The World at Peak Food
For European farmers, the last few years have seen remarkable fluctuations in profitability. When IACS was first introduced, payments were supposed to compensate us for being exposed to lower world prices. But for a few years (because world prices were high) we managed both the payments and the high prices. Of course, it couldn’t last, and grain prices declined until even the most efficient farmers couldn’t make a profit unless they had no rent or mortgage to pay.
Now we have a situation where grain prices have shot up but are highly volatile. Livestock farmers are having a terrible time until meat prices adjust upwards, and most farmers are wondering if higher grain prices are here to stay, or if wall-to-wall planting of wheat will quickly push prices back down to unprofitable levels.
In my opinion, the answer is that if we get a bumper world harvest in 2008, then prices will fall back. But this won’t be to previous low levels because stocks by then will be at record low levels and demand for both food and biofuel will still be rising.
However, what we should all be concerned about is the possibility that the 2008 harvest is really poor due to drought or other extreme weather in major grain growing regions. We would have virtually no carry over stocks to help out and once it becomes obvious that there is not enough food to go around, panic buying, hoarding and speculation would change a difficult situation in to a disaster. While farmers are more than ready for better times, I’m sure none of us don’t want a situation where people are hungry or starving!
In the medium term, the outlook for the consumer is grim due to the way the carrying capacity of the earth has been temporarily increased by the use of fossil fuels and the technologies they have powered. By using fossil-powered machines and vehicles, we have been able to get rid of the millions of horses and oxen used in farming and transport, thereby releasing the 30% of cropland previously used to grow their feed. Nitrogen fertilisers made from natural gas add about 40% to grain yields, while oil based weed killers, insecticides and fungicides have pushed yields to levels that could not be sustained without them.
The supplies of fossil fuels that have allowed the tripling of world population in the last 60 years are of course finite and are becoming expensive. We in the West are becoming more and more dependent on unfriendly and unreliable suppliers and there are many possible scenarios that could cut supplies from the middle east. Our present system of food production, processing and distribution would collapse without adequate supplies of oil and natural gas. These supplies cannot remain adequate forever and indeed are unlikely to remain adequate for much longer. However, the present increase in food prices have been caused by three main factors:
Extreme weather has cut production in certain parts of the world, and this is thought to be caused by the very fuels that have been used so successfully to boost production.
Each year millions more people in Asia move from the villages to jobs in the cities where they can afford a diet containing more meat. Such a diet needs much more land per person than a grain based diet and these people are now competing for available food.
Millions of acres of cropland are now being used to produce renewable fuels such as ethanol and bio diesel. Governments are encouraging the growing of these crops in an attempt to reduce carbon dioxide emissions and to increase energy security, but in doing so are reducing food supplies.
All of this is bad enough, but world population is expected to rise from the present 6.6 billion to 8 billion by 2025 while agricultural land is being lost at the rate of 25 million acres per year through a combination of desertification, erosion, road building and industrial sprawl.
We are entering a period when a huge population will expect more of everything when there will be less of everything. The per capita availability of oil, land, water and food will fall from now on with disastrous consequences unless urgent action is taken.
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It is extremely important that we all take a stand and move toward a more eco-friendly lifestyle. We all need to decrease the amount of resourses we currently use, and take advantage of the health benefits a lifestyle like this will produce. If everyone did their part, we could decrease our current economic, environmental problems.
The world is really at peak food crisis and this affects farmers a lot. Yet many countries starve due to lack of food and the globilisation must be helping the crisis. Regards, Denise Sasser, bronchitis autor