What if Malthus Was Right?

A Practical Guide to Determine Who Will Starve First.

The Reverend Thomas Malthus is one of the most misunderstood and demonized authors in the history of science. He is a good illustration of the principle that, in the long run, everything you write will be misunderstood and you’ll be reviled for things you never said. But could it be that Malthus was right when he said that the growth of the human population on Earth cannot continue forever because of the limits to food production? If that’s the case, reaching the limits may have rather unpleasant consequences for many of us. Sorry that this post is a little pessimistic; maybe a lot. But the subtitle of my recent book, “Exterminations,” is “preparing for the unthinkable,” and this is what this post is about.

As I am writing my new book “The End of Population Growth,” I am delving into some rather unpleasant matters. The question I am asking myself is: suppose that the global economic system falters in the midst of wars and financial conflicts, then every country will have to rely on its national resources for food production. Many countries have a food production deficit, and their citizens can only have enough food by importing it. So, imagine a catastrophic collapse of the global financial system, something similar to what we saw in 2008, but worse. If importers cannot pay, food will not travel to where it is needed; most of it will rot where it is produced. It is what happened during the Irish famine that started in 1846. There was food available in the world market, but the Irish had no money to pay for it, so millions starved to death.

If something like that happens in our times, who’s going to starve first?

The question is not easy to answer because most of the data reported in the various sites dealing with food import/export use monetary or weight units, and do not consider the calorie content of different kinds of food. So, for instance, you could think that Italy has an excess of food production because it exports wine and other expensive agricultural products, which generate a positive trade balance. But, of course, not even Marie Antoinette would have said that if the people don’t have bread, they can drink Beaujolais wine (BTW, she never said the sentence about bread and cake — just like Malthus, she was reviled for something she never said!).

So, I asked my good friend, Grok 3, to search the data and convert exports and imports into calorie units. Even that is a partial assessment, because people don’t just eat calories — they need good food rich in nutrients. But, for sure, they can’t eat money, so this analysis will do as a first approximation.

Grok came up with this table based on the FAO trade statistics, and reasonable caloric estimates based on commodity volumes and average caloric densities (e.g., cereals at ~3,300 kcal/kg, soybeans at ~3500 kcal/kg). The data excludes non-foods such as wine and others. These are rough estimates, not official figures, for a sample group of countries. If you need data for other countries, Grok can do the same work for you. Other AIs can surely do the same.

Net negative kcal values indicate a calorie deficit. Take into account that people normally eat about 2500-3000 kcal per day (more than that in the US), and 2000 kcal per day is normally set as the lower limit for the food people need every day. So, if Japan has a trade deficit of nearly 1300 kcal per person, it means that in the case of an interruption of the food trade, every Japanese citizen would lose about half of their calorie supply. In stark terms, Japan’s caloric deficit could threaten severe food shortages for much of its population, a scenario not unlike that of Ireland in the 19th century. Things look bad, although not so bad, for most of the Western European countries. Overall, the people in EU countries would maintain a sufficient food supply for their citizens if they shared the European food production among them. Would they really do that? Interesting question…

Instead, Brazil, the US, and Russia are doing very well with a significant oversupply of calorie production. Surprisingly, even India has a positive balance, despite its large population and its fame as a place where people often experience famines. But that’s the miracle of the green revolution and its fertilizers, pesticides, GMOs, and the like.

The table is a good indication that some regions of the world have neglected national food production. That puts their citizens at risk. In a difficult period like the one in which we are living, this is a condition of fragility that puts people at serious risk of starvation. Tariffs are fashionable nowadays. They are not directed at food exports/imports, so far, but if they were, they could easily become a weapon of mass extermination.

But it is a partial view of the situation. As it is well known, modern industrial agriculture is mainly a process that transforms fossil fuels into food. So, in a situation of a breakdown of the globalized trade system, fossil fuels would not be available for those countries that don’t produce them. Agriculture is one of the most fossil fuel-dependent activities in the economic system. Without fertilizers, pesticides, and mechanical energy for irrigation, refrigeration, transportation, and more, modern agriculture can produce almost nothing.

So, in the case of a global collapse of the financial system, a country that fully depends on imports for its fossil energy needs would see its national food production strongly reduced. To give you an idea of how dependent countries are on fossil imports, here is a table showing a “Fossil Fuel Independence” (FFI) parameter as the ratio of national production to the sum of national production plus imports. A value of FFI=1 indicates that the country is fully independent, FFI = 0 means that it imports everything it consumes

Of course, all this has to be taken with a lot of caution. Plenty of different scenarios are possible, and the shock might be mitigated if it is not too abrupt. But the tables give you some idea of how things stand.

If you have been thinking about emigrating, then Russia looks like the best choice for you and your family in terms of survival. Japan is the worst, while the US remains the land of opportunities, for good and for bad. I would also take China into consideration because they are making a tremendous effort to wean themselves from fossil fuels, and they are succeeding at that. They also have a technological power that no other nation has. Finally, being imbued with Confucianism, they will have a tendency to benevolence, and they will at least try to avoid that their citizens will starve. I would also give Ethiopia a chance: they have plenty of problems, but at least they understand that they need to get rid of fossil fuels: they are the only country in the world that forbids by law the sale of cars powered by thermal engines. Western Europe is possibly the worst place in the world in terms of survival perspectives. They are not as densely populated as other regions of the world. However, instead of working to strengthen their food resilience, they are planning to squander the few resources they still have on a huge military buildup. That could destroy their economy for good and let’s say nothing about the consequences on food supply.

There is no perfect country to live in, but it has always been so from the beginning of the entity we call “civilization,” always a risky place to be in. My book, Exterminations, examines various kinds of events in history that led to the demise of large numbers of people in a short time. Famines are among the factors that can lead to this outcome; it has happened many times in the past; it may well happen again in the future.