Saturday, January 22 7:49 pm EST
Are rising global food prices here to stay? Lester Brown of the Earth Policy Institute thinks so, and warns that things will only get worse in the face of climate change, increasing population, water scarcity, and soil erosion.
In “The Great Food Crisis of 2011” published in Foreign Policy Magazine, Brown argued the difference between past food crises and the present one:
“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. “
Brown goes on to give examples of those stresses on the global food system. For example, on the supply side, Saudi Arabia once relied on its own aquifer, or an underground water supply, which is now dried up. From 2007-2010, Saudi wheat production fell by two-thirds, and “by 2012, wheat production will likely end entirely,” according to Brown. This is no doubt part of Saudi Arabia’s recent impetus to lease land in Africa which was discussed earlier on the GFC blog.
If you like to read the whole article click: Global Food Security
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