Sustainability: Agriculture & Forests
January 01, 2009
The raging monster upon the land is population growth. In its presence, sustainability is but a fragile theoretical construct. To say, as many do, that the difficulties of nations are not due to people but to poor ideology or land-use management is sophistic.
January 1995
E.O. Wilson
'Arid Aquaculture' Among Livelihoods Promoted To Relieve Worsening Pressure On World's Drylands.
Using ponds filled with undrinkable water for fish production is one option experts have proven to be an alternative livelihood for people living in desertified parts of the world.
Alternatives to crop and livestock rearing will be needed in order to mitigate human causes of desertification.
Researchers say using briny water to establish aquaculture in Pakistan not only introduced a new source of income, it helped improve nutrition through diet diversification. It was possible to cultivate some vegetables with the same type of brackish water.
Other promising alternatives include:
1. The manufacture and marketing of soap derived from olive oil and fragrances from dryland plants. 2. Developing sustainable drylands ecotourism, which brings income while encouraging villagers to conserve ecosystems. 3. Harnessing solar power. 4. Producing wool and sand-based handicrafts for sale to visitors.
Options have the potential to reduce the pressure on marginal drylands, and yield higher income per investment than traditional livelihoods.
Innovations are needed to ensure long-term sustainability and to avoid desertification in the face of growing population pressures.
People living in drylands need help from all quarters and all levels of government. The alternative will be a migration in two or three generations that will stagger the world's capacity.
Drylands are home to nearly a third of the global population. Drylands degradation results from droughts, inappropriate irrigation, deforestation, overgrazing, and poor land use practices.
Traditional designs for water storage cisterns and ponds, can be improved with modern materials and techniques.
In parts of Egypt, new desalination technologies using solar energy were successfully introduced. In China participating families were trained in entrepreneurship and business principles. Future plans include producing organic chicken and eggs.
Ralph says: Not a mention of slowing or halting the population growth. Surely that is the best way to solve these problems!!!!!! Oh sorry I forgot, TABOO
November 11, 2008
ScienceDaily
With the Right Technology and Policies, India Could Help Feed the World. Instead, it Can Barely Feed Itself.
India's arable land is second only the US, its economy is one of the fastest growing, and its industrial innovation is legendary. But its output lags behind potential. For some staples, India must turn to already international markets, exacerbating a global food crisis.
This country is growing faster than its ability to produce rice and wheat.
India's growing affluent population demands more food and a greater variety.
Farmers, subsisting on small, rain-fed plots, are poor, and inflation has soared past 11%, the highest in 13 years.
The Green Revolution introduced high-yielding varieties of rice and wheat, expanded the use of irrigation, pesticides and fertilizers, and transformed the northwestern plains into India's breadbasket. But since the 1980s, the government has not expanded irrigation and access to loans or to advance agricultural research. Groundwater has been depleted at alarming rates.
Changes in temperature and rain patterns could diminish India's agricultural output by 30% by the 2080s.
Family farms have shrunk in size and a mounting debt is driving some farmers to suicide. Many find it profitable to sell their land to developers. Many are experimenting with high-value fruits and vegetables but there are few refrigerated trucks to transport their produce to supermarkets.
An inefficient supply chain means that the farmer receives less than a fifth of the price the consumer pays. One farmer has seen the water table under his land sink by 100 feet over three decades. By the 1980s, government investment in canals fed by rivers had tapered off, and wells became the principal source of irrigation, helped by a policy of free electricity to pump water. In Punjab, more than three-fourths of the districts extract more groundwater than is replenished. Between 1980 and 2002, the government subsidized fertilizers and food grains for the poor, but reduced its investment in agriculture. Today only 40% of Indian farms are irrigated. The summers are hotter, the rains more fickle. India raised a red flag two years ago about how heavily the appetites of its 1.1 billion people would weigh on world food prices. For the first time, India had to import wheat and in two years it bought about 7 million tons.
Today, two staples of the Indian diet are imported in ever-increasing quantities, but could supply food to the rest of the world if the existing agricultural productivity gap could be closed. But some farmers make more money selling out to land-hungry mall developers.
For years a farmer could sell his crop to a private trader, but for many it was easier to go to the nearest government granary, and accept their rate.
For years, those prices remained low, and there was little incentive for farmers to invest in their crop. After two years of having to import wheat, the government offered farmers a higher price for their grain: farmers not only planted more wheat but also sold much more of their harvest to the state and the country's buffer stocks were at record levels.
The country would not need to buy wheat on the world market this year, but how long it will remain the case is unclear.
From one quarter comes pressure to introduce genetically modified crops with greater yields; from another lawsuits to stop it. And from another pleas to mount a greener Green Revolution.
A British research institution, said: "This time around, it needs to be more efficient in its use of water, energy, fertilizer and land."
June 22, 2008
New York Times*
Population Key to Global Food Crisis.
Author David Stringer says 20 million of the poorest children are threatened with the "first global food crisis since World War II." The price of rice has more than doubled in the last five weeks. The World Bank estimates food prices have risen 83% in three years.
Various reasons are offered, rising fuel prices, unpredictable weather, rising demand from India and China, the increase in demand for meat and dairy products.
Various solutions were suggested. Plant genetically modified crops that can withstand drought or that produce more nutrients.
And yet, there was no mention of the main driver of hunger: too many people. Policymakers are missing the point if they believe producing more food will solve the problem, when the increase in population outstrips the increase in food production.
Two points are coming home to haunt us. The increased production relied heavily on the use of fossil fuel and artificial fertilizers. Even though more food was produced, it did not keep up with the increase in world population.
Voluntarily limiting population size is a touchy subject. Some of the world's religions won't listen to arguments in favor of stabilizing our population. Our current administration prohibits aid to any organization that promotes family planning through contraception. This is short sighted. 25,000 people die each day of starvation and poverty.
Vermont could grow enough food to feed all of our residents. But that will not include exotic fruits and vegetables or large quantities of meat and dairy products. It is past time for our policy makers to face up to the fact that our world only has enough crop land and fresh water to provide for a population that is less than we now try to support.
June 05, 2008
Burlington Free Press
Is India Falling Into the Malthusian Trap?.
India provided the final stage to re-enact Malthus theory on growth pattern between population and food grain production in the 1960s, when India was plagued by booming population growth and a diffident growth in food production.
Malthus was the first economist by training to teach at the college founded at Haileybury in England by the East India Company. The theories of Malthus, as propounded in an essay on the principles of population as it affects the future improvement of society, were sown then, centuries before the India's foodgrains crisis of the 1960s.
Over 200 years after his doctrine was published in 1798, the Malthusian theory has come back to haunt the Indian economy all over again. Agricultural production has dipped from 3.8% cent in 2006-07 to 2.6% in 2007-08. Between 1950-51 and 2006-07 the production increased at an annual 2.5%, which was ahead of the population growth of 2.1%. But during 1990-2007, foodgrains production dropped to 1.2% as population growth averaged 1.9%.
This disproportionate growth between foodgrains production and population growth does not fully explain the present crisis, which is beginning to assume global dimensions.
This is where the theories of David Ricardo, another classical economist of the eighteenth century, come in handy.
He developed theories which showed that economic development is not universal. Instead, he helped prove that countries do not develop at the same pace and that development often accentuates economic and social inequity.
The strident growth since the 1990s has nurtured a middle class demanding greater volume and better quality food.
The volume of food consumed by the burgeoning middle class and the upper crust has grown significantly. This would also have contributed to the crisis that is unfolding in the food sector.
There has also been a slower growth in the agricultural sector. This has been pronounced since 1996-97, mainly as a result of the acceleration in the growth of industry and the services sectors.
There was also a demand from a shift in cultivation from coarse to fine cereals. This shift seems to have eventually led to a fall in the area under foodgrains production, declining at an annual rate of 0.26% from 1989 to 2006. The poorest segments of society paid the highest price for this shift.
On a long-term basis, the consumption of cereals fell from a peak of 468 gm per day in 1990-91 to 412 gm in 2005-06. The consumption of pulses declined from 42 gm to 33 gm. For upper and middle class, any reduction in cereal consumption would have been more than made up by their increased intake of milk, eggs and meat. But no such shifts for the poorer segments. There is no doubt that the impact from decreased food consumption would have hit the poorest segment the hardest. The crisis in foodgrains production has been compounded by a surge in global demand and prices. Fast growing economies of China, Brazil and East Asia have precipitated the demand.
Several of the food surplus countries across the world have been shifting from food crops to bio-fuels. India was quick to seek to purchase foodgrains. But this proved insufficient and the UN sees more people going hungry in Philippines as rice prices soar. We will see growing reports of starvation around the world as a result of population growth combined with the diversion of food grains into biofuel production.
May 21, 2008
Business Line
UN Sees More People Going Hungry in Philippines as Rice Prices Soar.
UN warned that the Philippines may have to feed people as the price of rice soars out of reach of ordinary households. We see people who would be eligible for assistance, in many countries.
The UN provides food aid to about 1.1 million of the Philippines' 90 million people. The UN was unlikely to ramp up its food aid to the Philippines since it is considered a "middle-income country" with lower priority.
Manila could have to boost spending on subsidies to maintain current prices of the lowest-quality rice that it sells to the poor. People spend 70% of their income on food and are having a struggle meeting their needs.
The fields that get enough water have never been more productive, but a lot have no irrigation.
For decades, governments have been encouraging a boom in services and skyscrapers, but not the capacity to grow more rice. It's a failure to recognize the importance of agriculture.
At the center of the storm is the Philippines, the world's largest importer of rice. But because global rice supplies are so tight the Philippines is having a hard time fulfilling an import order of around one million tons.
The country is paying exorbitant prices for whatever rice it can get its hands on. A shortfall of 10% is expected for 2008.
Why can't the Philippines, and other countries in Asia, produce enough rice to feed themselves? Thailand, the world's largest producer, has 9.82 million hectares of rice fields. The Philippines has 4 million hectares of productive farmland spread over 7,000 miles. The Philippines lacks a river delta, which by providing an abundant water source, allows Asian countries like Vietnam, India, and Cambodia to produce higher rice harvests.
Rising oil prices have made rice more expensive to produce,. Pests in Vietnam have wiped out 200,000 tons; and the collapse of Australia's rice production due to drought has eaten away at global rice stocks.
Government spending on agriculture accelerated in the 1960s and '70s, it slowed by half throughout the 1990s. In 2002, the Philippines invested only $0.46 for every $100 of agricultural output, a level consistent with the rest of Asia. Asia is a slacker when it comes to investment in agriculture. Instead, Asia is transforming farmland into office parks and suburbs. Manufacturing is demanding more and more water. The most important factor, there are simply more mouths to feed.
The population in the Philippines has grown by 2% a year since 2000, leading to a corresponding leap in rice consumption. And exploding middle classes are eating more rice – and more meat. Meat production requires huge amounts of water, labor, and grains to feed cattle. Governments throughout Asia have assumed they could always import more and more food. Stocks of rice are at their lowest since 1976, depleted by a combination of population growth, less farmland, poor planning, and bad weather.
Filipino officials said that the country is spearheading a regional meeting of 10 Asian countries to discuss the crisis. In the Philippines, Arroyo's response has been to flood markets with highly subsidized rice, broker a quick deal with Vietnam for 2.2 million tons of rice, and call for a halt on converting farmland into development space.
In the long term, developing countries and the international community need to increase investment in agricultural research. Last week, President Arroyo announced a $1 billion investment to improve rice production.
April 22, 2008
France24
Philippines: Roots of Asia's Rice Crisis.
Governments have been encouraging services and skyscrapers, but not the capacity to grow more rice. That neglect is one of the central causes of the rice crisis.
The Philippines is the world's largest importer of rice. But because global rice supplies are tight, causing India, China, Cambodia, and Vietnam to restrict exports, the Philippines is having a hard time importing around one million tons.
The country is paying exorbitant prices for whatever rice it can get, driving up prices around the world to double last year's.
A shortfall of 10% is expected for 2008, causing fears that food riots could erupt as they have in Haiti, Egypt, Mexico, Burkina Faso, and Senegal.
At the center of the storm lies a simple question: Why can't the countries in Asia produce enough rice to feed themselves?
Some reasons are beyond the control of the Philippines and Indonesia and Malaysia. Their farmland is spread over thousands of miles and different islands, production, maintenance, and transportation make rice cultivation expensive and difficult.
Thailand has 9.82 million hectares of rice fields. The Philippines 4 million hectares spread over 7,000 miles. The Philippines also lacks a river delta, which by providing an easy and abundant water source, allows Asian countries to produce higher rice harvests.
Other factors include rising oil prices have increased fertilizer and transportation costs; pests in Vietnam, have wiped out 200,000 tons; and the collapse of Australia's rice production due to drought has eaten away at global rice stocks.
Spending on agriculture accelerated in the 1960s and '70s, pumped into irrigation systems, fertilizer, and rice breeding that spawned the Green Revolution, it slowed by half throughout the 1990s, according to one study. In 2002, the Philippines invested only $0.46 for every $100 of agricultural output, a level consistent with the rest of Asia. It means that Asia is a slacker when it comes to investment in agriculture. Instead, Asia is transforming farmland into office parks and suburbs. In the Philippines, half of irrigated land has been transformed into urban development in the past two decades.
Most important of all, there are more mouths to feed.
The population in the Philippines has grown by 2% a year since 2000, one of the highest rates in Asia. Exploding middle classes with more money and bigger appetites are eating more rice, and more meat that requires huge amounts of water, labor, and grains. Governments throughout Asia have assumed they could always import more and more food. India, China, and Cambodia, among others, have imposed strict export restrictions, leaving countries like Malaysia and the Philippines to scramble for any deals they can grab.
Solutions could take the form of food-for-work programs, targeted school feeding programs, and conditional cash transfers. These types of programs are more effective than price controls or universal food subsidies.
In the Philippines, Arroyo's response has been to flood markets with subsidized rice, broker a deal with Vietnam for 2.2 million tons of rice, and call for a halt on converting farmland into development space. But as the crisis mounts, observers agree that Asia needs a second Green Revolution, a movement launched in the 1960s that resulted in double rice yields through better irrigation and investments in rice technology.
Developing countries and the international community need to increase investment in agricultural research and development to develop new disease resistant, higher-yielding varieties.
President Arroyo announced a $1 billion investment to improve rice production. The money would go to seed production and training and loans to farmers, as well as updating irrigation and transport systems.
Small farms show that investments can pay off. Four years ago, the local government introduced a plant-now pay-later scheme, allowing farmers to buy seeds from a bank, rather than planting their own.
April 22, 2008
Christian Science Monitor
World Facing Huge New Challenge on Food Front.
Food shortages are driving prices to record highs. In the past grain prices have spiked because of weather-related events, but the current doubling of grain prices is the cumulative effect of accelerating growth in demand and other trends that are slowing the growth in supply.
In the face of rising food prices and spreading hunger, the social order in some countries is beginning to break down. In Sudan during the first three months of this year, 56 grain-laden trucks were hijacked. This threat has reduced the flow of food into the region by half, raising the specter of starvation if supply lines cannot be secured.
In Pakistan, flour prices have doubled and food insecurity is a national concern. In Egypt, the bread lines at bakeries are often the scene of fights. In Yemen, food riots turned deadly, taking at least a dozen lives. Food scarcity involves the restriction of grain exports by countries that want to check the rise in their domestic food prices. Russia, the Ukraine, and Argentina are among the governments that are currently restricting wheat exports. The tight food supply the world is now facing is driven by the cumulative effect of several well established trends: the continuing addition of 70 million people per year to the earth's population and the desire of some 4 billion people to consume more grain-intensive livestock products, and the recent acceleration in the U.S. use of grain to produce ethanol.
Little new land is brought under the plow unless it comes from clearing tropical rainforest which has heavy environmental costs. In scores of countries prime cropland is being lost to industrial and residential construction.
New sources of irrigation water are even more scarce. During the last half of the twentieth century, world irrigated area nearly tripled, in the years since there has been little, growth. As a result, irrigated area per person is shrinking by 1% a year.
Agricultural technology that can be used to raise cropland productivity is dwindling. Beyond this, climate change presents new risks. The collective effect of these trends makes it difficult for farmers to keep pace with the growth in demand. The result is tightening food supplies, rising food prices, and political instability. The world is only one poor harvest away from total chaos in world grain markets.
Food security will deteriorate further unless leading countries can collectively mobilize to stabilize population, restrict the use of grain to produce automotive fuel, stabilize climate, stabilize water tables and aquifers, protect cropland, and conserve soils. Stabilizing population requires a worldwide effort to eradicate poverty. The challenge is to quickly alter those trends whose effects threaten food security. If food security cannot be restored quickly, social unrest and political instability will spread and the number of failing states will likely increase dramatically.
April 16, 2008
Earth Policy Institute
World Facing Huge New Challenge on Food Front.
A fast-unfolding food shortage is engulfing the entire world, driving food prices to record highs. The current doubling of grain prices is the effect of accelerating growth in demand and trends that are slowing the growth in supply.
The world has not experienced anything like this before. the social order is beginning to break down in some countries. In Thailand, rustlers steal rice by harvesting fields during the night. Thai villagers have taken to guarding rice fields with loaded shotguns.
In Sudan, the U.N. World Food Programme is facing a difficult mission. During the first three months of this year, 56 grain-laden trucks were hijacked. Only 20 have been recovered and 24 drivers are still unaccounted for. This threat to U.N.-supplied food to the Darfur camps has reduced the flow of food into the region by half, raising the specter of starvation.
In Pakistan, thousands of armed Pakistani troops have been assigned to guard grain elevators and to accompany the trucks that transport grain.
Food riots are becoming commonplace. In Egypt, the bread lines at bakeries that distribute state-subsidized bread are often the scene of fights. In Morocco, 34 food rioters were jailed. In Yemen, food riots turned deadly, taking at least a dozen lives. In Cameroon, dozens of people have died in food riots and hundreds have been arrested. Other countries with food riots include Ethiopia, Haiti, Indonesia, Mexico, the Philippines, and Senegal.
The doubling of world wheat, rice, and corn prices has reduced the availability of food aid, putting the 37 countries that depend on the WFP's emergency food assistance at risk. In March, the WFP appealed for $500 million of additional funds.
Around the world, a politics of food scarcity is emerging. It involves the restriction of grain exports. Russia, the Ukraine, and Argentina are among the governments that are currently restricting wheat exports. Countries restricting rice exports include Viet Nam, Cambodia, and Egypt. These export restrictions drive prices higher in the world market.
The chronically tight food supply is driven by the effect of trends that are affecting both global demand and supply. On the demand side, the trends include the continuing addition of 70 million people per year to the earth's population, the desire of some 4 billion people to move up the food chain and consume more grain-intensive livestock products, and the recent sharp acceleration in the U.S. use of grain to produce ethanol for cars. There is little new land to be brought under the plow unless it comes from clearing tropical rainforests, or from clearing land in the Brazilian cerrado. Unfortunately, this has heavy environmental costs: the release of sequestered carbon, the loss of plant and animal species, and increased rainfall runoff and soil erosion. And in scores of countries prime cropland is being lost to industrial and residential construction and to the paving of land for roads, highways, and parking lots for fast-growing automobile fleets.
New sources of irrigation water are even more scarce than new land to plow. During the last half of the twentieth century, world irrigated area nearly tripled, expanding from 94 million hectares in 1950 to 276 million hectares in 2000. In the years since then there has been little, if any, growth.
Meanwhile, the backlog of agricultural technology that can be used to raise cropland productivity is dwindling. Between 1950 and 1990 the world's farmers raised grainland productivity by 2.1% a year, but from 1990 until 2007 this growth rate slowed to 1.2%. And the rising price of oil is boosting the costs of both food production and transport.
During seven of the last eight years, grain consumption exceeded production. After seven years of drawing down stocks, world grain carryover stocks in 2008 have fallen to 55 days of world consumption, the lowest on record. The result is a new era of tightening food supplies, rising food prices, and political instability. With grain stocks at an all-time low, the world is only one poor harvest away from total chaos in world grain markets.
Business-as-usual is no longer a viable option. Food security will deteriorate further unless leading countries can collectively stabilize population, restrict the use of grain to produce automotive fuel, stabilize climate, stabilize water tables and aquifers, protect cropland, and conserve soils. Stabilizing population is not simply a matter of providing reproductive health care and family planning services. It requires a worldwide effort to eradicate poverty.
Eliminating water shortages depends on a global attempt to raise water productivity similar to the effort launched a half-century ago to raise land productivity, an initiative that has nearly tripled the world grain yield per hectare. None of these goals can be achieved quickly, but progress toward all is essential to restoring a semblance of food security.
This troubling situation is unlike any the world has faced before. The challenge is to quickly alter those trends whose cumulative effects threaten the food security that is a hallmark of civilization. If food security cannot be restored quickly, social unrest and political instability will spread and the number of failing states will likely increase dramatically, threatening the very stability of civilization itself.
Karen Gaia says: As has been shown in Bangladesh, it is not necessary to reduce poverty in order to bring down fertility rates. In fact, if fertility rates are not brought down, there may be no way to reduce poverty.
April 16, 2008
Earth Policy Institute
Riots, Instability Spread as Food Prices Skyrocket.
Riots over the costs of basic foods have brought the issue to the forefront of the world's attention. The World Bank President said the surging costs could mean "seven lost years" in the fight against worldwide poverty. "The international community must fill the at least $500 million food gap to meet emergency needs," he said. The World Bank announced a $10 million grant from the US for Haiti to assist poor families.
Rice prices have risen by around 75% globally and more in some markets. In Bangladesh, a 2-kilogram bag of rice costs half of the daily income of a poor family.
The price of wheat has jumped 120 percent in the past year, the price of a loaf of bread has more than doubled in places where the poor spend 75% of their income on food.
In Haiti, the prime minister was kicked out of office Saturday, and hospital beds are filled with wounded following riots sparked by food prices. In Egypt, rioters have burned cars and destroyed windows of buildings. In the US and other Western nations, more and more poor families are feeling the pinch.
The issue is fueling debate over how much the rising prices can be blamed on ethanol production. Some environmental groups reject the focus on ethanol in examining food prices.
Analysts agree the cost of fuel is among the reasons for the skyrocketing prices. A major reason is rising demand, particularly in places such as China and India. Demand is soaring, supply has been cut back, food has been diverted into the gas tank. It's added up to a price explosion.
April 14, 2008
CNN
Riots, Instability Spread as Food Prices Skyrocket.
Riots over the soaring costs of basic foods have brought the issue to a boiling point. While many are worrying about filling their gas tanks, many others around the world are struggling to fill their stomachs, and it is getting more and more difficult every day. The international community must fill the $500 million food gap to meet emergency needs. Governments should be able to come up with this assistance and come up with it now. The World Bank announced a $10 million grant from the US for Haiti to help poor families.
In two months, rice prices have skyrocketed to near historical levels, rising by around 75% globally and more in some markets, with more likely to come. In Bangladesh, a 2-kilogram bag of rice consumes about half of the daily income of a poor family.
The price of wheat has jumped 120% in the past year, the price of a loaf of bread has more than doubled in places where the poor spend as much as 75% of their income on food.
If food prices go on as they are today, then the consequences on the population in a large set of countries will be terrible.
At the end of the day most governments, having done well during the last five or 10 years, will see what they have done totally destroyed.
In Haiti, the prime minister was kicked out of office Saturday, and hospital beds are filled with wounded following riots sparked by food prices. In Egypt, rioters have burned cars and destroyed windows of numerous buildings. In the US and other Western nations, more and more poor families are feeling the pinch.
The issue is fueling a debate over how much the rising prices can be blamed on ethanol production.
This corn-to-ethanol subsidy which our government is doing really makes little sense. Corn is the single most inefficient way to produce ethanol.
Numerous analyses have demonstrated that the price of oil has the greatest impact on consumer food prices because it is integral to virtually every phase of food production, from processing to packaging to transportation.
Another major reason is rising demand, particularly in places in the midst of a population boom, such as China and India.
Also, climate shocks are damaging food supply in parts of the world.
April 14, 2008
CNN
Food Crisis Looms in Bangladesh.
With the price of food skyrocketing, poor and overpopulated Bangladesh is one of the world's most vulnerable nations.
Economists estimate 30 million of the country's 150 million people could go hungry. Bangladesh faces a decrease in arable land due to industrialization and the ever-growing population. Its low-lying land is reeling from floods and a cyclone last year that destroyed some 3 million tons of food crops and left millions homeless and hungry.
The price of rice has jumped by more than 30% since then and nearly half the population survives on less than $1 a day.
Approximately 10,000 textile workers demanding better wages clashed with police near the capital. Dozens of people were injured in the violence. The Government has opened more than 6,000 outlets distributing rice at roughly half the market price. But "the government failed to build enough stock of food, and because of that the situation has become volatile," said Ahmad, of the Bangladesh Development Council.
Major opposition parties have threatened street protests if the government fails to rein in rising prices. India has agreed to ship 400,000 tons of heavily discounted rice to Bangladesh, but it could take weeks to arrive. Because of high food prices, the Asian Development Bank warned that inflation could reach 9%.
Bangladesh is not the only country with food problems. There have been riots in Burkina Faso, Mauritania, Mozambique and Senegal. A confluence of problems are driving up prices. Soaring petroleum prices, which increase the cost of fertilizers, transport and food processing; rising demand for meat and dairy in China and India, resulting in increased costs for grain, and the ever-rising demand for raw materials to make biofuels.
The U.N.'s World Food Program says it's facing a $500 million shortfall in funding this year.In Bangladesh, leaders are scrambling for solutions. Last week a senior official suggested people eat potatoes instead of rice.
April 12, 2008
The Associated Press
Food Crisis Looms in Bangladesh.
With the price of food skyrocketing poor and overpopulated Bangladesh is one of the world's most vulnerable nations.
An adviser warned of a "hidden hunger" in Bangladesh and economists estimate 30 million of the country's 150 million people could go hungry. "We fear some 30 million of the ultra poor will not be able to afford three meals a day".
Bangladesh faces a decrease in arable land due to industrialization and the ever-growing population. Its low-lying land is reeling from major floods and a devastating cyclone that destroyed 3 million tons of food crops and left millions homeless.
The price of rice has jumped by more than 30%, a major problem in a country where nearly half the population survives on less than $1 a day.
About 10,000 textile workers demanding better wages to meet the higher food prices clashed with police. Dozens of people, were injured in the violence.
The government has opened more than 6,000 outlets distributing rice at roughly half the market price and announced plans to open more.
But the government failed to build enough stock of food and the situation has become volatile. The government needs to build a buffer stock immediately. If not, the situation will worsen.
Opposition parties have threatened street protests if the government fails to rein in rising prices and growing discontent could threaten the political balance.
India has agreed to ship 400,000 tons of heavily discounted rice to Bangladesh, but it could take weeks to arrive and officials are uncertain it will be enough.
There have been riots in the African nations of Burkina Faso, Mauritania, Mozambique and Senegal. Rising prices have hit poor countries like Haiti and Peru and even developed countries like Italy and the US.
A confluence of problems are driving up prices. They include petroleum prices, rising demand for meat and dairy in China and India, and the ever-rising demand for biofuels.
As of December, 37 countries faced food crises, and 20 had imposed some sort of food-price controls.
In Bangladesh, leaders are scrambling for solutions.
April 12, 2008
Associated Press
The Return of Malthus.
Cheap food, like cheap oil, may be a thing of the past. The subsidized conversion of crops into fuel was supposed to promote energy independence, but this promise was a "scam."
Even on optimistic estimates, producing a gallon of ethanol from corn uses most of the energy the gallon contains. Even Brazil's use of ethanol from sugar cane accelerates the pace of climate change by promoting deforestation. Land used to grow biofuel feedstock is land not available to grow food.
Alongside the theme of neutralizing the farm lobby is a hint of population- control politics that we haven't heard about since the late 1960s, when widespread affluence was considered a problem in the West. The idea that food prices will remain high could be seen as a harbinger of food rationing and famine, and that food supplies can't keep up with a population that grows exponentially.
But now; with so many people wanting to eat luxuriously, the resources for everyone to eat at all are being consumed by the more affluent. Since it takes about 700 calories' worth of animal feed to produce a 100-calorie piece of beef, developing countries want to imitate the standards of living that Americans have inaugurated and this leaves little room for conservation.
The problem is an explosion of those who expect middle-class comforts. The package of expectations and the ideology of entitlement that goes along with it, will probably come under increasing fire. On a related note, Merrill Lynch analysts explaining that American households spend more on debt service than food.
Karen Gaia says: Nepal, for example, is currently experiencing food shortages. It has only a small middle class. It's real problem is too many people and not enough land to support them.
April 07, 2008
PopMatters.com
US California: More Mouths to Feed Means Less Land to Feed Them On.
California's farmland is threatened by the state's population growth. Even as the number in California soars toward 40 million, the land and water resources needed to feed these multitudes are shrinking.
The farmlands are shrinking because the millions added to our population every decade are competing with farmers for water and the same land that is best at producing food. When homes can be built to house hundreds of new residents on the land occupied by a single farm, urbanization will displace agriculture.
Fertile soils, irrigation water during the growing season, and a moderate, Mediterranean climate allow for year-round cropping. California cultivates more than 350 crops. Only a handful of other regions on earth have the same unique combination of soil productivity, mild climate, and available water as the San Joaquin Valley. In California, especially the Central Valley, productive farmlands are being split up into unproductive rural ranchettes or hobby farms.
Between 1990 and 2004, land was being developed at nearly twice the historic rate. Rapid population growth, of course, is driving this trend.
In the most important agricultural areas like the Central Valley, nearly three-quarters of the area developed was farmland. Nearly half of all farmland lost was high quality, classified by the state as prime farmland, unique farmland, or farmland of statewide importance.
By 2050, if the state's population projections come to pass, an additional 2.1 million acres would be urbanized. Reducing the rate of land conversion by increasing density will merely slow but not stop the attrition of California's farmland. These are the lands that with the proper stewardship could produce food virtually in perpetuity.
Food prices are mounting globally with the addition of 70-80 million more mouths to feed every year, diversion of food crops into biofuels production, increasing consumption of meat, and rising energy prices. All of these put upward pressure on prices.
Unsustainable population growth must be checked. Since virtually all present and projected growth is from immigration and higher average immigrant fertility, these must be reduced.
If we don't, then one day California will struggle just to feed its own citizens.
April 2008
Californians for Population Stabilization (CAPS)
Global Human Appropriation of Net Primary Production (HANPP).
Humanity's impact on the biosphere exceeds natural variability in many cases. Up to 83% of the global terrestrial biosphere as under human influence.
HANPP, the "human appropriation of net primary production," is an indicator that the area used by humans and the intensity of land use. It is a measure of human activities compared to natural processes. Then follows a very long and detailed section on different definitions.
One of the strengths of HANPP is that it can be assessed in a spatially explicit way, i.e. it is possible to produce maps of HANPP that localize the human impact on ecosystems. In this case, the three above-mentioned parameters must be calculated in a spatially explicit way, using geographic information systems (GIS) technology.
The most important factors influencing NPP in the absence of human activities are climate and soil quality, and there follows another long and detailed section on this subject. There follows estimates of global HANPP given by different authors.
HANPP is a major indicator of human pressures on ecosystems. HANPP relates to global sustainability issues such as endemic malnourishment of a large proportion of world population, the ongoing conversion of valuable ecosystems (e.g., forests) to cropland or grazing land with detrimental consequences for biodiversity and global, human-induced alterations of biogeochemical cycles.
The analysis of socio-economic drivers of HANPP as all as of its ecological impacts should remain high on the agenda of sustainability science. In particular, understanding the interrelations between HANPP and changes, especially those related to transitions from agrarian to industrial society, should be a priority of global change research.
March 14, 2008
The Encyclopedia of Earth
Common Wealth.
The 21st century will see the end of American dominance as new powers continue to grow. Yet the changes will be deeper than a rebalancing of economics and geopolitics. The challenges of sustainable development—protecting the environment, stabilizing the world's population, narrowing the gaps of rich and poor and ending extreme poverty—will render passé the idea of nation-states that scramble for markets, power and resources.
The challenge of the 21st century will be to face the fact that we have reached the beginning of the century with 6.6 billion people in a global economy producing an $60 trillion each year. In some locations, societies have outstripped the carrying capacity of the land, resulting in chronic hunger, environmental degradation and a large-scale exodus of desperate populations. We are crowded into an interconnected society.
Continue, and the world is likely to experience growing conflicts, intensifying environmental catastrophes and downturns in living standards. Yet for a small annual investment of world income, across the world, our generation can harness new technologies for clean energy, reliable food supplies, disease control and the end of extreme poverty.
By overcoming cynicism, ending our view of the world as an enduring struggle of "us" vs "them" and instead seeking global solutions, we have the power to save the world for all. To make the right choice, we must understand four trends.
Our bulging population and voracious use of the earth's resources are leading to unprecedented crises. Humanity has filled the world's ecological niches; there is no place to run.
While many of the poor are making progress, many of the very poorest are stuck at the bottom. Nearly 10 million children die each year because their communities are too poor to sustain them. This has ignited violence across the Horn of Africa, the Middle East and Central Asia. We have adopted a global treaty for climate change; we have pledged to protect biodiversity; we are committed to fighting the encroachment of deserts, and the world has adopted the MDG's to cut poverty, hunger and disease by 2015.
Sustainable systems of energy, land and resource use that avert the most dangerous trends of climate change, species extinction and destruction of ecosystems, stabilization of the world population at 8 billion or below by 2050. The end of extreme poverty by 2025, a new approach to global problem-solving based on cooperation among nations. The Green Revolution which lifted China and India out of chronic hunger, built on an a combination of high-yield seeds, fertilizer and irrigation. In large parts of Africa Polio is nearly eradicated. Food production is soaring in Ethiopia and Malawi because modern farming techniques have been brought to peasant communities. There is no shortage of examples of how we can attain our goals, only a shortage of will to carry these successes to other vital arenas.
The world's producers and consumers regard the air as a free dumping ground for climate-changing greenhouse gases. We need to correct market forces, by taxing carbon emissions that are offset by tax reductions elsewhere,in order to create the right incentives. We need to expand our public investments in clean technologies. Population stabilization requires a determined investment in girls' education, health services and child survival. And we should first help the poorest of the poor to get above survival levels of income. None of it can happen by itself. Ours is the generation that can end extreme poverty, turn the tide against climate change and head off a massive, thoughtless and irreversible extinction of other species. Ours is the generation that must solve the conundrum of combining economic well-being with environmental sustainability. We will all need to subdue our fears and cynicism. In the final analysis, our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this small planet.
Karen Gaia says: I don't think the writer realizes that, with the upcoming shortage of oil and minerals such as phospate, both necessary for fertilizer, that the green revolution is unsustainable.
March 13, 2008
Jeffrey D. Sachs
A Global Need for Grain That Farms Can't Fill.
Everywhere, the cost of food is rising sharply due to runaway demand. The economy of the world's developing countries have been growing at about 7% a year, an unusually rapid rate that means hundreds of millions of people are getting access to a better diet. Farmers the world over are producing flat-out. American agricultural exports are expected to increase 23% this year to a record $101 billion, while grain stockpiles have fallen to the lowest levels in decades. Scarcity and high prices will last for years and is likely to present big problems. Rising food prices in the US are helping to fuel inflation reminiscent of the 1970s.
Overseas the increases are depriving poor people of food, setting off social unrest. In the long run, the food supply could grow. The big question is whether such changes will be enough to bring supply and demand into better balance.
The Agriculture Department forecasts that farm income this year will be 50% greater than the average of the last 10 years. Prices have more than tripled, partly because of a drought in Australia and bad harvests elsewhere and also because of global demand. In seven of the last eight years, world wheat consumption has outpaced production. Stockpiles are at their lowest point in decades.
In Pakistan, thousands of paramilitary troops have been deployed to guard trucks carrying wheat and flour. Over all, food and beverage prices are rising 4% a year, the fastest pace in nearly two decades.
The Agriculture Department forecasts that world wheat production will increase 8% this year.
As the newly urbanized and newly affluent seek more protein and more calories, "diet globalization" is playing out around the world. Demand is growing for pork in Russia, beef in Indonesia and dairy products in Mexico. Rice is giving way to noodles, home-cooked food to fast food.
Nigeria grows little wheat, but its people have developed a taste for bread which has been displacing traditional foods made from cassava root.
Demand was also rising in many other places, at the same time, drought and competition from other crops limited supply.
Bread prices in Nigeria have jumped about 50% and bakers started making smaller loaves.
March 09, 2008
New York Times*
U.S.: A Global Need for Grain That Farms Can't Fill.
Barley, sunflower seeds, canola and soybeans are all up sharply. "For once, there's reason to be optimistic," Mr. Miller said. But the prices are causing pain far and wide. Everywhere, the cost of food is rising sharply. Many factors are contributing to the rise, but the biggest is runaway demand. Developing countries have been growing at about 7% a year, an unusually rapid rate. Millions of people are, for the first time, getting access to the basics of life, including a better diet. That jump in demand is helping to drive up the prices. Farmers are producing flat-out. American agricultural exports are expected to increase 23% to $101 billion, a record. The world's grain stockpiles have fallen to the lowest levels in decades.
Everyone wants to eat like an American but if they do, we're going to need another two or three globes to grow it all.
Investors are betting that scarcity and high prices will last for years and is likely to present big problems in managing the American economy. Rising food prices in the US are helping to fuel inflation reminiscent of the 1970s.
The increases that have already occurred are depriving poor people of food, setting off social unrest. More land may be pulled into production, and outdated farming methods in some countries may be upgraded. Rising prices could force more people to cut back. Will such changes be enough to bring supply and demand into balance.
Farmers are flourishing. Income this year will be 50% greater than the average of the last 10 years. Last month barley was $6.40 a bushel. Soybeans were $12.79 a bushel, up from $8.50 in August.
Last year, prices of corn were high because of new government mandates for production of ethanol. This year, so many crops look like good bets, and there is so little land on which to plant them.
Farmers' own costs are rising rapidly. Prices have more than tripled, partly because of a drought in Australia and bad harvests elsewhere and also because of unslaked global demand for crackers, bread and noodles. In seven of the last eight years, world wheat consumption has outpaced production.
In Pakistan, thousands of paramilitary troops have been deployed to guard trucks carrying wheat and flour. Malaysia has made it a crime to export flour and other products without a license. In the US, the price of dry pasta has risen 20% since October, flour is up 19% since last summer. Food and beverage prices are rising 4% a year, the fastest in two decades.
World wheat production will increase 8% this year. In the US, plantings are expected to rise by two million acres, helping to drive prices down to $7 a bushel. "Diet globalization" is playing out around the world. Demand is growing for pork in Russia, beef in Indonesia and dairy products in Mexico. Rice is giving way to noodles, home-cooked food to fast food.
Nigeria has a growing middle class. Median income per person doubled in the first half of this decade, to $560 in 2005. Nigeria grows little wheat, but its people have developed a taste for bread, displacing traditional foods like eba, dumplings made from cassava root.
Nigeria's wheat imports in 2007 were forecast to rise 10% more. But demand was rising in many other places, from Tunisia to Venezuela to India. Bread prices in Nigeria have jumped about 50%.
March 09, 2008
New York Times*
Rush for Biofuels Threatens Starvation on a Global Scale.
The rush towards biofuels is theatening world food production and the lives of billions of people. In his first important public speech since he was appointed, as Chief Scientific Advisor in the UK he described the potential impacts of food shortages as a problem which rivalled that of climate change.
It's very hard to imagine how we can see the world growing enough crops to produce renewable energy and at the same time meet the enormous demand for food.
By 2030,the world population would have increased and a 50% increase in food production would be needed. By 2080 it would need to double. But the rush to biofuels means that land has been given over to fuel rather than food.
Already biofuels have contributed to the rapid rise in international wheat prices. Shoppers in the UK faced price rises because of the soaring cost of feeding livestock.
The Government welcomed a target requiring 10% of all fuel sold in British service stations to be derived from plants within 12 years. The US Farmers planted 90.5 million acres of corn in 2007, 15% more than a year before. In due course 40% of that corn ends up in petrol tanks, and the world will face a costlier time feeding itself.
The prospect of food shortages over the next 20 years is so acute that all must tackle it immediately.
An extra six million people are born every month. Growing enough food for everyone was challenged, because of climate change, which was likely to lead to a shortage of water.
The supply of water will be put under further pressure because of the increased number of people who need it. The production of a tonne of wheat, for requires 50 tonnes of water.
Demand has grown enormously, particularly in China and India. By 2030 energy demand is going to be up by 50% and demand for food is going to be up by 50%.
March 07, 2008
Times Online
China: Food Security: Moving Towards the Precipice?.
The Chinese government has imposed temporary price-controls on basic food products after the consumer price index jumped to an 11-year high. Rising food prices reflected a global trend driven by population growth, changes in dietary trends, demand for biofuels, and climate change.
China and the world are accelerating toward a precipice. China's demand for meat is a significant factor and the increasing demand for feed grains on the world food market. China's population is large and growing, and its demand is rising rapidly. But this is a global crisis traceable to ignorant leadership almost everywhere. China's leadership has been more sensible than that of the US, at least China is trying to control its population!
Most Americans can afford to pay more for food. Since the US is the world's leading exporter of grains, absolute shortages are not likely soon, other than perhaps short-term shortages of meat if livestock producers sell off their herds because they can't afford to feed them.
China is more constrained and more water short. China will likely have other problems: it may become harder to import foods, and higher food prices will impact a large segment of the Chinese population. China's foreign exchange may be able to overcome much of the problem, although if it enters the military confrontation with the U.S. over Caspian Basin fossil fuel stores that both countries are planning on, both could suffer a fatal nuclear convulsion.
This is a slow, long-term crisis; it calls for an assessment of China's agricultural system with an eye to making it as sustainable as possible, reducing dependence on fossil fuels and artificial fertilizers and pesticides. It is important to anticipate climate trends and adapt to them. Reducing greenhouse gas emissions is imperative but agriculture is a major source of greenhouse gases. And, the sooner China's population policies are successful, the greater China's chances of survival.
Grain reserves are at their lowest level in the last decade. Cereal grains comprise the feeding base of humanity, although a growing portion of them are fed to livestock.
The high water needs of modern grains mean that the most productive food production depends on irrigation, and most of the areas that can feasibly be irrigated already have been. As climate disruption proceeds, it is possible that the climates in regions of good soils will become less favorable to crop agriculture. Climate change will require expenditures to continually adjust the water-handling infrastructure, and it seems that this will result in more serious mismatches between where water is needed and where it is available. In Asia, rice and wheat crops are growing at very close to their high temperature limits, so more heating could have drastic direct impacts on yields.
The boom in biofuels is causing a displacement of crops grown for food. In the last year or two, this seems to be the biggest cause of food shortage and rising prices, but it is just an exacerbation of an already tight situation.
Global warming and the "oil peak" will constrain the use of fossil fuels, and the production of fertilizers in the next few decades. Water shortages are appearing and may get worse. Agriculture in many developing regions, is largely undeveloped and unproductive in modern terms. Unless priority is given to maintaining and increasing agricultural production, the picture will be very bleak.
February 28, 2008
Economic Observer
Asia Faces Growing Rice Crisis - Real One.
Leading rice-exporting nations are reducing sales overseas to check domestic price rises. Previously healthy buffer stocks in Thailand are shrinking.
The ban by India intensifies a worldwide rice shortage that drove up prices by nearly 40% last year. An additional 50 million tonnes of rice is needed each year up to 2015 to plug the demand-supply gap. Additional agricultural land for growing rice is extremely limited, while rice consumption is growing worldwide and wheat stocks are hitting record lows. Unregulated private cross-border trading makes exact figures hard to come by. India's rice export ban comes at a sensitive time ahead of the final annual budget. India's ban on rice exports follows a gradual limiting of exports over the past few months. The ban extends to all exports of rice except government-to-government trading, but excludes exports of basmati rice, a more fragrant, long-grained and expensive variety. Bangladesh, needs food grains after Cyclone Sidr in December destroyed $600 million worth of the country's rice crop. To cope with the crisis, the Bangladesh government floated global tender notices for 300,000 tonnes of various varieties of rice.
India's export ban caused 300 rice trucks to be stranded in India-Bangladesh border zones. A famine threatens remote areas of southeast Bangladesh after millions of rats devastated food crops. The animals turn to ravaging rice stalks and vegetables in the affected region. Higher incomes across Asia are leading to increased consumption of grains and vegetables and of meat, which leads to more grain being diverted for use as cattle fodder.
In the short term, prices can spike as natural disasters ranging from severe drought and floods cause havoc on agriculture. Vietnam suspended exports to protect domestic needs, while Thailand plans to auction an additional 500,000 tonnes of rice to cater to increasing international demand. Food scientists are developing sturdier varieties of rice that can withstand climate challenges as well as higher yielding seeds.
Microsoft chairman Bill Gates in January announced a grant of $19.9 million to help 400,000 small farmers in South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa access to improved rice varieties and better growing technology.
February 25, 2008
Asia Times Online
Sustainable Future Will Require Food Production Innovation.
Doubling food production by 2050 while conserving resources, or even reducing the amount of land available for production agriculture, stands as a paradox.
Two forces are on a collision course: technology and sustainability. It is ironic how innovative production technologies such as cloning, bovine somatotropin and some bioengineered seeds are being shunned.
Equally pressing will be feeding a world population estimated to top 9 billion by 2050, which will require a second Green Revolution aimed at doubling food production in the first half of this century.
Doubling food production while conserving resources, which include maintaining or even reducing the amount of land available for agriculture, stands as a paradox. Success requires squeezing more crop production per acre, more milk per cow and more meat per chicken. To achieve such results, consumers must accept technology and the promise it holds for future production.
Bioengineered corn and soybeans have made significant penetration into the U.S. market, but wheat and rice are limited due to trade issues. Bovine somatotropin has made inroads into the U.S. market, but it faces a backlash in international acceptance and a push in the US for more "natural" foods.
Animal cloning, which the FDA proclaimed to be safe, has received a very cool reception. Despite the The U.S.D.A. called on technology providers to continue their voluntary moratorium on sending meat and milk from animal clones into the food supply. The International Dairy Food Association, supports the U.S.D.A.'s decision on the voluntary moratorium, citing the risk of losing access to international markets and the potential for a reduction in domestic milk demand.
A faulty criticism of biotechnology is it does much for producers, but little for consumers. As sustainability continues to gain momentum the opportunity looms for scientific innovation and environmental activism to merge.
Bioengineered seeds allow farmers to grow more crops per acre while using less pesticides, fertilizer and even water. Drawing more milk from fewer cows is beneficial; and the rapid genetic selection and breeding of the most productive livestock is beneficial. In the very near future, such benefits will be essential to nourish a growing global population while preserving environmental resources.
Karen Gaia says: Eating less meat is much more likely to be the necessary solution.
February 13, 2008
CattleNetwork.com
Sustainable Food Confronts Elitist Past.
Dinner at the Berkeley, Calif.-based Chez Panisse is a pricey education in sustainable food from the Yale Sustainable Food Project's inspiration: Alice Waters.
The idealistic Waters and her much-hallowed restaurant have become the epitome of the recent trend in food culture calling for a return to natural, local ingredients and seasonal cooking. Most Yalies come to sustainable foods working on the student farm, and the all-sustainable Thain Family Cafe.
At $28 to $80 per person for dinner, a subsidy from the University covers the additional cost of sustainable ingredients. But it's more than many students are willing pay to study food. Sustainable ingredients are more expensive than those that are conventionally produced, and have given sustainable food the reputation of being inaccessible and elitist.
The movement's proponents agree that it is more efficient in the long run to follow tenets of sustainable-food production.
Sustainable practices meet the need of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.
Something is sustainable if it does not degrade the resources upon which it depends. This means that fertilizers and pesticides made from fossil fuel are not used, and that the food doesn't travel farther than it has to.
Students had begun asking the University for organic food in the dining halls in 2000 and this led to an initiative focused on food, sustainablity and agriculture.
Chez Panisse menu items include herb jam with flatbread, lardons and chervil. Leek and Potato Galette, Grilled Chicken in Spiced Yogurt and Mint. and Olney's Squash Gratin.
There's a reaction to it being fancy food at a fancy university. But YSFP's menu items followed a Western gourmet aesthetic. Waters is not a proponent of fancy foods, her recent book is entitled The Art of Simple Food and its recipes are ordinary.
In 1994, Waters focused on educating children about their food and where it comes from. Students work in the garden, cook the harvested produce and finally eat their creations. There is usually initial resistance to the food they cook in the classroom, but students gradually turn toward eating the fresh produce they have grown. Unfortunately for YSFP, proponents of sustainable food have done little to alleviate that perception of gourmet elitism in the past. The University cannot avoid teaching about food; they instruct by purchasing ingredients and serving them in its dining halls.
How do we make sustainable food not elitist anymore, how do we make it understandable that this is of the people, for the people?
The only viable solution is to establish organic farming on a massive scale with a jump-start investment by affluent environmentalists. Farms would make little profit at first, but once the price goes down organic produce will be competitive.
While each university has its own set of programs, most of them have run into similar criticisms of sustainable food being inaccessible or impossible to execute on their campuses. This generation will also be responsible for initiating a cultural shift in how much Americans are willing to pay for food. Sustainable food does cost more than what Americans are currently accustomed to spending. But processed foods made with corn or soybeans are usually heavily subsidized by the government. The complex farm subsidy system needs to be examined and revolutionized.
February 12, 2008
Yale Daily News
Why Ethanol Production Will Drive World Food Prices Even Higher in 2008.
The US is generating global food insecurity.
The world is facing a severe food price inflation as grain and soybean prices climb. Wheat trading breached $10 per bushel for the first time. On January 11th, soybeans traded at $13.42 per bushel, the highest price ever recorded.
Prices of food products made from these commodities and those made indirectly, such as pork, poultry, beef, milk, and eggs, are on the rise. In Mexico, corn meal prices are up 60%. In Pakistan, flour prices have doubled. China is facing the worst food price inflation in decades.
In industrial countries, prices of food staples are climbing. By late 2007, the U.S. price of a loaf of whole wheat bread was 12% higher than a year earlier, milk was up 29% and eggs 36%. In Italy, pasta prices were up 20%.
It is a matter of demand outpacing supply. In seven of the last eight years world grain production has fallen short of consumption. These shortfalls have been covered by drawing down grain stocks, but the carryover stocks have now dropped to 54 days of world consumption, the lowest on record.
From 1990 to 2005, world grain consumption, driven by population growth and rising consumption of grain-based animal products, climbed by an average of 21 million tons per year. Then came the demand for grain used in U.S. ethanol distilleries, which jumped from 54 million tons in 2006 to 81 million tons in 2007. This more than doubled the annual growth in world demand. If 80% of the 62 distilleries under construction are completed by 2008, grain used to produce fuel will climb to 114 million tons, or 28% of the projected 2008 U.S. grain harvest.
If the food value of grain is less than its fuel value, the market will move the grain into the energy economy. An economics team calculates that with oil at $50 a barrel, it is profitable to convert corn into ethanol as long as the price is below $4 a bushel. With oil at $100 a barrel, distillers can pay more than $7 a bushel for corn and still break even.
The World Bank reports that for each 1% rise in food prices, caloric intake among the poor drops 0.5%.
In early 2007 the update of projections, taking into account the biofuel effect on world food prices, showed the number of hungry people climbing to 1.2 billion by 2025. A rise in food prices shrinks food assistance. The WFP reports that 18,000 children are dying each day from hunger and related illnesses.
At the end of January, Russia will impose a 40% export tax on wheat, effectively banning exports. Argentina closed export registrations for wheat indefinitely. Viet Nam, the number two rice exporter after Thailand, has banned rice exports for several months.
Rising food prices are translating into social unrest. Recently rising bread prices in Pakistan have become a source of unrest. In Jakarta, 10,000 Indonesians gathered to protest the doubling of soybean prices that have raised the price of the national protein staple. As economic stresses translate into political stresses, the number of failing states could increase even faster.
We enter this new crop year with the lowest grain stocks on record, the highest grain prices ever, the prospect of a smaller U.S. grain harvest as several million acres of land go back to soybeans, the need to feed an additional 70 million people, and U.S. distillers wanting 33 million more tons of grain to supply the new ethanol distilleries. Corn futures for December 2008 delivery are higher than those for March, market analysts see even tighter supplies after the next harvest.
The crop program that satisfies scarcely 3% of U.S. gasoline needs is not worth the human suffering and political chaos it is causing. U.S. taxpayers, by subsidizing the conversion of grain into ethanol, are financing a rise in their food prices. It is time to end the subsidy for converting food into fuel and to do it quickly before the deteriorating world food situation spirals out of control.
January 24, 2008
Earth Policy Institute
Fertiliser at a Price - If You Can Get It.
Supply problem with fertilisers in spring 2008 is now a reality. World demand is outstripping supply. This coming season, the most likely situation is a shortage.
World demand for grain production for feed and biofuel was currently outstripping supply and that was driving the demand for fertilisers.
These are "unprecedented times" as far as the fertiliser market was concerned.
"We are sold forward for a few months now and are not actually offering product at the moment but we will re-issue prices when we have a better fix on the situation," an agent said.
"There is very good reason for having a soil anlaysis done and not spending money on a type of fertiliser you might not need."
"India still needs to buy more tonnes for December and with time and product running out fast in China expect this bull run to continue well in to 2008."
While UK farmers might be cringing at current prices, they were even higher in some markets and ammonium nitrate was not arriving in any volumes as vessels went to more lucrative destinations than the UK.
Ralph says:
As a boy I lived on a farm in Eastern England (Norfolk). A herd of cattle lived in a large covered enclosure where the straw that was left after removing the grain, was scattered every day as a clean bed for the animals. Once a year this bed, which was by this time about six feet thick, and soaked with manure, provided anough fertilizer for the hundreds of acres (and our garden) that was planted in the Spring. A totally closed loop. No fertilizers added.
November 28, 2007
Guardian (London)
Green Fuels Will Save the Earth - Or Not.
The earth is too small to accommodate all the biofuels projects, and this raises doubts whether green fuels will ever wean the world off crude oil.
The idea of producing an endless supply of inexpensive fuel seemed almost too good to be true.
It has become clear that it will not be possible to grow enough crops to cover global demand for food and fuel, especially as water is becoming scarce.
A biofuel boom has sharply boosted agricultural prices, sparking worries over food supply as the world's population continues to grow.
An analyst calculated that the world would need an additional 100 million hectares of farmland if all countries were to blend 5 percent of biofuels into the cars. The land, about half the size of Indonesia, would match roughly the total additional land available for farming on earth. While sugar was the most land-efficient feedstock for ethanol, it needs plenty of water.
It would take several years before we could turn agricultural waste into fuel ethanol. For biodiesel, there is also no alternative feedstock to edible oils, in the foreseeable future. Oil prices have soared 40% this year but once-lowly palm oil has jumped by 60%. So now palm oil costs $735 a tonne, making crude a bargain at $593 a tonne.
Even in the US, the world's top ethanol producer profits are squeezed at biofuel plants by high corn costs and low ethanol prices.
In Southeast Asia, many biodiesel projects have been also put on backburner due to the poor returns.
The rise in raw material prices for palm and corn is setting off alarm bells for governments worried about the rising cost of basic foods.
The world would need an additional 10 million tonnes of vegetable oils a year to meet demand from both the food and fuel sectors.
Global output of vegetable oils rose to 153 million last year from 100 million tonnes 10 years earlier. But the annual increase was falling short of the required 10 million this decade.
We are right at the beginning of the history of jatropha as a commercial crop, but in the first step we have taken, we have seen a more than 50% increase on the performance of the wild seed ... This gives us a lot of hope of what jatropha could do in future.
November 26, 2007
Reuters
Triple Threat Looms Over Africa's Rural Poor, Warns UN Agency Chief.
Africa's rural poor are facing rising food prices, climate change and population growth and require a more concerted action to help the vulnerable people.
Time is running out to build resilience among the millions of rural Africans who often have to go hungry.
WFP operations remain under-funded by as much as $168 million overall.
We must help people to protect themselves and their families. West Africa faces a difficult challenge against the elements as the Sahara Desert creeps further south each year, consuming arable land or pastures.
Global commodity prices are soaring, driven by the rising cost of fuels. The prices of staples have surged this year, placing them out of reach of many consumers.
The impact of the higher international prices has led to tensions and could turn into a food crisis unless more funds are pledged by donors.
The overall cost of WFP reaching a hungry person has gone up by 50% in the last five years.
Around 1.5 million children under five in the Sahel region are now acutely malnourished. This kills more than 300,000 children every year and stunts the growth of those who survive.
WFP is working with NGOs to help local communities adapt to climate change, such as constructing small dams, completing irrigation projects and contribution to schemes that reduce soil erosion or promote reforestation.
But continued population growth, combined with low school enrolment, is adding to the squeeze on the rural poor across Africa.
November 15, 2007
United Nations World Food Programme
Triple Threat Looms Over Africa's Rural Poor, Warns UN Agency Chief .
Africa's rural poor are facing rising food prices, climate change and population growth and require a more concerted action to help the vulnerable people.
Time is running out to build resilience among the millions of rural Africans who often have to go hungry.
WFP operations remain under-funded by as much as $168 million overall.
We must help people to protect themselves and their families. West Africa faces a difficult challenge against the elements as the Sahara Desert creeps further south each year, consuming arable land or pastures.
Global commodity prices are soaring, driven by the rising cost of fuels. The prices of staples have surged this year, placing them out of reach of many consumers.
The impact of the higher international prices has led to tensions and could turn into a food crisis unless more funds are pledged by donors.
The overall cost of WFP reaching a hungry person has gone up by 50% in the last five years.
Around 1.5 million children under five in the Sahel region are now acutely malnourished. This kills more than 300,000 children every year and stunts the growth of those who survive.
WFP is working with NGOs to help local communities adapt to climate change, such as constructing small dams, completing irrigation projects and contribution to schemes that reduce soil erosion or promote reforestation.
But continued population growth, combined with low school enrolment, is adding to the squeeze on the rural poor across Africa.
November 15, 2007
United Nations World Food Programme
Feed People, Not Cars.
A growing group of human rights and environmental activists point to the dangers that biofuels pose to environmental sustainability and the livelihoods of communities around the world.
Most of the policies envision substituting biofuels for fossil fuels without reducing our overall consumption of energy. These proposals are backed by agribusiness, biotech companies, and oil interests that are now investing billions in ethanol and biodiesel plants. But agrofuels are not easily renewable because the Earth's landmass is itself a finite resource. To produce 7% of the energy that the US gets from petroleum would require converting the country's entire corn crop to ethanol.
Growing agrofuels on a mass scale is already jacking up food prices, depleting soil and water supplies, destroying forests, and violating the rights of indigenous and local people.
Agrofuel plantations in Brazil and Southeast Asia are being created on the territories of indigenous peoples who have traditionally lived in and protected these ecosystems. Agrofuel expansion threatens to divert the world's grain supply from food to fuel. Corn will become more expensive. Already in June soaring demand for biofuels is contributing to a rise in global food import costs.
Small-scale farmers in Colombia, Rwanda, and Guatemala feel compelled to grow luxury crops such as flowers and coffee for export while their families go hungry. The crops required to make enough biofuel to fill a 25-gallon tank could feed one person for a year.
Agrofuels Don't necessarily reduce the greenhouse gas emissions. The most common method of turning palm oil into fuel produces more carbon dioxide emissions than refining petroleum. Corporate plans for expanding biofuel production involve destroying ecosystems to create massive plantations that rely on chemical fertilizers and toxic pesticides to maximize production. A five-year moratorium on the conversion of land for agrofuel production should be accompanied by the development of new energy technologies that do not compromise global food security.
Creative and practical solutions for meeting our energy requirements -including some local, sustainable biofuel programs - are being developed around the world.
We can support proposals for developing sustainable renewable energy sources, while recognizing the need to reduce overall consumption and protect everyone's basic right to food.
Ralph says: If the world population continues to grow the use of corn for bio-fuel will no make much difference. Many will starve.
October 31, 2007
Jerusalem Post
Soil Erosion a Global Threat: Dirt Isn't So Cheap After All.
Soil erosion is undermining food production and water availability, and is responsible for 30% of the greenhouse gases. Soil and vegetation is being lost at an alarming rate, which in turn has devastating effects on food production and accelerates climate change. Every year, 100,000 square km of land becomes degraded or turns into desert.
Food production has kept pace with population growth by increasing 50% between 1980 and 2000. But it is doubtful if there will be enough food in 2050 with three billion more mouths to feed.
Global food production is declining. Soil degradation is producing growing shortages of water. Soil and vegetation act as a sponge that holds and gradually releases water.
Soils are under greater pressure than ever with governments subsidising crops to produce biofuels.
Biofuel crops use a lot of water. In future, there will not be enough water to grow the food we need.
Biofuels do little to help the problem of climate change, but preventing deforestation and soil loss is the quickest and easiest way to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases.
Land degradation and desertification may account for 30% of the world's greenhouse gases. These changes to the land also alter the water, temperature and energy balance of the planet.
Climate change makes land degradation worse and more extensive, through changes in precipitation and increased evaporation that trigger more extreme weather.
Keeping carbon molecules in the soil, forests and grasslands is the quickest way to address climate change.
There is money to be made by storing carbon in the soil and vegetation. The Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) rules under the Kyoto treaty need to be changed to ensure the triple benefits from climate mitigation, climate adaptation and sustainable development for the poor are achieved. Other policy changes are needed for conservation of soil and vegetation and restoration of degraded land to ensure humanity's future survival.
Ending the 30 billion dollars in food subsidies that contribute directly to land degradation would be a good start.
Soil, water, energy, climate, biodiversity, food production are all interconnected, which demands integrated policy-making. There is also no formal agreement on protecting the world's soils.
It is possible to restore degraded lands with enough resources. It is better to preserve than restore.
Karen Gaia says: and if we ignore population, all our gains will be wiped out.
October 06, 2007
IPS
India;: Ten Per Cent Growth Amid the Dance of Death.
Indian agriculture is again at crossroads. Growth in agriculture has decelerated and when forests are destroyed, soil fertility is diminished or water table plummets to dangerously low levels, the rural poor have no option but to migrate to towns and cities in search of jobs. For a country to be able to build up food-grain reserves, sustainable agriculture isthe path to equitable growth, development and national food security. But the green revolution technology came with enormous environmental costs. Monoculture, mechanical ploughing, soil erosion, the extension of crops into forests and the use and abuse of chemicals have contributed to the second-generation environmental impacts that the intensively farmed lands of the country are still grappling with.
The green revolution has collapsed. Village after village are turning into a cesspool of deprivation and mounting indebtedness arising from the blind adoption of intensive farming systems that the government promoted. Villages are being put on sale in many parts of the country.
The unforeseen slump in agriculture growth has affected the industrial growth rate which concerns the prime minister.
In a move to prop up agricultural growth, the prime minister has called for reversing the trend in investment in agriculture, stepping up credit flow to farmers, strengthening future farming, creating a single market for agricultural produce and providing the latest technology to farmers. The prime minister's approach is aimed at compounding the existing crisis.
What is needed is a fresh approach, but unfortunately, the prime minister is fostering a farm strategy that has failed in the US and Europe. In the US, only seven lakh farmers now remain on the farm. In Europe, one farmer every minute quits agriculture.
The strategy has to be different. Nearly 42 lakh government employees and two crore state employees will receive a salary bonanza that will cost the state exchequer more than Rs 1,00,000 crore a year. For the 11 crore farming families, all that is being promised is more credit. More than 1,200 farmers in the Vidarbha region of Maharashtra have committed suicide after the prime minister's Rs 3,750-crore relief package was announced. In other parts, the rural landscape remains equally depressing. With agriculture turning into a losing proposition, more than 40% of the farming population has expressed the desire to migrate to urban centres.
The average income of a farm household in 2003 stood at a paltry Rs 2,115. A peon in government service has an average monthly packet at least five times more. The farmer is at the mercy of the moneylender or the banker.
For nearly 6% of the population, 85% of its earnings comes from crop cultivation and wages earned by family members. The farm earnings of marginal and poor farmers have dropped to less than that of a daily wage labourer.
Farm income over the years has eroded. While government employees continue to get the benefit of pay hikes, annual increments, medical allowances, paid holidays and financial loans, the farmer remains out of bound for all these bounties.
Surviving against all odds, and despite the low earnings, farmers have worked hard to ensure national food self-sufficiency. A healthy and vibrant farm sector will only benefit the national economy. Probably the only way to ensure the economic viability of the farm sector is to either enlarge the scope of the sixth pay commission to include farmers or to set up a separate pay commission for the farmers. Based on minimum land-holdings, and de-coupled from production, there is immediate need to ensure farmers get an assured income.
The National Farmers Commission should be entrusted to work out a minimum farm income. Irrespective of productivity, and depending upon the agro-climatic conditions in which a farm is situated, a formula that entails a minimum income has to be worked out. This is the least that needs to be attempted to provide the ailing farm sector a reprieve. There is no other way to pull agriculture out from the tragic abyss of the prevailing crisis.
Karen Gaia says: This is the price of unsustainability. The advantaged win while the disadvantaged pay the price.
September 29, 2007
HardNews Magazine
Fresh Water Scarcity - a Potential Cause for Warfare.
Less than 1% of the world's water is readily available freshwater. There is an increased chance of low-level armed conflicts regarding freshwater resources. Nations believe that water is of a strategic importance and due to this mentality, the development of a riparian policy that several countries will agree to is nearly impossible.
Most of the world's water supply is used for agriculture. The lack of a suitable water supply limits the amount and kind of industries a nation may undertake. This can cause tension within a country due to the inability to create employment and pay its debts.
Saudi Arabia will deplete its groundwater supplies in about fifty years. 216 rivers flow through two or more countries. Thirty-one nations receive more than one-third of their water from rivers that cross international borders. Water availability has been a problem in some parts of the world for a long time. This problem will be exacerbated by population growth in developing countries. The population in some areas of the world is too high for the quantity of water available and it is predicted that this issue will reach critical mass around 2035.
Increases in the level of development increase the amount of water consumed. Projects reduce the amount of protective vegetation. The vegetation slows water flow so that it can permeate the soil and renew groundwater supplies.
Some solutions: Desalination systems convert saltwater to freshwater. Some areas have polluted water and water filtration systems could be profitable. Farming could benefit from the development of more plants that are drought resistant. Irrigation systems could be improved to reduce water loss and hydroponics where the water is constantly reused.
September 17, 2007
Alt3.co.uk
Global Food Crisis Looms as Climate Change and Population Growth Strip Fertile Land: 'Ignorance, Need and Greed' Depleting Soil; Experts Warn Competition Will Lead to Conflict.
Climate change and increasing population could trigger a global food crisis as countries struggle for fertile land. To keep up with the growth in population, more food will have to be produced over the next 50 years than has been during the past 10,000 years combined.
In many countries poor farming practices and deforestation will be exacerbated by climate change leaving vast areas unsuitable for crops or grazing.
Competition may lead to conflicts and environmental destruction
Researchers called on countries to impose guidelines to ensure that soils are not degraded so badly they cannot recover.
This is urgent as securing food and reducing poverty can impact efforts to curb the flow of people, environmental refugees, inside countries as well as across national borders.
Land degradation is among the world's greatest environmental challenges. Some 40% of the world's agricultural land is seriously degraded. In Central America, 75% of land is infertile, Africa, a fifth of soil is degraded, and Asia, where 11% is unsuitable for farming.
The majority of soil erosion is caused by flooding or poor irrigation. Ploughing damages soil, as does repeated planting in fields. Some pressures on soil resources come from human needs, where people don't have any option but to grow crops or farm animals. But farmers try to meet markets. And sometimes, land is cleared that should not have been, or grazed when it shouldn't have been. Increased competition over depleted resources would lead to conflict. According to the UN, 854 million people do not have sufficient food. The population has risen between 1980 and 2000 from 4.4 billion to 6.1 billion and food production increased 50%.
Many countries are opting to plant biofuel crops.
If we can improve agricultural practices across the board we can dramatically increase our food production from existing lands, without having to clear more or put more pressure on soils. Crop rotation, sowing at the right time of year, basic weed control, are what is needed.
Karen Gaia says: it is always easy to give advice on what should be done, but somehow practice usually seems to lag behind the advice. Is it because it is not as simple as it sounds?
August 31, 2007
Guardian (London)
Between Hungry People and Climate Change, Soils Need Help.
To provide for a rapidly growing population, more food must be produced in the coming 50 years than in the last 10,000 years combined. But land degradation and desertification are undercutting the soil's ability to produce more food, causing a crisis that affects one-third of all people on Earth.
An international forum will highlight the roles land care and soil conservation play in the implementation of global environmental agreements. While caused in part by global warming, land degradation and desertification also contributes to climate change.
Soil and vegetation is being lost at an alarming rate which has devastating effects on food production and accelerates climate change. Land degradation and desertification may be a genuine threat to the future of humankind.
Between 1980 and 2000, the global population rose from 4.4 to 6.1 billion and food production increased 50%. Many countries are starting to grow biofuel crops.
Unless land quality is restored, securing food in many places will become a crisis of growing proportions. The same applies to services provided by the ecosystems of the world, such as water storage and biological diversity
Forests are being reduced at an alarming rate and large areas are being overgrazed.
Policy changes that improve conservation of soil and vegetation and restoration of degraded land are fundamental to humanity's future livelihood. This is an urgent task
Land degradation is linked to global climate change in many ways. It reduces carbon sequestration capacity of land, particularly as a result of loss of vegetation, and it creates adverse local weather patterns through loss of vegetation cover.
There is significant potential to harness carbon finance for restoration of land in such a way as to ensure triple benefits from climate mitigation, climate adaptation and sustainable development. The key principle of land care is that the people at a grassroots level have to be involved in designing and implementing soil conservation measures.
August 31, 2007
Environmental News Service
Global Food Crisis Looms as Climate Change and Population Growth Strip Fertile Land.
Climate change and an increasing population could trigger a global food crisis in the next half century. More food will have to be produced worldwide over the next 50 years than has been during the past 10,000 years combined.
But in many countries poor farming practices and deforestation will leave vast areas unsuitable for crops or grazing.
Competition may lead to conflicts and environmental destruction. Researchers at a UN-backed forum on sustainable development called on countries to impose farming guidelines to ensure that soils are not degraded so badly they cannot recover.
This is an urgent task as the quality of land for food production, as well as water storage, is fundamental to future peace.
The UN ranked land degradation among the world's greatest environmental challenges.
Some 40% of the agricultural land is seriously degraded. Among the worst affected regions are Central America, where 75% of land is infertile, Africa, where a fifth of soil is degraded, and Asia, where 11% is unsuitable for farming.
The majority of soil erosion is caused by water, through flooding, poor irrigation, and winds. Ploughing also damages soil, as does repeated planting. Some pressures on soil come from human needs, where people don't have any option but to grow crops or farm animals. But in other instances farmers try to meet markets. And sometimes, and that's cleared that should not have been, or grazed when it shouldn't have been. Increased competition over lead to conflict and the losers will inevitably be the environment and poor people.
854 million people do not have sufficient food for an active and healthy life.
The global population between 1980 and 2000 rose from 4.4 billion to 6.1 billion and food production increased 50%. By 2050 the population is expected to reach 9 billion.
The threat of a food crisis is exacerbated by fears over energy with many countries opting to plant biofuel in place of food crops. If we can improve agricultural practices we can dramatically increase our food production from existing lands. Simple things like good crop rotation, sowing at the right time of year, basic weed control, are what is needed.
August 31, 2007
Guardian (London)
Import-Export Business - How Globalization is Smothering U.S. Fruit and Vegetable Farms.
President Bush roiled U.S. vegetable farmers by announcing a crackdown on undocumented workers. Last week, Smithfield Foods inked a deal to export 60 million pounds of U.S.-grown pork to China.
These events, illustrate that the globalized food system continues to gain traction.
Bush's move puts a squeeze on U.S. vegetable growers, and will likely result in more food from nations with weaker environmental regulations. More industrially produced food result in more pressure on soil and water resources, more greenhouse-gas emissions, and more fertile land made vulnerable to suburban sprawl.
As U.S. fruit and vegetable farms have scaled up to meet the demands of buyers like Wal-Mart, they've come to rely on low-wage and highly flexible workers. These mega-farms specialize in one or two crops, and rely on poisons to keep pests and weeds away.
Most estimates say 70% of U.S. farmworkers are undocumented. For several seasons now, farmers have had to scramble to find enough workers to harvest their crops. One factor has been an increasingly militarized border, another has been the building boom. In New York's Hudson Valley, where workers come from Mexico and Central America, apple growers fear a bumper crop could largely wither on the branches. It's a very labor-intensive industry, and there is no local labor supply. In Arizona farmers are hiring inmate labor. But an Arizona prison official acknowledged that inmates can offset only a fraction of the state's farm-labor shortage.
Fruit and vegetable farming, like manufacturing over the past generation, has entered a relentless hunt for cheap labor markets and lax regulatory regimes.
The U.S. is already outsourcing an increasing share of its fruit and veg production. But with marketing relationships and trade infrastructure in place, nothing stops distributors from buying cheaper Mexico-grown lettuce over California product, or New Zealand apples over those grown in New York or Washington. When farmers can no longer work their land profitably they generally sell it to developers, and succumb to low-density sprawl. That's already happening in California. Production of the fruits and vegetables we consume shifts to nations with weaker regulatory regimes than ours, meaning more agricultural chemicals released into the biosphere. And increasing distances mean burning more fossil fuel to haul from farm to table.
While U.S. vegetable farming gets squeezed between labor shortages and global competition, other forms of U.S. agriculture, industrial grain and meat production, thrive in the global marketplace.
August 30, 2007
Grist Magazine
With the World Population Growth Outpacing Food Supply, Say Goodbye to the Era of Unlimited Improvement.
The consequences of excessive rainfall in the late 18th century were predictable. Crops fail, the harvest would be dismal, food prices would rise and some people would starve. Nine years later, Malthus published "Essay on the Principle of Population." His insight was simple but devastating. "Population, when unchecked, increases in a geometrical ratio," but "subsistence increases only in an arithmetical ratio." Put it another way: humanity can increase like the number sequence 1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64 (average of four children per woman), whereas our food supply can increase no faster than the number sequence 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7
We are much better at reproducing than feeding ourselves.
Superficially, mankind seems to have broken free of the Malthusian trap. The world's population has increased by more than six since Malthus' time. Yet the global average daily supply of calories consumed has also gone up on a per capita basis, exceeding 2,700 in the 1990s. The conventional explanation is the succession of revolutions in global agriculture, culminating in the postwar "green revolution" and the current wave of genetically modified crops. Since the 1950s, the area of the world under cultivation has increased by roughly 11%, while yields per hectare have increased by 120%. Yet as Malthus said, food production could increase only at an arithmetical rate, and a chart of world cereal yields since 1960 shows just such a linear progression, from below 1 1/2 metric tons to around 3.
Contraception and abortion have been employed to reduce family sizes. Wars, epidemics, disasters and famines have increased mortality. Together, vice and misery have managed to reduce the rate of population growth from 2.2% annually in the early 1960s to about 1.1% today.
The UN expects the world's population to pass the 9 billion mark by 2050. But can world food production keep pace? We must average 4 tons per hectare to support a population of 8 billion. Yields now are just 3 tons per hectare, and a world of 8 billion people may be less than 20 years away.
Global warming and the resulting climate change may well be inflicting permanent damage on some farming regions. Our effort to switch from fossil fuels to biofuels is taking large tracts of land out of food production.
World per capita cereal production has already passed its peak not least because of collapsing production in the former Soviet Union and sub-Saharan Africa. Meanwhile, there is a worldwide surge in food demand.
The IMF recorded a 23% rise in world food prices during the last 18 months. When I wanted a Philly cheese steak last week, I had to pay through the nose. That's because cheese inflation is 4%, steak inflation is 6% and bread inflation is 10%. Steak is now 53% dearer than it was 10 years ago.
For a long time, we have deluded ourselves that "illimitable improvement" was attainable. As the world approaches a new era of dearth, and misery we are set to make a mighty Malthusian comeback.
Karen Gaia says: While this article is accurate about the food supply and rate of population growth, it is not true that the mortality rate is going down. Not taken into account is the lowering of the infant mortality rate. The slowing of population growth can be attributed to voluntary family planning, which has resulted in the average birth rate in the world going down to less than three children per woman.
July 30, 2007
Los Angeles Times
Losing Soil.
In 2002 a UN team assessed the food situation in Lesotho, South Africa. Their finding was that agriculture faces a catastrophic future; crop production is declining and could cease altogether over large tracts of the country if steps are not taken to reverse soil erosion, degradation, and the decline in soil fertility. Nearly half of the children under five in Lesotho are stunted physically. Whether in Lesotho, or elsewhere, the health of the people cannot be separated from the health of the land. The thin layer of topsoil that covers the planet's land surface is the foundation of civilization. This soil was formed over long stretches of geological time as new soil formation exceeded the natural rate of erosion. Plants protect the soil from erosion. Human activity is disrupting this relationship.
Within the last century, soil erosion began to exceed new soil formation. The foundation of civilization is crumbling. The accelerating soil erosion can be seen in the dust bowls that form as vegetation is destroyed and wind erosion soars out of control. Each example of these is associated with overgrazing, deforestation, and agricultural expansion, followed by retrenchment as the soil begins to disappear.
The overplowing of the U.S. Great Plains for example, led to the 1930s Dust Bowl. Kazakhstan, saw its grainland area peak at just over 25 million hectares around 1980, then shrink to 14 million hectares today. Even on the remaining land, the average wheat yield is a far cry from the nearly 8 tons per hectare that farmers get in France.
A similar situation exists in Mongolia, which is now forced to import nearly 60 of its wheat.
Saharan dust storms have increased 10-fold during the last half-century. In Heilongjiang, Hunan, Tibet (Xizang), Qinghai, and Xinjiang, wind erosion of soil made it clear that the only sustainable use was controlled grazing. Chinese agriculture is now engaged in pulling back to land that can sustain crop production.
Water erosion also takes a toll on soils. Pakistan's two large reservoirs are losing roughly 1% of their storage capacity each year as they fill with silt from deforested watersheds.
Ethiopia, a mountainous country with highly erodible soils on steeply sloping land, is losing an estimated 1 billion tons of topsoil a year, washed away by rain. Fortunately there are ways to conserve and rebuild soils.
July 27, 2007
Earth Policy News
No Sustainability Since Agriculture.
Many have come to understand that we humans have to eaten and reproduced ourselves into a 'cul-de-sac' as our ability to produce food has been swallowed up by human reproduction excesses to go above and beyond even the enormous (but temporary) increases in carrying capacity offered by fossil fuel driven technological and cultural improvements in agricultural production.
There is a basic flaw in our food production culture. Agriculture is unsustainable in the long term because it opens up nutrient conservative ecosystems and allows leaching of fertilizer elements to the sea so over time the capacity of these lands decreases irreversibly in the absence of inputs of exogenous nutrient supplements.
The Amerindian practice of using fish (reversing to flow of nutrients to the sea) to fertilize, beans, corn and squash -- in temporary clearings in the forest (before the soil carbon had been burnt off by microbial activity) may have worked for a very long time to support a stable and small population of shifting agriculturalists.
July 22, 2007
The Future of Sustainability
Ageing Population Threat to Rural England.
The diversity and sustainability of communities in rural England are under threat as young people opt for urban living. There are now 400,000 fewer young people in rural areas than 20 years ago. Since 1987, the proportion of young people in rural areas has fallen from 21% to 15%.
The average age of people in the countryside is now 43.6 years, five years higher than in towns and cities. This is putting a strain on rural services, and the lack of affordable housing is another serious problem. The average price of a house in rural areas was 22% higher than in urban areas in 2006.
The area devoted to oil seed rape as an energy crop nearly doubled between 2005 and 2006 to 187,000 hectares.
There has been a 3.6 times increase in wind power capacity over the last three years, enough to supply around 300,00 homes.
More than 4m hectares of farmland is under an agri-environment scheme.
Land that is organically farmed or in conversion to organic is a fraction of total agricultural land but has increased from 2.7% in 2003 to 3.1%, and there are now nearly 400 vineyards in England and Wales.
The government must reverse the damage it has done and ensure villages and market towns become sustainable communities. That means building more affordable homes and investing in better services.
A spokeswoman for Rural Affairs (Defra) responded: "The majority of rural areas are thriving and the government seeks to ensure that people have equality of opportunity in both rural and urban areas.
July 17, 2007
Guardian (London)
Organic Farming Yields as Good or Better.
US researchers claim that organic farming can yield up to three times as much food as conventional farming. Findings contradict arguments that organic farming is not as efficient as conventional techniques.
Model estimates indicate that organic methods could produce enough food to sustain the current human population, and potentially an even larger population, without increasing the agricultural land base. Corporate interest in agriculture and the way agriculture research has been conducted have been playing an important role in convincing the public that you need to have chemicals and pesticides to produce food.
July 11, 2007
Planet Ark
Humans Gobble One Quarter of Food Chain's Foundation.
The original farmer did not have an large impact on the world. Now, thousands of years later, modern agrarians-along with engineers, foresters and consumers control 23.8% of all the world's photosynthesis. Using FAO statistics for 2000, an ecologist calculated the difference between the energy produced by plants in the absence of humans and the photosynthetic energy available to ecosystems after humans have taken their share.
Due to human activities, in particular land use, 23.8% less photosynthetic energy remains than would be available without human activities. More than half of the human share of photosynthetic energy comes from farming. The human share is 63% in southern Asia and 11% in central Asia and Russia.
As the human population continues to rise the human share will eat up more and more of the available biomass. That share could rise should a shift to biofuels occur. Land-use on a local scale undercut the web of life in Austria-from breeding bird species to crickets to the plants themselves. It is clear that a remarkable share of global photosynthetic production is used to satisfy the needs and wants of the humans on this earth.
July 02, 2007
David Biello
The Fight for the World's Food.
In Britain the price of cereals has jumped by 12% in the past year. And milk on the global market has leapt by nearly 60%. We may be reaching the end of cheap food.
Sixty years ago an average British family spent more than one-third of its income on food. Today, that figure has dropped to one-tenth. But agricultural commodity prices are surging. Two main drivers suggest that cheap food is about to become a thing of the past due to the increased consumption and the use of crops as an alternative energy resource.
As these two forces combine they are setting off warning bells around the world.
Rice prices are climbing, butter in Europe has spiked by 40% in the past year. Wheat futures are at their highest level for a decade. In Mexico there have been riots in response to a 60% rise in the cost of tortillas.
The supermarkets cannot shield us for long. The European Commission no longer has reserves to cushion its citizens. Its mountains of unsold butter and meat have disappeared after reforms to the Common Agricultural Policy.
Corn is consumed indirectly. The milk, eggs, cheese, butter, chicken, be
