Do You Believe What You See?

In this room where I write, I have one of those desktop globes that allows me to spin a political version of planet Earth. The globe is decades old and includes political entities like the USSR which no longer exist. Disregarding those human labels, I see vast expanses of water surrounding a few pieces of land, not all of which is arable. On that land is where the vast majority of human animals live (the rest are a few million traveling from one piece of land to another using floating transport vehicles, flying vehicles and vehicles orbiting our planet).

So, we humans cover the whole planet but only live on a part of it, including the shrinking amount of arable land (approximately 31 million square kilometers that loses about 200,000 square kilometers of arability a year due to various factors).

Currently about seven billion people have to share that arable land. It'll be nine billion before you know it, maybe even 12 or 20 billion before you think about it again. At some point we will reach a 1:1 ratio of persons to square kilometers of arable land.

As the human population grows, political entities will change shape. Many political entities were formed to give people of similar geographic and visible body features a place to call their own. As our population becomes more connected, more affluent and more mobile, one no longer has a geographic or body feature that is distinct from anyone else's. It will no longer make sense to say you are Japanese, African, Chinese or Australian because you will live in many different places, following the migration of people with your work speciality. You will designate your affiliation not by nation-state but by workplace. Country-based passports will become passe'.

While traveling the world, eating local food and enjoying local customs, will a time come when you will have to show that you have your own arable land that supports others while you're away, a type of barter system that overrides a money exchange system? In other words, you will no longer belong to a nation-state but to a food production system. Perhaps the workplace will own/sponsor arable land for its employees so that city-based workers will not have to actually work the land themselves. However, should you become redundant, what then? What about those who grow their own private stash of food that they don't register with the food production system - if found guilty of "hoarding," will they have to sacrifice their share of public/private arable land?

Your children and grandchildren will face these issues. In fact, these issues are in front of us today if we look for them, where companies are buying up large portions of seed production and arable land. To be sure, these companies are creating economies of scale that "act" in the interest of the companies' stockholders. At the same time, they're prepared for the future when food production may or may not become a high-value means of barter/exchange in the global economy.

As we humans have shown, when the price of food increases too fast or food becomes scarce, people react in violent ways, attacking the foundations of local government through riots or coup attempts. They also attack symbols of commerce such as storefronts, raiding the inventory of local shopkeepers, even those who have no involvement with the cause for the chaos.

How do we as a global population overcome such potential downfalls of future food shortages? We empower ourselves, using communication methods like twitter and whatever else comes next to redirect resources on an ongoing basis rather than let misguided market forces push us to speculative cost hikes. Some of you may say that you don't have time to keep up with these issues but if food, fuel or other basic needs of yours are unimportant, what is?

I look out of my window and have a tiny view of a neighbor's yard, covered in an inedible grassy plain. Beyond the neighbor are literally thousands of similar yards with chemically-treated greenscapes that were once fields of soybean, cotton and/or corn in the past few years. Some days, I don't believe what I see, rooftops where foodcrops used to be.

Freedom of information is important, as demonstrated many times over in the course of human history. If you read this blog entry, you now see that information exchange empowers you to choose freely. Which is more important to you, saying you belong to a particular nation-state or saying that you belong to the global population that's seeking borderless ways to feed itself for generations to come? If you choose the latter, are you going to convert your lawn to the production of foodstuff or keep the aesthetic quality of a lush green lawn for resale value? In either case, will your offspring be able to claim arable land for themselves or depend on ever-increasing food prices to decrease their overall net worth and/or buying power?