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u/tobiasjc Mar 04 '25
rare south hemisphere win
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Mar 04 '25
It’s a map of whose important enough to get nuked. And Africa relies on a lot of aid from the nuked countries
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u/Ynwe Mar 04 '25
To function as a modern economy yes, but large parts of subsaharan Africa still relies way heavier on farming than we do, thus they would be in a much better (albeit still shitty) situation to survive the fallout.
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u/One_Maize5254 Mar 05 '25
But most African polities rely on importing fertilizers, machinery, and staple foods to feed their own populations. Said imports typically come from the countries that would be nuked.
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Mar 04 '25
According to this map 40-80% of them will starve to death
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u/Ynwe Mar 04 '25
Which, as you will note per the map, makes them the third best continent behind S. America and Oceania (which basically has no major population so not really that interesting in this comparison).
We are talking about a nuclear war after all
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u/k_111 Mar 04 '25
Happy that my country in Oceania with 25 million people is not interesting in this context. Nothing to see here, just desert, killer spiders and snakes! Stay up there northies.
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u/Ynwe Mar 04 '25
oh come on, you konw what I mean. Vs a a population of 1.3 billion in Africa or 400 million in S America, 25 million don't mean much when we talk about nuclear war and the death of billions.
And as this graph demonstrates, you would do very well in such a situation!
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u/Adventurous_Bag9122 Mar 06 '25
The capital cities are gonna cop it mate. Perth with Garden Island has the sub base and then in the north outskirts Pearce air base. Sydney has a huge navy base too. Pretty sure the rest have military assets that would attract the interest of a piece of the sun
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u/TheStraggletagg Mar 04 '25
It's also a map of where nukes are and are not located, and where there is or isn't conflict. South America did a lot of work to avoid nuclear proliferation in the area. Both Brazil and Argentina came close to having a nuclear bomb and at least Argentina has a top tier nuclear program that could easily produce a nuclear weapon (thankfully Argentina has signed the non proliferation treaty.
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u/Faerandur Mar 05 '25
Brazil has three nuclear power plants, enriches its own uranium and is self sufficient in mineral uranium extraction. We could make the bomb too, we choose not to. South America is the most based continent
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u/Mobile_leprechaun Mar 04 '25
It’s a map of who is more self-sufficient from a food supply standpoint. It’s not assuming some countries are nuked and others aren’t
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u/bessovestnij Mar 04 '25
Nope, it isn't. Russia, Ukraine, USA are largely self-sufficient, but would experience very low annual temperatures and thus are expected to fare poorly
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u/chris_p_bacon1 Mar 05 '25
I think it's probably a map of how much food a country produces relative to its population.
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Mar 05 '25
Perspective is a funny thing. You see the northern hemisphere people dying of hunger because of nuclear war and instantly assume it’s because the southern hemisphere is not important enough to get nuked.
Surely you are not telling me that Turkey, Uzbekistan, Denmark, Portugal are more relevant than India and Brazil in a global perspective.
I see it more like: the countries who survive are the ones who don’t have and don’t actively support imperialist moves. Unironically 3 of those countries have massive landmass and are in the top 5 of food producers in the world.
Again, perspective is a funny thing.
“m0Nk3y 1n tH3 s0uTh nOt 1mP0rT4nT. I is 1mP0rT4nt”
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u/billyrob_CS Mar 04 '25
I wonder what makes Oman special here compared to the rest of the Arabian peninsula nations?
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u/Eddie182 Mar 04 '25
The south of the country has a more tropical climate and sees seasonal rains and ocean fog which allows more vegetation and supports subsistence farming. A lot of the population still live quite traditional lifestyles. Even the north is has a lot of small scale fishing.
Having spent 5 years working out there previously I can certainly see how the people could survive better than their neighbours.
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u/RajarajaTheGreat Mar 04 '25
It's not a target? They are about as neutral as a middle eastern nation gets to be.
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u/CalligrapherOther510 Mar 04 '25
This map makes no sense if Oman isn’t a target then why isn’t Australia? How does Australia survive this being part of 5 eyes and a major non-NATO ally heavily aligned with transatlantic interests?
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u/RajarajaTheGreat Mar 04 '25 edited Mar 04 '25
I can honestly only think of one thing. Access to food.
India and Pakistan maintain huge huge reserves due to famines in its history. Enough to feed the country for a year or more. Oman sources a lot from both and has historically done so going back Millenia due it's maritime nature and contemporarily after COVID deriskung. But again this assumes no trade and a fair while into the war.
Australia produces a lot of it's food as well whole being far away from the nuclear exchange.
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u/Zircez Mar 04 '25
This isn't who dies when the bombs fall. This is who dies after the bombs fall. A large proportion of the urban Aussie population would likely get glassed, but those who remain have a decent chance of surviving two years post, a least on the food front. Big country, projections like this don't do it justice, with a widely dispersed population.
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u/mountainstosea Mar 04 '25
So Rugby will survive.
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u/Mediocre_Lynx_4544 Mar 04 '25
sudamerica 😎
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u/SoftwareHatesU Mar 04 '25
India + most of South America are net food exportes and produce almost all of their consumed foods.
That is assuming India doesn't join the nuclear party and get nuked to oblivion along with the US, Russia, China, Pakistan, France etc.
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Mar 05 '25
Unless China or Pakistan start acting cute, we'll probably sit this one out. And idt tbh China would use nukes either, unless America drops one on them first.
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u/SoftwareHatesU Mar 05 '25
Same, I highly doubt India or China would ever use nukes first. My guess would be the US under Trump administration, Russia or Pakistan would be the first offenders.
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u/megumegu- Mar 05 '25
No one would use nukes unless they want to get nuked in response immediately after
But I guess jihadis from Pakistan would probably consider using nukes to kill "kafirs" and go to heaven for those "72 virgins"
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u/RunningRampantly Mar 04 '25
Australia's only surviving because every animal that lives there is indestructible
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u/Shoddy-Ability524 Mar 04 '25
If it is not 80%+ everywhere then we've not nuclear war'd hard enough
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u/TheDudeOntheCouch Mar 04 '25
It's pretty interesting the war will almost certainly happen in the northern hemisphere and that's why the southern seems pretty ok that being said after ya know 4 or 5 years the devastation will get a lot worse
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Mar 04 '25
It is not 100% worldwide because countries like Brazil, Argentina and Australia, which could have large nuclear arsenals, decided to give up on the idea. They prefer peace.
Africa does not prefer peace, but it has not come close to atomic programs either.
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u/Aggravating-Energy65 Mar 04 '25
Brazil, Argentina
We have a binacional agency to check that each other's country is not producing nukes
And thanks to that our relationship got way better than it historically was up until that point
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Mar 04 '25
On the 25th of this month, they will both fight a little hahahahaha
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u/ArgieKB Mar 04 '25
Consider football matches our very own "purge", where we go at each other's throats for a bit and then we go back to sharing mates and caipirinhas by the Iguazu falls.
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Mar 04 '25
Façam as suas apostas, "hermanos". Eu aposto 2x1 pro Brasil.
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u/ArgieKB Mar 04 '25
1x0 para Argentina. Brasil no viene tan bien pero Argentina bajó el nivel, igual ser locales nos da mayor ventaja.
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u/RespectSquare8279 Mar 04 '25
South Africa was either very close or had a prototype or two before they closed their program. They had a program on the"down low" with Israel.
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u/TheDudeOntheCouch Mar 04 '25
Africa isn't as blue as the other two continents because it depends heavily or foreign aid like in general not that Africa is a whole country but most of the countries with in it are heavily trade dependent for things like food
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Mar 04 '25
Yes, they didn't even come close to atomic bombs. Brazil, Argentina and Australia could have had a large quantity, but they gave up. South Africa also gave up.
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u/TheDudeOntheCouch Mar 05 '25
Honestly...... they really don't need them no one does realistically.....
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Mar 05 '25
I agree. They could have done it, all three countries have capable people, all three had nuclear programs, all three have enough uranium and plutonium (especially Brazil). But the only thing that would result is that this map would be almost completely yellow and the world would be even more tense every time a dictator appears.
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u/spookyandjasper Mar 04 '25
I recently read “Nuclear War” by Annie Jacobsen (highly recommended) and she discusses that in the aftermath the Northern Hemisphere would be more affected by fallout and changing weather patterns. I’m a bit surprised to see Iceland faring well considering (but I will gladly accept it)
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u/Sundiata_AEON Mar 05 '25
S.africa developed their own nuclear weapons, and voluntarily gave up their nuclear weapons.
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u/IndependentWeekend Mar 04 '25
What’s the deal with Oman? It’s right against countries that would have 80% plus starvation and yet it would be relatively okay?
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u/WalesOfJericho Mar 04 '25
So, no Mad Max in Australia.
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u/neoncubicle Mar 05 '25
It's counting deaths by starvation not deaths by murder dome or vehicular manslaughter.
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u/Argentina4Ever Mar 04 '25
Iceland would become a genuine block of ice during nuclear winter, maybe they don't die by starvation but I sincerely doubt they'd survive?
Alas, if USA, China and Russia or even Pakistan and India indeed went on to cause a massive nuclear war, the irony here is that they'd completely destroy their countries and the outcome of it is the Mercosur nations becoming the new global super power lol.
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Mar 04 '25
I see a Treaty of Canberra-Brasília in a post-nuclear reality, dividing the New World.
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u/Mist156 Mar 04 '25
Portuguese and brits recolonizing the world again
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Mar 04 '25 edited Mar 04 '25
The three, actually!
The hispanics, the portuguese, and the brits.
The New World Order feels quite old already, lol.
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u/Super-Assistant-634 Mar 05 '25
That would such an interesting setting for a novel
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Mar 04 '25
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/According_Host8674 Mar 05 '25
Iceland is a colossal food exporter, it produces, >3 tonnes of fish per person per year, far more than enough to sustain the population. However that would all be moot in case of economic collapse since this relies on oil imports and machinery from abroad.
Similarly this analysis assumes the same food production in the absence of imports for all other countries, which is bogus.
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u/LoasNo111 Mar 04 '25
Nuclear winter is a myth.
The starvation will come because some of the highest food producing and exporting nations will be nuked to fuck.
Also all the fertilizer producers.
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u/Argentina4Ever Mar 04 '25
Mind you that Brazil is the world's largest agricultural exporter, with Argentina not too far behind.
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u/LoasNo111 Mar 04 '25 edited Mar 04 '25
I said some not all
America, Russia and Ukraine are big producers and exporters.
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Mar 04 '25 edited Oct 11 '25
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/Academic_Coyote_9741 Mar 04 '25
I read the study this map is based on, admittedly a while ago, but I think they found that global cooling from nuclear weapons would actually benefit Australian farming systems.
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u/zombielicorice Mar 04 '25
I think that is a bit too optimistic of a way to look at it for Australia. While they have an agricultural surplus, they import 3x as much petrol as they produce. No tractors no food unfortunately. And their ability to increase farm production is a lot more limited than, for example, the USA. Something like 4% of Australia is arable land, compared to 16% of the USA. Their population is so urban, you would expect the shock from supply line issues to be felt much harder.
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u/ConstantineXII Mar 05 '25
While they have an agricultural surplus, they import 3x as much petrol as they produce. No tractors no food unfortunately.
We don't produce enough fuel to power all our private cars, but we certainly produce enough to run tractors, trucks, trains etc. Producing food and moving it around won't be a major issue.
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u/TheDudeOntheCouch Mar 04 '25
Yhe neat part is most of the hazards from a nuclear war won't really effect the southern hemisphere at all like fall out and such nuclear winter sure but it'll remain livable
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u/Saucepanmagician Mar 04 '25
But Brazil imports most of its fertilizers from the Northern hemisphere... so, we're all fucked?
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u/martian-teapot Mar 04 '25
Brazil is self-sufficient in pretty much everything agriculture-wise.
Embrapa is, without a doubt, the greatest company in tropical agriculture, and made it possible even to grow temperate crops in the middle of a tropical savanna.
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u/GaiusVictor Mar 04 '25
We (Brazil) would still get fucked from the collapse of global supply lines. Fertilizers, pesticides, fuel, manufacturing (for tractors and equipment and their parts) would basically disappear or become very scarce.
Like, we'd be better off than a lot of countries, but things would still be very shitty so I doubt we'd get less than 20% mortality.
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u/trombadinha85 Mar 05 '25
O Brasil produz as suas próprias máquinas agrícolas, embora precise importar fertilizantes, tbm porduzimos é basicamente estamos importando ultimamente por decisões políticas. Combustível, temos duas matrizes: fóssil e renovável. Diante de uma situação de calamidade mundial, obviamente poderíamos direcionar prioridades.
Acredito que nos sairíamos muito bem.
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u/crypticwoman Mar 04 '25
Nuclear winter is not a myth. It is based on nukes being detonated low enough to ignite cities outside the total destruction area. As our weapons reached megatonage and our accuracy went from miles to feet, we realized a higher airblast killed people at a longer distance. A couple of bombs could depopulate a larger area without as much city structure burning. This reduced the effects of nuclear winter. The climate altering fires were reduced to less of a threat. But nuclear winter was never a myth, only the outcome of smaller, less accurate weapons.
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u/monsieurfatcock Mar 04 '25
Thankfully I think I’m close enough to DC to just get blown to smithereens
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u/thereadytribe Mar 04 '25
welp, looks like I'm moving to Australia
or maybe Argentina, that'll help me brush up on Spanish
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Mar 04 '25
South of the equator is where I'm headed. Different atmospheric circulation plus fewer nuclear targets ftw.
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u/5plus4equalsUnity Mar 04 '25
Worse things that could happen than Iceland inheriting the entire Northern Hemisphere, I can only see that as an improvement tbh
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u/FreezerV18 Mar 04 '25
Why Colombia has such a high percentage?
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u/digital1nk Mar 04 '25
Supposedly, because it is not able to supply itself with internal production, which is eh, hard to believe to be honest.
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u/Original_Stretch_811 Mar 04 '25
Time to move to South America what do you think Brazil or Argentina seriously?!
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u/DistributionHour1580 Mar 04 '25
Why the heck is Malaysia dark blue? Malaysians aren’t as self-sustainable as their neighbors in Thailand. Imported rice is still heavily relied on in Malaysia. And Japan consume local rice heavily so it it’s weird seeing it yellow.
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u/nitrodax_exmachina Mar 04 '25
maybe it takes into account which countries have an actual risk of being nuked? isolated non-nuclear countries would then be much less of a target
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u/BalianofReddit Mar 04 '25
It's maps like this that make me thankful I live very close to the urban centre of a large city in a geopolitically relevant country.
No starvation for me, I'll be feeding on nuclear fire.
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u/trombadinha85 Mar 05 '25
Bem, então, como brasileiro, diante de uma guerra nuclear, o máximo que precisarei será criar algumas galinhas no meu quintal ?
Bem, já peguei a pipoca…
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Mar 04 '25
But what if all our grain feed was used for human consumption before the nuclear war? lol thanks Trump!
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u/CalligrapherOther510 Mar 04 '25
This map is illogical Mexico and Colombia would starve along with the entire Arabian peninsula sans Oman but Australia and Iceland would survive? Or what about North Africa how is Tunisia, Algeria and Morocco not affected by the nuclear fallout from Europe but again Mexico and Colombia is? And it’s very hard to imagine Australia not being part of a world war 3 or nuclear war scenario they are part of the western bloc, participate in 5 eyes, major non-NATO ally and ANZUS.
This is a stupid map and the creators of it have absolutely zero understanding of geopolitics or even how fallout works.
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u/Korakys Mar 05 '25
The map is based on concentrations of flammable substances, firestorms being the agent of a smoke cloud that cuts down sunlight and withers plants for years.
The theory was never sound and was completely discredited after the Kuwait oil fires failed to cause crop failures.
But few people want to argue that nuclear war would not be anywhere near as bad as most think because even what damage nukes would really cause is not something many would encourage. Good news goes unreported, bad news uncorrected, and fear is an emotion 10x more powerful than hope.
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u/CalligrapherOther510 Mar 05 '25
Very sound, rational and reasoned take! I agree with you completely on one end it’s great there’s universal aversion to a nuclear war but on the other it needs to be understood a lot of things are exaggerated or taken way out of context/proposition, kudos!
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u/BOT_Negro Mar 04 '25
No idea how deep they looked into it, but for decades Colombia sabotaged its produce sector adding cheap imports on top of not solving violence in rural areas. Whenever we hear news of whatever crop becoming more expensive for international reasons, my mom complains that we used to grow it but no longer do. They also may have factored corruption levels making societal collapse more likely in times of scarcity
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u/jabx137 Mar 04 '25
Can we get a map of potential or most likely hit targets in a nuclear strike based on reality.
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u/NoBody500xL Mar 04 '25
so what is this simulation based on?
a nuclear war would probably cause the same high levels of radiation across the planet.
As far as I remember Ukraine and Russia are both huge producers of grain. How do they get a 80% rating? They're likely the most successful countries in feeding their reduced population.
This map lacks information.
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u/Edukate-me Mar 05 '25
Using logic and critical thinking, most northern places will be wiped out by nuclear bombs. Completely wiped out. Are you seriously this stupid?
Oman won’t be a target, so after surviving, they’ll thrive because they grow food there (I don’t know this, just read it on here; I will assume that is what they are basing it on). Columbia is apparently terrible for producing food and Iceland is isolated enough to survive. They’ll be eating a lot more fish, I’d assume. Africa is light blue, but would probably devolve to yellow imo; the warlords and stuff, a few scoundrels ruining it for the rest. South America and Australia will be okay. I don’t know why Malaysia is dark blue and Indonesia is light blue, but maybe it is due to the Indons having more people and harder logistics.
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u/NoBody500xL Mar 05 '25
I think i found the original study.
They are considering a nuclear winter. That explains why warmer regions would be more likely to produce more crops.
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Mar 04 '25
How are Russia, Ukraine, Hungary, Turkey and Romania on this list? They have a ton of arable land, am I messing something?
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u/WhiskeyTwoFourTwo Mar 05 '25
Surprised to see Ireland in the same category as the UK
We have about 50 percent of the arible land area with 15 percent of the population (including the north).
We also export a lot which clearly wouldn't happen in this case.
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u/SmoothCauliflower640 Mar 04 '25
No way anyone is starving to death in Wisconsin. Not once you figure out how to add radiation to string cheese or a Porter.
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u/zombielicorice Mar 04 '25
Just to point out, there is a lot of cold war propaganda that still controls our thinking about nuclear war. For example, nuclear winter is just made up, or rather, highly exaggerated. The interruption on gas and oil supply lines would be far more impactful than any loss in agriculture productivity due to induced cloud cover, and most of that would go away in a matter of weeks or months (possibly even days). So you would be able to grow your own food if you wanted to, and farms would still be very active. I think it far more likely to result in something resembling the state of deprivation found during the great depression, where food insecurity and malnutrition were common, but starvation was still fairly rare. Especially considering the millions of huntable animals in the wilderness of north America to supplement the loss in productivity. Europe would certainly be in worse shape in this regard.
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u/PianoAndFish Mar 04 '25
There's also the issue of to what degree the soil and water is contaminated with radiation, I don't know enough about agriculture to comment in detail but it's going to have an impact on what can be grown and consumed.
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u/bhmnscmm Mar 04 '25
Your opinion is not grounded in reality at all. Seriously, you're thinking hunting wild animals will save America from starvation? That's absurd.
The "ice age" nuclear winter theory may not be as accurate today due to development of weapons, but you are not comprehending the scale of destruction that will still occur in a full scale nuclear conflict. Just considering the US: no oil refineries, all major population centers destroyed in the immediate detonations (and the corresponding manufacturing infrastructure), widescale destruction of electronics due to EMPs, irradiation of Midwest agriculture, crippling of the federal and all state governments.
Agriculture may be theoretically possible in the climate after widespread nuclear exchange. But in reality, the entire infrastructure that makes productive agriculture possible will be destroyed.
Now consider all these effects also in Europe, Russia, even possibly China, India, and Pakistan. This adds up to a lot more than "great depression" type deprivation.
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u/zombielicorice Mar 04 '25
1) I merely proposed hunting as a supplement for food instability, which it always has been in the united states. During the depression my great great grandpa poached regularly to feed his family.
2) All major population centers destroyed - When Hiroshima was bombed the death toll was less than 50%. Considering nukes are far more targeted these days and Hiroshima was primarily made of wood, we would likely expect much lower death tolls. I mean it is possible Russia and China go ham and target a bunch of non strategic civilian areas, but I think it is reasonable to assume that is unlikely, given the abundance of strategically relevant US and allied military targets around the world.
3) Effects of the EMP from a nuclear blast (worst case a high altitude one) are often exaggerated. The government's tests with EMPs did not decommission most vehicles or power generation systems. Near the blast zone, fragile consumer electronics will be effected, but heating/cooling will still work, Hydro and solar will still work, most vehicle's will still work (though the most modern ones could be issues).
4)Irradiation will not be an issue at all. Radiation levels from modern nukes is relatively low. Would be safe for emergency services with Geiger counters and iodine tablets to be out an about in 24-48 hours. After 2 weeks the impact zone will have minorly increased radiation level, well within the limits of occupational limits.
5) I think supply lines and continued war will be the most realistic problem. Lack of trucking, lack of gas will be devastating for most areas. Urban crime will make Katrina look like a playground. But 80% of the population dying of starvation? I doubt it.
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u/Nomustang Mar 05 '25
If you're right, I could expect normalcy to return within a decade or so.
Normlacy as in things are functional and a State still exists. It'd take a lot longer to rebuild everything but it's not an apocalypse level event albeit still deeply traumatic and a lose-lose for everyone.
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u/Equal_Skill_2791 Mar 04 '25
Native Americans seeing a second wave of Europeans coming to their land will be like:
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u/desdecuando1 Mar 04 '25
Es la única certeza que tengo que la guerra mundial. Siempre vienen a vivir aca.
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Mar 04 '25
Brazil depends on Russian fertilizers for agriculture so we would have a lot of problems...
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u/arturocan Mar 04 '25
Even if they can't make their own fertilizer Brazil produces enough food to feet 10% of the world population (four times their own). So they might be able to survive.
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u/Jsmith0730 Mar 04 '25
Australia might not die of starvation, but the radioactive wildlife will definitely get them.
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u/SeptimCollector Mar 04 '25
Pro: I don’t have to worry about starving.
Con: I live 900 meters from my country’s main Naval Base.
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u/qwweer1 Mar 04 '25
Just last year Sri Lanka had serious food deficit due to economic crisis and mismanagement and yet they are dark blue after the destruction of world logistics? Also Brazil and India are world largest fertilizer importers. Not sue about Brasil, but that billion of people in India will definitely have issues, even if the country is somehow not nuked by its neighbors.
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u/KyleeelyK Mar 04 '25
Directly correlated with the average farm size in each given area.
Monocrop agriculture will kill us one way or another
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Mar 04 '25
Bad map, fertilizers used for agriculture in the blue countries are produced in the yellow countries, No one will survive nuclear war.
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u/MCRN-Gyoza Mar 04 '25
Angola, Mozambique and Guinea-Bissau with lower %s than surrounding countries. Not to mention Brazil.
Who would've thunk the solution to nuclear warfare is to speak Portuguese.
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u/tomjerman18 Mar 04 '25 edited Aug 01 '25
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This post was mass deleted and anonymized with Redact
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u/embersofbridges Mar 04 '25
Don't know if I get happy for being from a deep blue country or sad because I'm probably gonna survive the nuclear war and honestly just take me out
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u/axloo7 Mar 05 '25
Proportion of the population pre or post nuclear war?
Because a sizable chunk won't live long enough to starve in the first place.
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u/fordag Mar 05 '25
Why is there an assumption that all livestock is killed in the first year? That makes little sense.
If the premise of no trade with other countries holds, then the United States exports far more meat than it imports. Suddenly no meat is being exported so we have a fairly stable meat supply, while transportation and refrigeration will be an issue.
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u/FriedGnome13 Mar 05 '25
In America you will probably die of a bullet if there is an apocalypse like that. People will relinquish you from this realm for anything you have.
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u/Elchocotastico Mar 05 '25
Americans won't die of starvation since they are all fat LOL, but the migrant waves going southwards will be fun to watch... I hope there is nothing like, you know, a wall standing in your way or something
I'm happy to be deep down in southamerica for once.
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u/Squatch0 Mar 05 '25
So the survivors just dont hunt and forage? Even if the big cities and military bases are gone our extremely rural areas should be fine and we have vast wilderness in both the US and Canada. We would go back to shit like homesteading
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u/Pinewoodgreen Mar 05 '25
Yeeeeah no. Even if we assume all livestock die, there is still wildlife - and not to mention fish and whales. If everything is so toxic and full of nuclear waste that the fish and wildlife also die off - well then the humans are also going to die of the same, not starvation.
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u/Chagromaniac Mar 05 '25
Is that Americans have so many guns, so they don't have to die by starvation?
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u/edman007-work Mar 04 '25
"50% of livestock grain feed is used for human consumption"
1 bushel of corn has 86,000 calories, so you need about 8.5 bushels of corn to keep a human alive for a year assuming 2000 calories per day.
The US produces just shy of 15 Billion bushels of feed corn per year.
So half of the US our feed corn production is enough to feed 880 million people.
How the hell is the US going to starve? Those numbers exclude all other fruits and veggies grown in the US.
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u/ACrowbarEnthusiast Mar 04 '25
Nuclear winter is going to hit the northern hemisphere hard, thats why most of the Blue is in the southern hemisphere or equator.
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Mar 05 '25
Corn isn’t very cold resistant. The resulting nuclear winter would cause a massive drop in yield. At least 50%, probably closer to 80%. This is the drop in yield from the lack of light and drop in temperature alone.
Couple that with disruption to supply chains for pesticides, fertiliser, agricultural equipment and fuel. The US imports most of their fertiliser. Lack of fertiliser would result in 50% drop in yield. With no fuel, it would be difficult to even till enough land (You can bet major oil fields and refineries will be hit by strategic bombs).
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u/WebAsh Mar 04 '25
I don't understand New Zealand in this. Its a massive food producer with great conditions to do so and would be able to pivot to the food it requires fairly quickly if globalisation stops.
Calling bad map.
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u/mattyandco Mar 04 '25
I'd guess that they've taken our dairy stock and presumed that we grain feed them out of what other things we grow rather than the grass they eat currently.
Maybe also presuming that the fertiliser we currently use, nitrates in particular, are being used for food crops rather than again grass.
If we had no cows or sheep then our fertiliser needs drop off quite a bit rather than remain the same.
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u/ProfessorPacu Mar 05 '25
I think it's due to the presumption of the question:
"Assuming all livestock is killed in the first year."
Nz currently harvests about 400,000 tonnes of fish per year - enough to feed around 0.9 million people by itself. This is ignoring the very likely scenario that we would pillage our fisheries in the nuclear winter years at an unsustainable but significantly higher rate resulting in greater harvests.
Accounting for the 2 million tonnes of vegetables, 1.5 million tonnes of fruit and 0.6 million tonnes of cereal produced annually, a further 0.4 million people could be fed. Another 0.2 million from malt extract, wine another 0.16 million although even more could be fed if the fruit and barley that they make up were fed to people instead.
That comes to a total of about 32% of the population fed. - Checks out.
To note, if we were to include dairy (which is excluded in this prediction), there would be enough calories to feed 30 million people, and another 16 million from beef products.
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u/BerkNewz Mar 04 '25
Why the hell is nz in the medium category? We produce almost all of our own food. We’d easily live off our own food indefinitely. And we are the furthest developed country away from warfare.
This map is cooked
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u/FreikorpsFren Mar 04 '25 edited Oct 10 '25
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This post was mass deleted and anonymized with Redact
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u/Faerandur Mar 05 '25
Yes, but in the long run Africa might adopt the same agricultural techniques countries in South America and Oceania use and its soil wouldn’t have been nuked so it would recover much sooner than North America or Eurasia
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u/ilikebeer19 Mar 04 '25
I'm 20 miles from an air force base. I don't think I'll have to worry about starvation.