situation now is substantially
different. The problem is becoming so acute that every nation, institution, and every human being will
ultimately be affected.” 22 A group of leading American intellectuals wrote an open letter declaring: “The
world as we know it will likely be ruined before the year 2000. . . . World food production cannot keep
pace with the galloping growth of population.” 23
In 1968, the world's population was 3.6 billion people. 24 Since then, it has doubled, yet the average
person is better fed than he was in 1968. 25 This seeming miracle was due to a combination of the fossil
fuel industry and genetic science—such as the achievements of the great Norman Borlaug, who bred new
revolutionary wheat varieties and introduced new farming techniques to Mexico, India, Pakistan, China,
and parts of South America.
Modern agriculture, like every modern industry, runs on machines, and fossil fuel energy is our leading
source of machine food. Therefore, fossil fuel energy is the food of food.
For example, oil-powered mechanization causes a dramatic increase in the amount of farmland that can
be cultivated per worker.
Formostofhumanhistory,agriculturalworkwasdonebythemusclepowerofhumansordraftanimals,
placing a low ceiling on the amount of farmland that could be harvested—and requiring often 90 percent
of populations to be devoted to farm labor. The oil industry changed that by making available cheap, con-
centrated energy that could power tractors, combines, and other forms of high-powered farm equipment.
Matt Ridley, author of the valuable survey of human progress, The Rational Optimist, describes the value
ofmechanization onhisownfarm:“Amoderncombineharvester,drivenbyasingleman,canreapenough
wheat in a single day to make half a million loaves.” 26 A single man, made into an agricultural Superman
by the power of oil.
Another example: Oil-based transportation causes a dramatic increase in the amount of farm products
that can be brought to market.
For the vast majority of human history, the world was full of patches of useless potential farm-
land—useless because the land was too far to ship from. When men and goods travel by horse or mule, let
alone on foot, the shipping costs quickly exceed the value of the cargo. But the twentieth century's gradu-
al increase in oil-powered transportation—railroads (modern railroads are powered by diesel engines),
freighters, and trucks, especially—brought an enormous amount of remote farmland, once too expensive
to ship from, within the reach of anyone in the city, state, country, and eventually the world. The cheaper
transportation became, the more farmland came into the global agricultural economy, and the more plenti-
ful and affordable food became.
By the same token, the cheaper transportation became, the more new seeds and other supplies could be
brought to new locations to make previously low-performing land yield a giant amount of crops. Much of
the green revolution led by Norman Borlaug involved bringing in new, more resilient forms of wheat and
rice to places like India; this was expedited and amplified by cheap, global, oil-powered transportation.
Another example: Gas-based fertilization increases the amount of crops that can be grown per unit of
farmland.