ten percent

TEN PERCENT

On this big ‘ol ball of mud we call a planet, just ten percent of the place has arable land suitable for crop production.  There are several problems with this.  First, a lot of people who are not farming that land live on that land.  Right smack dab on a fertile chunk of land lies bowling alleys and movie theatres and homes.  This isn’t just here in the US but a leftover from the last seven thousand years or so when there wasn’t modern transportation but rather folks needed to be right next to the crops they planted.  You needed to roll out of bed and start hoeing your asparagus immediately.  In some places such as the Nile, you couldn’t do that because of the annual flooding that re-fertilized the ground.  You pretty much had ALL the arable land available for planting ( which is another reason they were the other successful long term empire ).  If transportation wasn’t an issue than neither would the amount of available land be.  But we are stuck with all that farmland being shared with non-farmers.  Which means that historically the great majority of the population lived on that ten percent.  What has happened recently was that as transportation became easier and more widely available people moved away from the ten percent of land and food was shipped to them.  But the 10% kept increasing in population at the same time.  So here is where we are today.  A LOT of population lives both on and surrounding the arable land we have.

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So, here is a very simple question for you.  What happens when fuel for transportation becomes scarce?  If you said “everyone living on crap land moves toward arable land in a desperate attempt at survival” you win a Bison Loyal Minion Brownie Button.  Follow the migration patterns in Africa.  It doesn’t matter if folks walk away for weeks towards a possible death by the hands of border guards, bandits or refugee camps.  To stay is certain death.  To go, at least a small possibility of survival exists.  This is the herd mentality you will see in our very near future.  Folks will gravitate towards farmland.  If you are there, you are a target.  The areas already overcrowded are going to get even more crowded.  You can take that to the bank.  Is that where you want to be living?  While it is true that growing food is paramount to long term survival, being in an area already overcrowded because its fertility and soon to be drawing far more people is NOT good for short term survival.  This is what keeps me sleeping soundly at night- I’m in a place nobody wants to be.  The few idiots that desperately cling to this area like piglets on a sow trying to suckle at the corporate left over wealth of mining will desert the place as fast as the money dries up.  You put so much effort into avoiding nuclear targets or natural disaster sites and have instead put yourself on ground zero so you can garden.  Good job.

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