Peak food is a term for the moment in time when food production per capita will peak and then start to decline. Many people believe this will be at the same time that oil production peaks simply because on a farm in North America or Europe nothing at all can be produced without natural gas for nitrogen fertiliser and oil to power machines and make pesticides. No oil means no food and less oil means less food. As this moment may already have passed everyone should be concerned. This is because world population is increasing at the rate of about 80 million per year but more significantly, many millions in developing countries like China and India are moving up the food chain, eating more meat which needs much more land. Every day there are more people to feed but less good agricultural land. When there is a shortage of oil either through natural decline, terrorist attack or due to unreliable suppliers,  this will only be exacerbated. And, it really is when because this shortage will happen sooner or later.  Today’s agriculture needs tractors which need diesel. If there is no oil there will be no tractors. And it’s no good thinking we’ll go back to horses and oxen because we in the West don’t have them or the people to manage them.Â
Unfortunatly, there are many other threats to food production coming at just the same time as energy uncertainty:
Climate change is already causing crop losses due to droughts, floods and other weather extremes.Â
There is loss of farmland due to desertification, erosion, urban and industrial sprawl, and road building.
Fisheries are collapsing. Wild fish is the only major food source that has no human or fuel input up to the time of harvest. Overfishing is causing fish stocks to collapse so that the per capita supply of fish is expected to decline rapidly.
There are water shortages. Agriculture is having to compete with cities and industry for water at a time when aquifers are being depleted and river flows declining in many areas.
Each year massive areas of land are being turned over to produce crops for biofuels such as biodiesel from oilseeds and ethenol from maize and sugar cane . The way this is being done will reduce food supply.
The concept of peakfood should put things into perspective for those of us in the West. Instead of worrying about where we are going on holiday next year or what colour to paint the kitchen, we should be seriously thinking about if our children will have enough food in the very near future.
My book, Famine in the West, goes into more detail on this and outlines solutions.