I wouldn’t be concerned about a food shortage any time soon. The U.S. government, through the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP), pays many, many farmers to hold their land in reserve. This land can only be used to grow diffeent types of grasses. No livestock can graze on the grass and the grass cannot be cut and fed to livestock.
I’m from the Midwest and know several people that participate in this plan. I would estimate that there are at least 1000 acres of this land within a 10 square-mile radius of my parents’ house — and that’s just the CRP land that I know about. I don’t know how many acres are in the CRP plan, but I wouldn’t doubt if it is in the millions. Couple the CRP land with the fact that most fatass Americans eat about 3x as much as they should, and you have a population that is a long way from facing a food shortage.
By the way, things may seem crowded here, but in the rural Midwest, things are a little different. You can drive miles on I-70 in Kansas and not see a house. In many places, if you exit the interstate, you end up on a dirt road in short order. If you want space, move to the Midwest.
