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THURSDAY, MAY 1 INPUT-OUTPUT ANALYSIS OF AGRICULTURE Today we will look at farming and food from a more quantitative or numerical perspective, both at the scale of farms and human diets, and at the scale of the food security of nations. Begin by reading a quantitative analysis of the critical role of nitrogen in agriculture and diet, by our old friend Vaclav Smil. Then look at a national-scale analysis, by poking around on Gerhard Heilig's magnificent Can China Feed Itself? website. You won't be able to read it all, but surf it thinking of the question raised by Smil about dependency on artificially fixed nitrogen, and more generally, thinking of the question of population and resources. Today, we will discuss the topics of local food systems and food security in light of the question raised by Smil in many of his works: if so much of agricultural production is now dependent on artificially fixed nitrogen, and fixing nitrogen artificially depends on the Haber-Bosch process, which consumes fossil fuels, what is the proper policy toward food security for the coming decades when the earth will still need to support another 2.5 to 3B people? After this, I will lecture on the implications of the changes in the Chinese diet and in Chinese agricultural an aquacultural practices for China and for the rest of the world. |