The Global Food Crisis

“The End of Plenty: The Global Food Crisis”, A National Geographic Magazine Special Report

This is a topic PrudentHome has discussed in bits and pieces since our inception. It has, with this National Geographic Special Report, come somewhat comprehensively into a more public view and hopefully into public discussion. Here are some of the highlights from the report:

• There is an old debate as to whether food production can keep up with population.
• The article notes that, “We’ve been consuming more food than farmers have been producing for most of the last decade.”
• “A surging population, to 8 billion by 2005, is the major driver of increased food demand.”
• “Food Versus Fuel: The corn used to make a 25 gallon tank of ethanol would feed one person for a year.”
• “Hungry For Meat: 35 percent of world grain is used to feed livestock instead of people.”
• “Between 2005 and the summer of 2008, the price of wheat and corn tripled, and the price of rice climbed five-fold, spurring riots in nearly two dozen countries… But unlike previous shocks driven by short-term food shortages, this price spike came in a year when world farmers reaped a record grain crop. …in 2007 the world saw global carryover stocks fall to 61 days of global consumption, the second lowest on record.”
• Climate change and it’s effects (i.e. drought) are “raising the specter of a perpetual food crisis.”
• Some experts are saying that we need another “green revolution” wherein corn, rice, and wheat production was doubled between the mid-1950’s and mid-1990’s. “… these experts now say we need a repeat performance, doubling current food production by 2030.”

Note:The “green revolution” was composed of new, high-yielding varieties of rice, corn, and wheat etc., powered by lots of water and fossil fuel-sourced synthetic fertilizers and pesticides. Yields on the same farmland were doubled and tripled but at a cost of soil and water degeneration.  And some say, higher rates of cancer.

• Is there an alternative to another green revolution? A six year study – called the “International Assessment of Agricultural Knowledge, Science and Technology for Development”- invited by the World Bank and the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization, is calling for a “paradigm shift in agriculture toward more sustainable and ecologically friendly practices that would benefit the worlds 900 million small farmers, not just agribusiness”
• “…a shift has already begun to small, under funded projects scattered across Africa and Asia. Some call it agroecology, others sustainable agriculture, but the underlying idea is revolutionary; that we must stop focusing on maximizing grain yields at any cost and consider the environmental impacts of food production.”
• “Ultimately, there has to be a balance between population and resources. And this notion that we can continue to grow forever … is ridiculous.”

What PrudentHome.com believes: We need an agricultural system that is productive, diverse, independent, local, and sustainable (ecologically sound). And we need it as soon as possible. Population increases, fossil fuel and resource (i.e., phosphate) depletion along with climate change, will not wait. It’s the very thing we’ve been advocating from our beginning through gardening books such as John Jeavon’s “How to Grow More Vegetables and Fruits.”

Until next time; keep your eyes on the horizon as the weathers hanging fast.