Cost-Effectiveness of Interventions for Alternate Food to Address Agricultural Catastrophes Globally

Abstract

The literature suggests there is about a 1 % risk per year of a 10 % global agricultural shortfall due to catastrophes such as a large volcanic eruption, a medium asteroid or comet impact, regional nuclear war, abrupt climate change, and extreme weather causing multiple breadbasket failures. This shortfall has an expected mortality of about 500 million people. To prevent such mass starvation, alternate foods can be deployed that utilize stored biomass. This study developed a model with literature values for variables and, where no values existed, used large error bounds to recognize uncertainty. Then Monte Carlo analysis was performed on three interventions: planning, research, and development. The results show that even the upper bound of USD 400 per life saved by these interventions is far lower than what is typically paid to save a life in a less-developed country. Furthermore, every day of delay on the implementation of these interventions costs 100-40,000 expected lives (number of lives saved multiplied by the probability that alternate foods would be required). These interventions plus training would save 1-300 million expected lives. In general, these solutions would reduce the possibility of civilization collapse, could assist in providing food outside of catastrophic situations, and would result in billions of dollars per year of return.

Potential of microbial protein from hydrogen for preventing mass starvation in catastrophic scenarios

“…There are other foods such as greenhouse grains, vegetables, etc. in the tropics ( Alvarado et al., 2020 ) and seaweed farming in the ocean among others ( Denkenberger and Pearce, 2016 , 2015 ) that could be deployed in such a scenario with a faster production ramp up, but with much lower protein content and quality. This is due to the high resource intensity of HOB technology, requiring a significant amount of specialized equipment and qualified labor.…”

“…To the best of our knowledge, neither the United Nations nor any particular government has a publicly available response plan to a sun-blocking scenario as described here. Alternative foods that do not require much or any sunlight have been proposed in academia as a more cost-effective solution ( Denkenberger and Pearce, 2018 , 2016 ) than increasing food stockpiles, given the astronomical cost of storing enough food to feed humanity through a 5 to 10-year nuclear winter ( Baum et al., 2016 , 2015 ).…”

Micronutrient Availability in Alternative Foods During Agricultural Catastrophes

“…In the Hyogo Framework for Action [57], this study supports preparedness and identifying risks. Previous work has shown that investing in interventions using alternative foods is cost effective in both the US [58] and globally [59]. However, to be prepared, these solutions for food catastrophes must be distributed, so this is a gap in the Post 2015 Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction in that this area is not adequately addressed.…”

Food without sun: price and life-saving potential

“…Though production of these foods could technically be scaled up without preparation, preparation makes the success more likely. The cost of research, development, and planning would be very low, and therefore presents a cost-effective way of saving expected lives assuming that the alternate foods would be affordable (Denkenberger and Pearce, 2016). This means that this preparation makes sense for organizations/individuals who value saving lives, such as United Nations affiliates, international aid and development government programs, nongovernmental organizations performing international aid and development, and government programs targeted only at their own citizens.…”