Are global famines possible? And what would one do to the world? We may be as modern as all get out but we still gotta eat.
A worldwide famine is certainly possible due to many possible (if unlikely) scenarios. If one did occur the inevitable result would be massive death through starvation, warfare and violence.
Yes. First because, to supply food, you need trucks. Anything that could perturbate roads could cause mass starvation as there wouldn't be any solution to supply the cities where most of the population is. A big city like New York can't rely on their own food supplies not even for week. Food has to travel dozen if not hundred of kilometers. Furthermore, there is the direct supply raw production => consumption. But most ofen it's production => transformation => consumption. We could add to that fact that the production of food is extremly reliant on the production of fertilizer and pesticide. As far as I know, phosphate is massively used in nowodays food production, and is a limited ressource, hard to produce. Before phosphate, almost only animal excrements could play that role. There is many places which are extremly fragile. I would says every huge cities, New York, Los Angeles, Paris could know heavy troubles if the road supplies would be troubled for any reason. Africa as a whole is weak. Despite many regions could be able to be self sufficient, they're not and they're extremly dependend of western supply. Every place with a critical amount of population, Japan, South Korea, Egypt, would face heavy problems. Furthermore, I red some things about the fact that the quality of soils become more and more poor and it become harder to get good output. In fact, I don't only think that global famine are possible, I think they're likely in the next century. I suppose that things will remain fine for a few decades. I have to admit than being optimistic is probably the last of my quality.
All big cities are a week away from hunger and food riots and a complete breakdown of law and order. All it would take is for trucks to stop rolling.
Would they riot or branch out into other communities in search of food? Or maybe both. I reckon where I live we could eat clover for a while. I also have goats. But someone with firepower .... or sneaky... could steal the goats. But we may survive here. You can't eat concrete glass and brick. .... Yes famine is possible.