World Bank - Environmental, Market, Population Part Of "Increasingly Volatile" World Food System
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Wheat and soybeans led commodities gains last year and corn jumped to a record in August after the worst U.S. drought since the 1930s left limited supplies. Frosts in Brazil helped cut the sugar cane crop in the country’s main producing region for the first time in a decade in the 2011-12 season, data from industry group Unica showed. Disruptive weather events are increasing in frequency and amplitude, Sadler said.
“The real challenge for agriculture is that the environment, the production system, the variables that surround us, are increasingly volatile,” he said. “It will continue to be a challenge to raise agricultural productivity in a resilient way in the face of climate change and this is the reality we face.”
While food production is increasing, a large proportion of stockpiles are in countries that won’t export them, Sadler said. About 50 percent of global grain supplies are in India and China, he told the Agriculture Investment Summit in London. Global cereals production will be a record 2.46 billion metric tons this year, the FAO estimates.
Better Crops
“The reality is we have better crops, but when we look at available liquid stocks for the global export market as a percentage of stocks to disappearance, it’s pretty low,” Sadler said. “The good news is, food continues to move around the planet, that trade continues to be relatively free. Last year we had two big problems in the U.S. and in Russia and yet we saw very little in the markets in terms of barriers to trade, so a huge improvement, an important improvement and a difference from what happened in 2008 and 2010.”
Countries from India and Egypt to Vietnam and Indonesia banned exports of rice, a staple for half the world, during the 2008 food crisis. Russia in 2010 banned cereal exports after the country’s worst drought in at least half a century destroyed crops and cut production.
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http://www.businessweek.com/news/2013-06-27/world-bank-sees-vulnerable-food-system-on-climate-change-1
