Earlier this year, World Bank President Robert Zoellick sounded an alarm that the world was "one shock away" from a crisis in food supply. "For most commodities stocks are relatively low. You have one other weather event in some of these areas and you really start to push people over the edge."
That is now. What of the future? Zoellick talks of "weather events." This, in the face of dramatic changes in weather patterns and those to come as consequence of the world's emerging economies and their growing industrial base exacerbating global warming. The World Meteorological Organization has already predicted that food output may be hurt as climate change brings more extreme weather over the next decade, with China likely set for harsher droughts and North America getting heavier rain.
This, in the face of dynamic growth in the world's population. The U.N. projects its growth nearing 33 percent from the current circa 7 billion to 9.3 billion by 2050 and 10.1 billion by 2100. It is generally understood that with this expanding population and their changing eating habits, world calorie production will have to be doubled by 2050.
This, while facing dramatically diminishing returns in crop-yield in the years ahead as the 'green revolution' (intense application of fertilizers, herbicides and improved seeds) reaches the limits of its spectacular growth in crop-yields over the past five decades. From this point forward, yield growth from greater application of farm chemicals, genetically engineered seed varieties, mineral and chemical fertilizers will increase, but only marginally compared to the dramatic jump achieved in decades past.
This, in the face of the barely understood misnomer that food is an ever-renewable resource. Rarely taken into account is the prospect of a world fertilizer shortage that may make talk of the world's 'energy deficit' sound like 'the good ole days.' Basic to maximizing agricultural yield and in turn food production are such core mined minerals as phosphates, potash and nitrates. Though nitrates can be substituted with natural gas based ammonia and other nitrogen based fertilizers, there is no such substitute for phosphates and potash that have to be physically mined and processed. Their presence and availability is neither limitless nor readily accessible. In future years, fables of 'peak oil' may well pale by comparison to 'peak fertilizer.'
This in the face of enormous political uncertainty highlighted by the current political upheavals in the Middle East. Perhaps even more disconcerting was the abrupt embargo of Russia's wheat exports last year (only recently lifted) to world consumers by the Russian government, thereby throwing grain markets into massive disequilibrium by further adding a precarious unknown to the availability of food supplies. That a major grain producer would unilaterally halt grain shipments augurs deep trouble ahead with the very real prospect of national politics trumping world dependency for free and unfettered trade in these vital commodities.
Among these looming uncertainties, America stands tall. It is already the world's largest grower and exporter of corn, the largest exporter of wheat, the second largest exporter of soybeans, not to speak of other myriad crops such as rice, oilseeds, sorghum and on to cotton, etc. The American Midwest with its massive expanse of fertile agricultural lands will become the most important provider of food grains to the world, an ever more essential and scarce commodity. As world supplies of food become tighter, America's position as the major provider of basic food grains to a hungry world will become ever more significant, a preeminence that is destined to relegate fossil fuel/energy exporters to a distant second in economic importance.
Our Midwest is blessed in that along with its vast expanse it harbors great human talent and a wide-ranging inland waterway system providing transport economies that permit our crops to reach world markets effectively and efficiently. The question needs be asked, are we preparing the nation for the tasks and responsibilities ahead?
Food, America's potential in supplying the world in the years and decades ahead offers this nation the opportunity not only to reconnect once again to its agricultural roots, but to assume a role of visionary leadership in what will unquestionably become the primordial commodity extant. Are we prepared for America's 21st Century Manifest Destiny?
Follow Raymond J. Learsy on Twitter: www.twitter.com/@raymondLearsy
Otaviano Canuto: Diversify, Diversify, Diversify
What an excellent scholarly article. What an excellent list of questions asked.
What a perfect piece of DENIAL.
Want to read a book that addresses the issues that you address? One that will provide a current understanding of our present problems?
Try reading a book you may have heard of, but considered dated, or silly, or politically incorrect.
The book is "On Population" by Rev. Thomas Malthus. Copyright 1798
Available on-line for free in PDF format, or from Amazon.
It is actually quite readable, and except for the wordy introduction, it is pretty fast reading.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Landless_Workers%27_Movement
though of course this will happen
http://rajpatel.org/2009/10/30/brazil-increasing-repression-and-criminalization-against-the-landless-people-movement-mst/
Also wikipedia.org/malthus.
i heartily recommend the book i'm reading.
stuffed and starved, the hidden battle for the worlds food system by raj patel.
If somebody here decided that millions should go hungry so we can make another sale abroad, I am not sure it would go over well.
When our best selling pesticide has been known to cause birth defects, and genetically modified plants are contaminating natural stocks, and all the many other problems with our current system, some mention of these problems would seem necessary too.
Quantity should not be the sole focus.
Two things, Russia has known famine in its history. So it's is somethig it must fear very much. As an authoritarian regime, it cannot afford to let its people go hungry.
By the way, Garrett Hardin in his book "The Population Bomb", discusses a scenario in which Russia (then the Soviet Union) and the U.S. go to war over the Russians the American use of pesticides.
It destroys the Russian fishing industryby poisoning the oceans.
Also check out Malthus, "On Population" Its free on-line.
Check for the book on Amazon it there, might be free on the net.
1. The UN report he cites is flawed. One of the authors of the report has admitted this.
2. The number of ruminants in North America hasn't changed in the last five hundred years. Only the type of ruminants have changed (cattle instead of buffalo for example). In other words, livestock isn't a new source of greenhouse gases. What is a new source are rice paddies. It's been estimated that rice paddies produce more greenhouse gases than all livestock combined.
3. While Americans are eating more calories, most of the increase is in refined carbs, added fats from vegetable oils and added sugars. Meat consumption has only increased by one percent and most of that is chicken. It's a myth that the Standard American Diet is meat-based. It's a carb-based diet.
4. Half of all grains aren't fed to livestock. Seventy-eight percent of the wheat crop is used for human consumption. Ninety-eight percent of soy beans is grown for oil production. What's fed to livestock is the byproducts of oil production. Yes, roughly half of the corn crop is grown specifically for livestock, but even that is changing as more corn is used for ethanol.
But of course the powers that be don't even wanna discuss it, as here-there was no discussion-do a word search.
That has been known since at least 1798. Rev. Thomas Malthus, "On Population" 1798.
Available on line.
The problem is, that birth control implies that human being are sexual creatures.
Not a concept yet accepted.
That is of course until climate change shufts the gulf stream and America's former breadbasket becomes a wasteland.
Yes I can forsee the U.S. using this position as a weapon to further our imperialistic aims...
We would rather starve than have the USA feed us!
Of all the stupid comments....
Its mais oui!
Recycling organic matter is another prerequisite.
Land use is already influenced by government in the context of County Planning, with Land Trusts assuring that agricultural lands are protected.
More than a "commodity", food is a basic need (as basic as you can get). Markets are created and governed by people, in accordance with their needs. Free markets are a myth.
Good pointed. You are obviously educated. I went to graduate school in the social sciences, but never read Malthus.
I finally did. It was enlightening.
It is precisely because of the questions ask below that the world’s food supplies are as precarious as they are. Not because there is no national strategy but rather because there are too many of them.
The world has gotten increasingly efficient at producing food and the cost of food, measured in work hours, has continued to drop during the last century. However, misguided efforts by governments to intervene in the market using specious rationales, almost all linked to ‘strategic’ protectionism, has caused gluts and shortages where there shouldn’t be. Governments need to get out of markets and that means price supports, tariffs, subsidies, etc, and let free markets and free exchange solve a non-problem.
Kai