Lester Brown - The Great Food Crisis of 2011

[phantom power]

As the new year begins, the price of wheat is setting an all-time high in the United Kingdom. Food riots are spreading across Algeria. Russia is importing grain to sustain its cattle herds until spring grazing begins. India is wrestling with an 18-percent annual food inflation rate, sparking protests. China is looking abroad for potentially massive quantities of wheat and corn. The Mexican government is buying corn futures to avoid unmanageable tortilla price rises. And on January 5, the U.N. Food and Agricultural organization announced that its food price index for December hit an all-time high.

But whereas in years past, it's been weather that has caused a spike in commodities prices, now it's trends on both sides of the food supply/demand equation that are driving up prices. On the demand side, the culprits are population growth, rising affluence, and the use of grain to fuel cars. On the supply side: soil erosion, aquifer depletion, the loss of cropland to nonfarm uses, the diversion of irrigation water to cities, the plateauing of crop yields in agriculturally advanced countries, and -- due to climate change -- crop-withering heat waves and melting mountain glaciers and ice sheets. These climate-related trends seem destined to take a far greater toll in the future.

There's at least a glimmer of good news on the demand side: World population growth, which peaked at 2 percent per year around 1970, dropped below 1.2 percent per year in 2010. But because the world population has nearly doubled since 1970, we are still adding 80 million people each year. Tonight, there will be 219,000 additional mouths to feed at the dinner table, and many of them will be greeted with empty plates. Another 219,000 will join us tomorrow night. At some point, this relentless growth begins to tax both the skills of farmers and the limits of the earth's land and water resources.

Beyond population growth, there are now some 3 billion people moving up the food chain, eating greater quantities of grain-intensive livestock and poultry products. The rise in meat, milk, and egg consumption in fast-growing developing countries has no precedent. Total meat consumption in China today is already nearly double that in the United States.

http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2011/01/10/the_great_food_crisis_of_2011

[villager]

1. That last paragraph is the kicker, along with...

"...Russia is importing grain to sustain its cattle herds until spring grazing begins."

It's using grain for those inputs -- at a roughly 4 -to - 1 ration (i.e., 4 lbs of grain for every 1 lb of meat yielded), and constantly eating at the highest possible niches in the foodchain, that will have to change.

This won't mean "no meat" for those panicked about such things. But it will mean less meat. All over. For everyone.

[notesdev]

5. Or we can simply grow more food

A good chunk of our prime agricultural land is being devoted to ethanol production alone, which has no benefits other than making Presidential candidates in Iowa look like pandering fools, and has a great many negative effects - most notably, it pushes food prices higher, out of the affordability range for those on the margin.

Also, we can put an end to this brain-damaged process of paying people not to grow things on their land... I mean, what a scam! This is 2010, is it really necessary to continue this program? Save money AND put land back to productive use both if we stop this policy.

Now I haven't run the numbers on this, but I can't see a good reason why food can't be globally abundant and affordable, if we put our agricultural resources to good use. IMHO it's more mankind's messed-up political systems and not a lack of land/resources which is the crux of the problem.

[villager]

8. yes, but industrial level meat production isn't the "solution"

For those who need a steak at every meal, this may be hard, but when you factor in the previously mentioned inputs -- the grain could feed 4x as many people directly, a pullback in meat industrialization makes sense.

We haven't even factored in the enormous pollution levels of Big Ag (speaking of land use) and other factors of rampant ecological destruction (subsidized herds on public lands, for example, displacing native ungulates, ruining native grasses -- and the relationship of those grasses to the watershed and riverways, et al)

[GliderGuider]

9. As long as people are allowed to spend their money as they wish

and they have a growing supply of money, the consumption of meat will increase. Coulds and shoulds will play very little part in this situation unless governments step in to regulate peoples' diets. They won't do that unless they have no other choice - the political consequences would be too severe for their taste.

The only thing that will drive large numbers of people away from meat is cost. Industrial-scale meat production is the inevitable byproduct of an unregulated growth economy.

[villager]

14. Well, the coming valueless-ness of "money," plus the increased costs to "make" meat

...will surely do it.

Too bad the ecological damage will have been so great, by then...

[Nederland]

17. Simply wrong

As long as people are allowed to spend their money as they wish and they have a growing supply of money, the consumption of meat will increase.

First of all, this is simply not true. If the price of meat increases faster than people's supply of money grows, they may not be able to afford it.

Second of all, I find it disturbing to know that you think people should not be able to "spend their money as they wish". Barring the spending of money on things that are illegal (e.g. paying someone to kill your wife), why shouldn't people be allowed to spend their money as they wish? It is their money, who are you to tell them what they can and cannot spend it on?

[GliderGuider]

18. ???

Where did you read that? It sure wasn't in anything I wrote. I think people have a perfect right to spend their money any way they want. I was just pointing out that as people get richer they tend to want to eat more meat. It seems to be so ingrained that it might even be instinctual, and that means that they won't stop eating meat unless they can't afford it or were prevented from doing so. I was just observing human nature, I have absolutely no desire to regulate what people eat, spend their money on, or much of anything else. I'm an anarchist, fergodsake :-)

[GliderGuider]

19. On edit (after the expiry)

I can see how you could get the message you did from my post. I was not as clear as I could have been. I assure you, as I said above it was not my intention so suggest that regulations might be desirable.

[notesdev]

10. they aren't quite equivalents

People need a variety of nutrients; grain doesn't supply protein while meat does. I'm not sure that having everyone downsize their food input, as if rationing, is the best solution. Our production levels are not fixed, they can be increased significantly.

One thing I'd like to see is a lot more personal/family/community gardens; deployed on a large enough scale such gardens could produce a meaningful addition to the global food supply.

[villager]

15. I'm not saying "no meat" -- I'm saying "less meat." A lot less.

And of course an end to commerical foodlots, fast food proliferation, etc.

And yes to the community gardens...

[kelly1mm]

20. I agree that it will be less meat over all but doubt it will be less for

everyone. Two classes for sure will not be effected - the rich who want to buy meat and people who raise their own. I raise chickens and rabbits from home raised feed so about 80% of my meat consumption comes from the homestead.

[GliderGuider]

2. Curse you, Malthusian Doomer!

Everyone knows that the fact that most Americans are fat proves there's no food crisis! You're just like those "scientists" who tell me about global warming, when I can look out my own window and see snow!

On a more serious note, the global move up the food chain is a major stressor. I wonder about the psychological impact that's latent in the situation -- all those people who have their hopes all set on a Mercedes, air conditioning and a T-bone are going to be some pissed off if they are forced to go back to walking under the hot sun to buy rice.

[daggahead]

4. The food crisis ...

Will be for the "food" industry, which of course will pass along the higher cost to those that buy their products.

[daggahead]

3. Time to go vegan.

Grains will go to feed people, instead of cattle ...

Water will go to people, instead of cattle ...

Land can be used to grow more crops, instead of being used for grazing cattle ...

[queenjane]

7. I wish, but I doubt it will ever be so. (n/t)

[Nihil]

22. Vegetarian, not vegan

People were eating eggs & cheese and drinking milk long before someone
decided that imported soy extracts and manufactured mineral supplements
were vital to a healthy diet.

(FWIW, it wouldn't even be so bad if the meat consumption was restricted to
locally produced animals fattened up outside during the year and slaughtered
before needing to waste crops feeding them over the winter months. It's the
gross daily intake of factory-farmed meat that is the problem.)

[elocs]

6. Crops should be food to feed and fuel humans, not motor vehicles.

Ultimately this planet will not be able to afford the waste of feeding crops to animals that are then eaten by humans because that formula is a recipe for disaster as well.

[GliderGuider]

11. How long do you think it will be

before most people realize that we've painted ourselves into a corner?

[phantom power]

12. I have realized it's completely possible we'll never realize it, even if it happens.

If there's anything I've learned from the last few years, it is that there is a difference between experiencing a consequence, and learning from it.

[Kablooie]

13. So is soylent green in our future?

[GliderGuider]

21. No, human flesh is not safe for human consumption any more.

Look at the condition of the meat - it's full of antibiotics, riddled with heavy metal contamination, drug and hormone contamination, chemical contamination in general and antibiotic-resistant pathogens such as Kreutzfeld-Jakob disease. Not to mention the risks due to GMO food consumption, the fact we're raised in crowded, stressful, unhealthy conditions, and have too high a fat content due to lack of exercise.

I wouldn't eat people if they paid me!

[Nederland]

16. Lester Brown has ZERO credibility

He has predicted a turning point in the rise of agricultural yields six times since 1974, and he has been wrong every time. How this guy manages to continue to sell books is beyond me. The only book of his that I would ever buy is the one he should write but probably never will: "Why I Was Always Wrong".