The bottom line is that it is becoming much more difficult for the world’s farmers to keep up with the world’s rapidly growing demand for grain. World grain stocks were drawn down a decade ago and we have not been able to rebuild them. If we cannot do so, we can expect that with the next poor harvest, food prices will soar, hunger will intensify, and food unrest will spread.
We are entering a time of chronic food scarcity, one that is leading to intense competition for control of land and water resources – in short, a new geopolitics of food.Inter Press Service
New Era of Food Scarcity Echoes Collapsed Civilisations
Analysis by Lester R. Brown | President of Earth Policy Institute
Food and water as the new oil.
Hasn't the US simply been adjusting the bio-fuel requirements in gasoline and diesel to sop up excess production and keep prices stable instead of paying farmers not to grow.
ReplyDeleteIts keeps productive capacity up and production can be diverted to food use from fuel use almost instantly during an emergency where as paying a farmer not to grow would require waiting another season.
another idiot mathusian. Not only are bio fuels , but most third world land are not even close to maximum output if western techniques were used. At a 70s world food conference Russian delegates argued that using the arable land in Africa with western methods would produce enough for the whole world.
ReplyDeleteNever see any of these hunger mongers actually come up with any rigorous analysis.
1 How much land could go into food
production?
2 If all the arable land is used for optimal out put how much would if produce?
3 Agriculture has seen the most productivity gains out of any industry. Why would this stop.
http://static.seekingalpha.com/uploads/2011/11/7/saupload_corn.jpg
Water is never a problem. As we have desalination capabilities.
As usual more excuses by mainstream for letting humans starve. Too bad this site helps promote excuses for unnecessary starving.
Lester Brown, Full Planet, Empty Plates: The New Geopolitics of Food ScarcityFull Planet, Empty Plates: The New Geopolitics of Food Scarcity (W. W.Norton, 2012)
ReplyDeleteWith food supplies tightening, countries are competing for the land and water resources needed to feed their people.
With food scarcity driven by falling water tables, eroding soils, and rising temperatures, control of arable land and water resources is moving to center stage in the global struggle for food security. “In this era of tightening world food supplies, the ability to grow food is fast becoming a new form of geopolitical leverage. Food is the new oil,” Lester R. Brown writes.
What will the geopolitics of food look like in a new era dominated by scarcity and food nationalism? Brown outlines the political implications of land acquisitions by grain-importing countries in Africa and elsewhere as well as the world’s shrinking buffers against poor harvests. With wisdom accumulated over decades of tracking agricultural issues, Brown exposes the increasingly volatile food situation the world is facing.
Brown is ranked as one of the 100 top global thinkers by Foreign Policy. LIke the heterodox economists that predicted the global financial crisis, Brown correctly foresaw the associated food shortages in 2007-2008, which led to adversity and social unrest in poor countries and spilled over into Arab Spring. He is warning now that the world needs to make better preparations for the next crisis, just as MMT economists are warning about the next leg down since little has been done to reform the systemic risk and the bad behavior that led to the last crisis persists and is intensifying.
Anyone see a pattern here?
Good points, Miller B. I think you're right that there is a strong strain of neo-Malthusianism in these kinds of reports. And they've been at it for a while. Think good old Paul Ehrlich and his "population bomb."I live in the Oregon Willamette Valley and guess what maybe the biggest crop is? Grass seed. For golf courses and lawns and "pasture improvement." We can't very well grow corn or hard red wheat here, but we sure as hell could grow oats and rye. There are also any number of "farms" that consist of 6 sheep and a llama. Lester Brown really should get out more.
ReplyDelete