Peak Food

Today the Yorkshire Post printed the article below about Peak Food author, John Gossop.

But he considers global warming and farming’s reliance on non-renewable energy to be the greatest problems yet, and has written a book and several articles to illustrate how severe their combined impact may be.

Farmers and academics have turned to Mr Gossop’s book Famine in the West and Peakfood website for his views on how the industry will look in the future.

Now his theories are likely to reach an even wider audience after he was nominated for the Climate Change category in the inaugural Yorkshire Post Environment Awards.

The award category recognises those who show innovative, imaginative and strategic thinking in tackling or adapting to climate change.

Mr Gossop, of Swinefleet, near Goole, said: “With climate change, one of the worries is it is going to make production less reliable.

“The other thing is farming itself and the food production system is dependent on the fuels that are causing the greenhouse gas problem. We are going to have to come up with a better way of using solar energy.”

Mr Gossop believes the industry could help protect the environment by embracing changes to the conventional system of farming.

Current farming practices for these crops involve using a combine harvester to separate the seed from the stem in the field.

The seed is dried using fossil energy so that it can be stored safely in bulk, while the straw is either chopped and incorporated into the soil or baled and transported for animal bedding.

Mr Gossop said: “The present system has revolved around cheap fossil fuels but, some time in the future, if fuel becomes more expensive and scarce then food itself will become more expensive and scarce.

“We need to have a farming system that makes use of the whole crop in a sustainable way. We are so wasteful in everything that we do. If we are going to continue to support a world population using so much fossil fuels, the system must change.

“I would take the crop to a biorefinery or a processing plant which extracts all the energy from the food.

“There is as much energy in the straw as there is in the seed; by collecting the straw as well and possibly turning that into cellulosic ethanol, we would be producing enough energy to ensure the farming is self-sufficient.

“In the past we have not had to worry that we are wasting so much energy, but the system that we are proposing is about trying to get around that.

“We want to fuel farming from its own resources – as it always was.”

For more information about the Yorkshire Post Environment Awards see www.yorkshirepost.co.uk/environmentawards

Today Farmers Weekly printed the following article which was written by Peak Food author, John Gossop.   It was entitled ‘Governments must build grain reserves’.

Strategic Grain Reserves

The world should be breathing a massive sigh of relief that the Northern Hemisphere 2008 harvest has yielded big crops due to excellent weather and growing conditions in most regions. The food shortages of 2007 were managed by the market, prices went up and the poorest people in the world had to tighten their belts even further, stretching out available supplies. Higher prices also encouraged farmers to produce as much as they could in 2008.

Food prices are now falling which is great news for consumers, especially the poor, but bad news for farmers, whose production costs have risen dramatically in the last year.
We should remember that both 2007 and 2008 were exceptional years and that food supplies are bound to be tight in the future.

The fundamental problems of a world population rising by 80 million a year combined with the better diets expected by the billions in Asia will mean that demand will rise rapidly while each year the world loses around 25 million acres of land due to urbanisation, desertification, salination and biofuel production. Scientists also predict that climate change will cause drought in major food producing regions.

However, the biggest medium term problem is that our food production system in now nothing more than a method of converting finite fossil energy in to a much smaller amount of food energy. This worked well when supplies of oil for power, and gas for nitrogen fertilizer were cheap, plentiful and reliable, but will not work when the opposite is the case. As fossil fuels are finite, at some stage our input of fossil calories will have to decrease and therefore so our will our output of food calories.

Food production and prices will be volatile in the future as climatic events become more extreme and as our energy inputs become less secure. Now would be a good time for governments to build strategic grain reserves to protect the public from the disaster that a series of poor harvests would bring. In the U.K., a 2 million ton reserve would only cost about £300 million plus fairly low storage costs. As most government projects £billions, this would be cheap insurance.

WRIGHTS REGISTER ARTICLE FARMING IN THE GREENHOUSE JUNE 08

This month Wrights Register have printed an article by Peak Food entitled, Farming in the Greenhouse on their climate change page (p16):

It isn’t surprising that so many people are still skeptical of climate change in spite of overwhelming evidence that proves warming is happening. Denial is after all a well-understood psychiatric term meaning defence mechanism against painful thoughts, and this is exactly what makes people discount all evidence to the contrary, however compelling.

Some of us choose to believe that serious climate change is not happening because the consequences are just too appalling to contemplate. Tackling it would lower our standard of living in the short-term, and who wants to give up their 4 x 4 and holidays abroad?

Many people though can recall a specific television report or newspaper article that changed their thinking. My own moment of acceptance came when I realised that the natural greenhouse effect (which has been understood and accepted for many years) has made the world warmer, and that without the presence of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, life as we know it would not be possible. Greenhouse gases trap heat energy, reducing the amount that is radiated from the earth back into space, acting as a partial blanket and causing a difference of about 21C between the average temperature that we would have and the actual average of the earth surface temperature. By increasing the concentration of GHGs in the atmosphere we are enhancing the greenhouse effect. The earth is responding just as we should expect it to by warming up.

So, what will global warming mean to farmers like you and me? Well, weather patterns changing relatively quickly will be very difficult for us to deal with. Except where reliable irrigation is available, the biggest constraint on crop yield is lack of soil moisture at critical times. Farmers plant the type of crops that suit their soil and normal weather, but if the rain does not fall at the right time or is insufficient, the yield can be slashed. Of course to some extend lower yields will be offset by rises in food prices, but this shouldn’t make us complacent.

At the same time as our climate is changing we will be affected by a host of worldwide problems including a rapidly increasing population, a greater demand in Asia for the diet and lifestyle we take for granted, and competition for land from biofuels and the building of new cities and roads.

On top of this there will be oil and gas shortages to deal with. And again, before you dismiss this as far into the future, remember that both oil and gas are finite resources and many analysts believe production has already peaked. It is only a matter of time before fertilisers and diesel become more expensive.

With world carry-over grain stocks at dangerous levels, we badly need a series of good harvests to avoid the panic, hoarding and speculation that would happen if we have a series of bad ones caused by changes in weather patterns. Governments seem to have no idea of what is on the horizon, or they would be making food production and the rebuilding of grain stocks the priority it should be.

Our thanks go to Janet Richardson for printing it. What do you think?

Last week (April 18th 2008) Farmers Weekly printed a comment by Peak Food writer, John Gossop, on their Talking Point page. Can’t Produce Food if Fuel Tanks are Empty (435 words long) explains how one of the greatest dangers to world food security is a sudden shortage of fossil fuels.

Some of David Richardson’s recent articles have correctly pointed out that we once again face the prospect of food shortages. He estimates that over the next 40 years it will be necessary to double the total production of food while using less land and less water.

I fully agree. But, to appreciate the size of this task, we should consider the way that we have managed to increase food production over the past 60 years and decide if we can rise to the challenge.

The massive increases in yields have been achieved using equally massive inputs o resources such as phosphate and potash, but, most importantly, fossil fuels in the form of oil and gas to provide us with power, nitrogen fertiliser and pesticides.

Farming has become a highly efficient way of converting prehistoric sunshine – conveniently stored for us as oil and gas – into food. We now use, on average, 10 calories of fossil fuel energy to produce one calorie of food energy. This conversion rate works well when oil and gas supplies are cheap, reliable and infinite, but doesn’t work well when the opposite is the case.

In the early 20th century, about 30% of farmland was needed to feed the millions of horses used in farming, transport and the army. Mechanisation released this land to grow crops for human consumption. Then came improved varieties, both in the west and those were used in the ‘Green revolution’ in Asia and Latin America. These gave huge increases in yield compared with old varieties, but only if greater inputs of fertiliser, pesticides and water were used.

But we have to accept that the world is running out of cheap land, water, oil, gas, phosphate, potash and other resources. There is going to be less of these per capita, and therefore, less food per capita.

One of the greatest dangers we face is a sudden shortage of oil due to an event such as war in the Middle East or concerted terrorist activity. Strangely, western governments worry about energy security, but not about food security. They don’t appear to realise that if our diesel tanks run dry we can produce no food.

David Richardson’s suggestion that we should have an immediate injection of cash for research and advice is a good one. But I would suggest that the cash injection needs to be massive.

We need to greatly reduce fossil energy inputs compared with food energy output and find ways to recycle nutrients instead of flushing them down the sewers of the great cities. It’s going to be one of the biggest challenges o the near future.

This week the Goole - Howden Courier printed a story about Peakfood, John Gossop and his book, Famine in the West:

FEARING for a future famine is Swinefleet Common farmer John Gossop.

John (62), who has farmed vegetables and wheat for 40 years, believes that by 2025 the western world will face a severe food shortage as it becomes more dependent on oil and gas.

And such is his worry that he has put his thoughts on paper and penned a book entitled Famine In The West. John told the Courier: “I became concerned that the farming system was dependant on oil and gas which themselves are becoming more unreliable in the last five to six years. If we were without oil and gas then we would be without food. “Climate change is causing droughts and floods, the population is increasing and all this will eventually cause tremendous food shortages.”

He said: “In the book I’ve used 2025 as an example of when we really might see the problems - by then we will have a population of eight billion compared to six billion now. We could be looking at considerable shortages by then.

“When we come to next year’s harvest the carry over stocks will be lower than ever before and if we have droughts caused by climate change, such as in America, we could be in trouble straight away.” The book, which took four to five months to put together, aims to raise awareness about the problems so solutions can be found. “One way would be the introduction of a heavy carbon tax instead of income tax to try and drive innovation so people find ways of using less oil and gas,” he added. Copies of Famine in the West, priced at £6.49 plus £1.49 postage and packing are available on 01430 410521. John has also set up the web site www.peakfood.co.uk.