Foods are the new oil, land is the new gold

[nairiporter.livejournal.com]

Food riots will become part of people's everyday life, environmental analyst Lester Brown says in his book Full Planet, Empty Plates: The New Geopolitics of Food Scarcity.

The UN Food & Agriculture Organization recently reported that the food prices have started rising again, now reaching a 6-month record. And they are approaching the levels last reached at the beginning of the 2008 financial crisis. And of course the high food prices were one of the main factors for the riots in the Middle East that caused the Arab spring. Sure, there are no indications for new mass riots because of the food prices for the time being, but Brown predicts that sooner or later this will happen.

There is much truth in that, I think. On one side, the demand on the food market is constantly growing due to the increasing Earth population. Every year about 80 million people are added to that number, and what's more, now that more and more people are moving to a higher social segment (with the advent of the middle class in the emerging economies), more than 3 billion people will be consuming more meat, dairy products and eggs - all products that require intensive use of grain cultures. The growing affluence overall could substitute population growth as a main factor for the rising food prices.

Meanwhile, about 1/3 of the corn that is produced in the US goes for the production of ethanol, which is used as a biofuel. Nowadays more grain is used for making fuel for cars than fodder for livestock, Brown explains. This is already causing major concerns, which have prompted the UN to call for the suspension of biofuel production.

As for the supply on the food market, this year's severe droughts in America, Russia, Ukraine, Pakistan and Kazakhstan has drastically cut the grain yields at a time when the production of many crops is stagnating in many of the countries that are the main consumers. The rice yields in Japan haven't increased, the same is valid for the wheat production in France, Germany and Britain. And there are no prospects for a change in this situation soon.

All of this leads to increasing food prices in the US, and bigger consumption of grain cultures imported from China, while the consumption of soybeans keeps increasing worldwide, in the conditions of serious shortage. In countries like Ethiopia, India, Nigeria, Peru and DR Congo the effect is even more dramatic. There are millions of families around the world preparing for a hunger onslaught in the following months and years. They couldn't afford to buy enough food at these steeper prices, and they will not be able to maintain the levels of consumption they have had until now. And this is bound to cause social unrest, and not just in the Middle East.

This, combined with the emergence of the so called "water wars", the struggle for water resources turning into hot conflict in many corners of the world, promises times of trouble ahead. An example of the latter is the row between Iraq and Turkey, where Ankara is planning to build a series of dams along the Tigris and Euphrates, which has caused big concerns across the border, and has even made the UN weigh in, accusing Turkey's plans of violating human rights. Or the severe water shortages in Afghanistan and some parts of China (particularly the urban regions). There are vast regions where climate change is expected to cause up to a 40% drop in annual precipitation and groundwater flow (especially in the Mediterranean and the Balkans), rivers shrinking to unprecedented levels for most of the year while turning into short-lived torrents for very tiny periods in the transitional seasons (which are fast disappearing).

I hope there won't come a day when we would realise that food, water and air have become more precious than oil and gold, but on the other hand, in a sense they already have - after all, one can neither eat gold nor drink oil, although they could try buying food and water with those. If anyone was willing to sell it anyway.

Comments

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

This is not going to be pleasant. Even the implementations of agricultural revolutions couldn't put off the evil day forever. >.< The next few years should be.......interesting.

[sophia-sadek.livejournal.com]

The agricultural "revolution" is part of the problem. Much of the technology it uses depends on petroleum.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

It's less the agricultural revolution and more the cheap food issue having depended on petroleum. No Green Revolution means quite a few societies would have far smaller populations than they do and famine would be a normal occurrence even in the rich countries.

[allhatnocattle.livejournal.com]

the population bubble set to burst

[vitsli.livejournal.com]

~ Oil supply is shortening! All hail to a bio-fuel!!

~ Oops... Food is shortening now! Stop the bloody bio-fuel!

It's easy to pass some stupid legislation like EPA but it's harder to repeal it.

[nairiporter.livejournal.com]

And even harder to think well in advance about the long-term consequences of any action.

[vitsli.livejournal.com]

These words in large, friendly letters on the poster, shall be in front of anyone willing to "regulate" something.

[nairiporter.livejournal.com]

And in the footnote we could put in smaller letters: Stupid regulation is a bad thing. Smart regulation can be a good thing. ;-)

[vitsli.livejournal.com]

May be unavailable in CA, IL. Rules and restrictions apply: May not be combined with other regulations. Not for children use.

[telemann.livejournal.com]

Great post. I was just reading a great interview in Discover Magazine with Geoffrey West, (http://discovermagazine.com/2012/oct/21-geoffrey-west-finds-physical-laws-in-cities/article_view?b_start:int=1&-C=) who is a physicist that started to research biological "scaling" systems and applied that research to cities / population growth and sustainability. If I understand what he's said correctly, we've way over-reached ourselves in terms of resources (which are limited). Dr. West suggests we all move to a near growth economy to prevent disaster, but that seems so unlikely. Neither presidential candidate has even MENTIONED global warming and Mitt Romney even mocked Obama's past statements on the subject at his RNC acceptance speech.

If your interpretation of population growth is true, why haven’t cities already collapsed?


The growth equation was derived with certain conditions that are determined by the cultural innovation that dominates each historic period: iron, computers, whatever it is. An innovation that changes everything—like a new fuel—resets the clock, so you can avoid the singularity a bit longer. But the theory says that to avoid the singularity, these innovations have to keep coming faster and faster.

What are the issues most likely to push us toward collapse?


I think the biggest stresses are clearly going to be on energy, food, and clean water. A lot of people are going to be denied these basics across the globe. If there is a collapse—and I hope I’m wrong—it will almost certainly come from social unrest starting in the most deprived areas, which will spread to the developed world.

How can we prevent that kind of collapse from happening?


We need to seriously rethink our socioeconomic framework. It will be a huge social and political challenge, but we have to move to an economy based on no growth or limited growth. And we need to bring together economists, scientists, and politicians to devise a strategy for doing what has to be done. I think there is a way out of this, but I’m afraid we might not have time to find it.

That sounds similar to the dire warnings of economist Thomas Malthus in the 19th century and biologist Paul Ehrlich in the 1960s. Those predictions proved spectacularly wrong. How is yours different?


I’ve been called a neo-Malthusian as if it’s a horrible word, but I’m proud to be one. Ehrlich and Malthus were wrong because they didn’t take into account innovation and technological change. But the spirit was correct, and it is unfortunate that people dismiss their arguments outright. Even though innovations reset the clock, from the work that I’ve done, I think all they do is delay collapse.

[peristaltor.livejournal.com]

Those predictions proved spectacularly wrong.

No, Malthus was only proved wrong in an alternate universe where fossil fuels would be unable to take up the slack in human and animal inputs, allowing us to mechanize farming. If we lose that without doing something to replace the mechanical inputs, A Malthusian Correction will ensue and Tommy Boy will get his due.

[mutive.livejournal.com]

I'm terrified too.

In many ways, I think that lack of water is the bigger driver than land. (At least in the US. Unsure about other countries?) And I'm terrified to see the long term results of the drought. I highly suspect things will be mostly okay in wealthier countries - preparation accounts for more of our cost of food than the food itself does, at least for most items. So people will eat less prepared food, or will eat out less often, or will eat less meat. Not a biggie. (And food may climb from 15% of the budget to 20%, which will suck, but also isn't insurmountable.)

But for someone living on a few dollars a day? (For whom 75% of their income is going to food?) Yeah...that's not going to be pretty.

[abomvubuso.livejournal.com]

True. The forecast is that the high food prices have become a constant phenomenon. And there won't be a normalisation anytime soon. The constant food price fluctuations are the new reality. The grain prices have risen (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-19827998) by 1% for the last month (the corn prices slightly dropping, which can't possibly compensate the soaring rice and wheat prices, though); meat has grown 2.1% more expensive (pork and chicken meat with the highest rise), and dairy has risen by the staggering 7%, which is the biggest rise since Jan'11. Only sugar has dropped (4.2%), which reflects the good year for the industry in Brazil. But the record heat in the US and Central Asia has been the scourge of it all.

[peristaltor.livejournal.com]

I take issue.

Yes, I do understand that "meat, dairy products and eggs" are supposedly "all products that require intensive use of grain cultures." They don't have to be. In fact, they shouldn't be.

I'm now reading Joel Salatin's Folks, This Ain't Normal, a scathing indictment of the modern food production system. Suffice to say that the way we make food today can be increased in efficiency by a very, very large amount without increasing fertilizer, water and pesticide use.

Now, whether or not this actually happens (or happens in time) will determine the veracity of Brown's prognostication.

[nairiporter.livejournal.com]

Those are the present realities. While what you are talking about is what "should" (or rather, "could") be. I would be very interested to read that in more detail, by the way.

[peristaltor.livejournal.com]

The detail is heavy in, well, detail. This is the first time I'm reading Joel; for the most part I've come across his stuff in movies (like Food, Inc.), YouTube collections (http://peristaltor.livejournal.com/165838.html), and podcasts. This one (http://www.peakprosperity.com/blog/joel-salatin-how-prepare-future-increasingly-defined-localized-food-energy/61949) has a transcript (http://www.peakprosperity.com/page/transcript-joel-salatin-how-prepare-future-increasingly-defined-localized-food-energy):

This interview (http://www.peakprosperity.com/podcast/79360/joel-salatin-we-are-solution-as-well-as-problem), far more recent, includes practices relevant to the current mid-west drought. It seems Salatin's farm has no problem with water, and it's a solution most farmers could adopt. (Transcript at the link, for those opposed to good interviews actually being heard.)

[nairiporter.livejournal.com]

Will check it out, thanks!

[peristaltor.livejournal.com]

Oh, and I should mention the book 1491, which explored what life on the Americas was probably like before Columbus. I mention it here because many of the farming practices of the ancient American natives (north and south) are being slowly uncovered, and some are darned interesting. In fact, if the estimates are correct, scholars might have well under-estimated the pre-Columbian native population of each continent by a billion.

Farming techniques that could support two billion extra mouths would be good to implement, no?

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

He didn't estimate the population at 1 billion, but rather at 100 million. However given the global population in 1491 was around 500 million that would make the most lethal event in human history the European colonization of the Americas by virtue of having seen a fifth of the human population die off.

[peristaltor.livejournal.com]

Are you certain? I could have sworn the B-word was being tossed in there, as opposed to the previous hundred million estimate (perhaps as an estimate of both continents combined). It's been a few months since I've read it, though.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

Quite.

[allhatnocattle.livejournal.com]

should or could are not as remote from one another as suggested.

As we known the corn lobby is hugely powerful in USA. It's become the main product for biofuels (ethanol), livestock feed, etc. So because of single crop dependence, when this past summer's drought threatens the corn crops the implications are devastating across many industries.

Having a diverse variety of crops has obvious advantages. And it wasn't so long ago (1980's) that this was true (or truer) than it is today. Making the "switch" back isn't difficult. It just takes will. Political will to stimulate economic advantages of diversity.

[ddstory.livejournal.com]

Salatin was good in Food Inc, although he's a bit too ranty in general. And from what I've heard (http://meadowparty.com/blog/?p=2100), in this book of his he seems to have avoided backing up any of his claims with anything that goes beyond the anecdotal experience at his farm. But still, he does raise some very valid issues about the inefficiency of land use and crop management, and at least has the balls to offer some advice and what he believes is solutions to the problems.

[peristaltor.livejournal.com]

It ain't "poorly written" at all, but yeah, footnotes would be good. He does reference plenty of other books for further reading.

[ddstory.livejournal.com]

Don't know about poory written frankly, I haven't read it myself.

Backing up one's assertions is essential for being taken seriously, though.

[harry-beast.livejournal.com]

There would have enough food and water in the world, if it were not wasted.
In the United States, as much as 30 percent of food, worth some US$48.3 billion, is thrown away.
In poorer countries, a majority of uneaten food is lost before it has a chance to be consumed. Depending on the crop, an estimated 15 to 35 percent of food may be lost in the field. Another 10 to15 percent is discarded during processing, transport and storage.
www.ens-newswire.com/ens/aug2008/2008-08-22-01.asp

[airiefairie.livejournal.com]

There would have enough food and water in the world, if it were not wasted.

Indeed (http://talk-politics.livejournal.com/1546701.html#cutid1).

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

Land and water are in relatively fixed supply. Thus, it attracts those who want to extract monopoly profits.

[allhatnocattle.livejournal.com]

http://www.cjly.net/deconstructingdinner/