Food Complacency
Written by Asinus Asinum Fricat on June 2, 2008 – 5:44 pm -This is meant to be highlighting the opening of the Rome Food Conference today. For far too long, we in the developed world have taken food supplies for granted. For decades, ample food stocks, a well-supplied export trade and rapidly rising agricultural productivity seemed to have confined food “insecurity”, in the west at least, to the history bin. Cause and effect: it has proved a costly complacency, the scale of which we are only just beginning to realize (latest diaries here, here and here). Have we forgotten the European famines of the war years, the end of British food rationing in 1953, and the US food shortages of the 1930s?
I’m eagerly awaiting the findings of the Food Summit in Rome (which starts today) organized by the United Nation’s Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) though mixed signals have already been sent by same agency: Food prices to remain high despite higher output.
As the officials throng the meeting rooms today, uppermost in their minds is, hopefully, likely to be the stark warning of higher prices for cereals, oilseeds, sugar, meats, milk and dairy produce (pdf). Beef and pork prices could rise by 20 per cent within ten years, wheat by 60 per cent and vegetable oils by up to 80 per cent, forecasts the report.
Meanwhile, the question remains this: will the representatives of developed nations in the northern hemisphere consider themselves at least partly culpable for what is now termed the global food crisis?
Clearly some should. By what collective amnesia did western policy-makers come to regard food and key food ingredients as something the west should buy mainly on world commodity markets? Uh?
Across the Atlantic, particularly in the United States and Brazil, growing crops for fuel rather than for food is increasingly swallowing up millions of acres of highly productive agricultural land formerly devoted to food production.
According to the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), biofuel production is responsible for only a 2-3 per cent increase in global food prices while reducing the consumption of crude oil by 1m barrels a day.
However, Keith Collins the USDA’s recently retired chief economist told the Washington Post that ethanol was “the foot on the accelerator of corn (maize) demand.”
Even blunter was Merritt Cluff, one of the authors of the FAO report:
- “We are very worried about biofuel policy. US government incentives for ethanol producers are distorting the market.” I hear him.
Of course, other factors are driving global food fears: higher oil prices (boosting food production, processing and distribution costs), emerging Asian economies and weird weather patterns (Australian droughts, rampant desertification) among a host of other irritants.
A lackadaisical attitude to economics has become painfully obvious when it comes to planning global food production and distribution, it has failed so far to produce any solutions and will continue to fail in a 21st century challenged by oil dependence, rocketing consumption and volatile weather unless politicians start to utilize their prime weapon: political will.
Decisive action must be taken to solve the current food crisis. Let’s hope this Rome conference will address at least some of the problems. I will do a diary to sum up progress, if any.
Tags: Community, FAO, Food Supplies, Global Food Insecurity, Rome Food Conference
Posted in Diaries |
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This is an extraordinarily complex subject. It makes the electromagnetic spectrum look like a children’s book by comparison. I offer the following observations, likely none original on my part.
The world population is greater than ever. Whilst this is an obvious statement, it is perhaps the overriding aspect. With more and more people to feed, and a finite production base, simple supply and demand increases the relative value of foodstuffs.
The cost of energy is a huge factor, especially in western farming methodologies. Fuel, fertilizer, pesticides, and transportation are ultimately either derived from petroleum or highly dependent on it. Another supply and demand situation.
Water is another prime consideration. Much of the hungry world has little, and not much can be done about that. The alternative is to do what we are doing, and that is convert water in water rich areas to crops. However, we are depleting our groundwater supplies much faster than they can be replenished.
The “Green Revolution” of the 1960’s was an illusion, and merely postponed the inevitable, or perhaps may have even accelerated it. Whilst we were able to stave of starvation for millions with that effort, the increase in the use of petroleum, water, and other resources were mostly responsible, and it was unsustainable.
When I was a kid in the 1960’s there were around three thousand million humans. Now there there are around six thousand million. The “Green Revolution” allowed populations to explode my thousands of millions, ever more dependent on petroleum and water to sustain that mass.
We are entering, in my opinion, to a biological limit of the environment. This concept is called “carrying capacity”, and it is defined as the upper limit of a sustainable population in a particular environment. Above carrying capacity, lack of resources, accumulation of toxins, disease, or a combination causes a catastrophic decline in population and the cycle repeats.
This time, the cycle as we know it can not repeat. The petroleum has peaked, as has the water, and the population continues to grow. When a collapse occurs, and it will, the growth curve will be much more gradual because the very resources sustaining the growth will forever be restricted.
I do not mean to sound like a gloom and doom person, and an usually pretty optimistic. But I am also professional scientist and know how to interpret data, and the data are not encouraging. I was always told not to bring up a problem unless I have some approach to mitigate it, so here it is.
First, stop population growth. Whilst this the the most effective mitigation approach, it is the most difficult to enforce because of basic human rights. However, not to consider it is akin to thinking that an operable tumor that is killing the host should be left in place and other means be used.
Second, modify the monoculture practice now used. Monoculture is very resource intensive, and needs to be examined. While there is a near term benefit of economics of scale, the long term potential for devastating disease in crops is very real, viz, the wheat blight in Africa even now.
Third, forget about converting crops to fuel. Except for isolated cases, it is a losing proposition. Better to utilize waste products and what is considered to be wasteland for that. Algae bioreactors fed by coal fired electricity plants are one example.
Well, enough ranting. Warmest regards, Doc.
In reading Michael Pollan’s The Omnivore’s Dilemma, I’ve just learned that industrial corn actually costs more energy calories from petroleum to produce than they provide in terms of food.
I assume the same is true when the corn is converted to biofuel. Which begs the question: setting aside the implications for loss of actual food productvity, why the HELL would we do that?
I despair. I swear I do.
There are two main reasons: ethanol has replaced methyl tert-butyl ether (MTBE) as an oxygenate to reduce ozone emissions in gasoline (and is an octane booster, too), and the government heavily subsidized corn ethanol (thanks to our Democratic, mainly, corn belt politicians). It is a horrible situation, and will get better only when we all get smarter and more involved. Warmest regards, doc.
I agree with Translator that biologically, we’ve reached the population breaking point.
I don’t know if it still holds true, but one of the first lessons I was taught in science classes is that collapse generally follows the kind of population curve we’ve shown over the past 100-150 years.
Add to that Peak Oil and the inefficiency of Western agriculture.
Iow, even we were to remove the speculators (which isn’t going to happen), I think we’d be screwed anyway.
We’re way past the breaking point.
Sustainable population seems to be about 1.5 billion for the planet. We are currently between 6 and 7 billion. Die-off is imminent and Malthus was right.