Across the world a crisis is unfolding at alarming speed. Climate change, China's increasing consumption and the dash for biofuels are causing food shortages and rocketing prices - sparking riots in cities from the Caribbean to the Far East. Robin McKie and Heather Stewart report on the millions facing starvation - and the growing threat to global security.
Four key factors behind the spreading fear of starvation across the globe
Growing consumption
Six months ago Zhou Jian closed down his car parts business and launched himself as a pork butcher. Since then the 26-year-old businessman's Shanghai shop has been crowded out - despite a 58 per cent rise in the price of pork in the past year - and his income has trebled.
As China's emerging middle classes become richer, their consumption of meat has increased by more than 150 per cent per head since 1980. In those days, meat was scarce, rationed at around 1kg per person per month and used sparingly in rice and noodle dishes, stir fried to preserve cooking oil.
Today, the average Chinese consumer eats more than 50kg of meat a year. To feed the millions of pigs on its farms, China is now importing grain on a huge scale, pushing up its prices worldwide.
Palm oil crisis
The oil palm tree is the most highly efficient producer of vegetable oil, with one acre yielding as much oil as eight acres of soybeans. Unfortunately, it takes eight years to grow to maturity and demand has outstripped supply. Vegetable oils provide an important source of calories in the developing world, and their shortage has contributed to the food crisis.
A drought in Indonesia and flooding in Malaysia has also hit the crop. While farmers and plantation companies hurriedly clear land to replant, it will take time before their efforts bear fruit. Palm oil prices jumped nearly 70 per cent last year, hitting the poorest families. When a store in Chongqing in China announced a cooking-oil promotion in November, a stampede left three dead and 31 injured.
Biofuel demand
The rising demand for ethanol, a biofuel that is mixed with petrol to bring down prices at the pump, has transformed the landscape of Iowa. Today this heartland of the Midwest is America's cornbelt, with the corn crop stretching as far as the eye can see.
Iowa produces almost half of the entire output of ethanol in the US, with 21 ethanol-producing plants as farmers tear down fences, dig out old soya bean crops, buy up land and plant yet more corn. It has been likened to a new gold rush.
But none of it is for food. And as the demand for ethanol increases, yet more farmers will pile in for the great scramble to plant corn - instead of grain. The effect will be to further worsen world grain shortages.
Global warming
The massive grain storage complex outside Tottenham, New South Wales, today lies virtually empty. Normally, it would be half-full. As the second largest exporter of grain after the US, Australia usually expects to harvest around 25 million tonnes a year. But, because of a five-year drought, thought to have been caused by climate change, it managed just 9.8 million tonnes in 2006.
Farmers such as George Grieg, who has farmed here for 50 years, have rarely known it to be so bad. Many have not even recovered the cost of planting and caring for their crops, and are being forced into debt. With global wheat prices at an all-time high, all they can do is cling on in the hope of a bumper crop next time - if they are lucky.
Below is the full story from a women known as Kamla Devi. Kamla lives in New Delhi with her husband, they both exist on just one meal a day:
Guardian.co.uk
A map of where there have been food riots:
Blogs.guardian.co.uk
Showing posts with label Farmers. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Farmers. Show all posts
Monday, 14 April 2008
Monday, 10 March 2008
Biofuels 'risk global starvation'
The rush towards biofuels is theatening world food production and the lives of billions of people, the British Government's chief scientific adviser said yesterday.
John Beddington put himself at odds with ministers who have committed Britain to large increases in the use of biofuels over the coming decades.
In his first important public speech since he was appointed, Professor Beddington described the potential impacts of food shortages as the “elephant in the room” and a problem which rivalled that of climate change.
“It’s very hard to imagine how we can see the world growing enough crops to produce renewable energy and at the same time meet the enormous demand for food,” he told a conference on sustainability in London yesterday.
“The supply of food really isn’t keeping up.”
By 2030, he said, the world population would have increased to such an extent that a 50 per cent increase in food production would be needed. By 2080 it would need to double. But the rush to biofuels – allegedly environmentally friendly – meant that increasing amount of arable land had been given over to fuel rather than food.
The world’s population is forecast to increase from the six billion at the start of the millennium to nine billion by 2050. Already biofuels have contributed to the rapid rise in international wheat prices and Professor Beddington cautioned that it was likely to be only a matter of time before shoppers in Britain faced big price rises because of the soaring cost of feeding livestock.
His comments come just a month after the Government welcomed a European Commission target requiring 10 per cent of all fuel sold in British service stations to be derived from plants within 12 years. Already biofuels attract a 20p per litre reduction in duty to encourage their uptake.
Hilary Benn, the Environment Secretary, recently announced additional funding for biofuel research and farmers can claim subsidies to grow crops for energy.
Last year US President George W. Bush called for a massive increase in the use of ethanol in the US over the next decade. The US now devotes more acreage to growing corn than at any time since 1944. Farmers planted 90.5 million acres in 2007, 15 per cent more than a year before.
If White House efforts to double ethanol production this year are achieved, and in due course 40 per cent of that corn ends up in petrol tanks, the world will face a harder and costlier time feeding itself.
A spokesman for Ruth Kelly, the Transport Secretary, insisted that the Government was well aware of the possible negative effects of biofuels.
“We take this issue very seriously and we are not prepared to go beyond current target levels for biofuels until we are satisfied it can be done sustainably.”
Professor Beddington said that the prospect of food shortages over the next 20 years was so acute that politicians, scientists and farmers must begin to tackle it immediately.
“Climate change is a real issue and is rightly being dealt with by major global investment,” he said afterwards. “However, I am concerned there is another major issue along a similar time scale, an elephant in the room – that of food and energy security. This is giving me and many of my scientific colleagues much concern.”
Population levels are growing so fast already that an extra six million people are born every month. Growing enough food for everyone was further challenged, he said, because of climate change, which was likely to lead to a shortage of water.
Scientists say that intense dry spells will become more frequent over the next century. The supply of water will be put under further pressure because of the increased number of people who need it, not only to drink but to keep their crops alive. The production of a tonne of wheat, for example, requires 50 tonnes of water.
Because it was almost impossible to control the population increase in the short term, Professor Beddington told the conference, other measures would need to be taken. “Agriculture has been doing pretty well against the population size but things are changing now and they are changing quite dramatically,” he said.
“Don’t we need to do something about food? Demand has grown enormously, particularly in China and India, where much of the driving force is increased demand. By 2030 energy demand is going to be up by 50 per cent and demand for food is going to be up by 50 per cent.”
The increase in demand has been reflected by the rapid rise in the prices of basic commodities, including wheat, over the past two years.
Biofuels have been put forward as a means of reducing the greenhouse gas emissions pumped out by fossil fuels but recent studies have questioned their impact when all factors, such as the use of fertilisers on the crops, are taken into account. Critics have been angered by the loss of tropical rainforests, which have been cleared to allow farmers to grow biofuel crops.
Deforestation has been calculated to account for about 18 per cent of world greenhouse gas emissions and Professor Beddington said that to destroy rainforests in order to grow biofuel crops was “insane”.
He added: “Some of the biofuels are hopeless, in the sense that the idea that you cut down rainforest to actually grow biofuels seems profoundly stupid.”
He said that human ingenuity was extraordinary and he was confident that food production could be boosted, including by growing genetically modified crops.
Josette Sheeran, executive director of the World Food Program, told the European Parliament in Brussels yesterday: “The shift to biofuels production has diverted lands out of the food chain. Food prices such as palm oil in Africa are now set at fuel prices. It may be a bonanza for farmers – I hope it is true – but in the short term, the world’s poorest are hit hard.”
Source: Theaustralian.news.com.au
John Beddington put himself at odds with ministers who have committed Britain to large increases in the use of biofuels over the coming decades.
In his first important public speech since he was appointed, Professor Beddington described the potential impacts of food shortages as the “elephant in the room” and a problem which rivalled that of climate change.
“It’s very hard to imagine how we can see the world growing enough crops to produce renewable energy and at the same time meet the enormous demand for food,” he told a conference on sustainability in London yesterday.
“The supply of food really isn’t keeping up.”
By 2030, he said, the world population would have increased to such an extent that a 50 per cent increase in food production would be needed. By 2080 it would need to double. But the rush to biofuels – allegedly environmentally friendly – meant that increasing amount of arable land had been given over to fuel rather than food.
The world’s population is forecast to increase from the six billion at the start of the millennium to nine billion by 2050. Already biofuels have contributed to the rapid rise in international wheat prices and Professor Beddington cautioned that it was likely to be only a matter of time before shoppers in Britain faced big price rises because of the soaring cost of feeding livestock.
His comments come just a month after the Government welcomed a European Commission target requiring 10 per cent of all fuel sold in British service stations to be derived from plants within 12 years. Already biofuels attract a 20p per litre reduction in duty to encourage their uptake.
Hilary Benn, the Environment Secretary, recently announced additional funding for biofuel research and farmers can claim subsidies to grow crops for energy.
Last year US President George W. Bush called for a massive increase in the use of ethanol in the US over the next decade. The US now devotes more acreage to growing corn than at any time since 1944. Farmers planted 90.5 million acres in 2007, 15 per cent more than a year before.
If White House efforts to double ethanol production this year are achieved, and in due course 40 per cent of that corn ends up in petrol tanks, the world will face a harder and costlier time feeding itself.
A spokesman for Ruth Kelly, the Transport Secretary, insisted that the Government was well aware of the possible negative effects of biofuels.
“We take this issue very seriously and we are not prepared to go beyond current target levels for biofuels until we are satisfied it can be done sustainably.”
Professor Beddington said that the prospect of food shortages over the next 20 years was so acute that politicians, scientists and farmers must begin to tackle it immediately.
“Climate change is a real issue and is rightly being dealt with by major global investment,” he said afterwards. “However, I am concerned there is another major issue along a similar time scale, an elephant in the room – that of food and energy security. This is giving me and many of my scientific colleagues much concern.”
Population levels are growing so fast already that an extra six million people are born every month. Growing enough food for everyone was further challenged, he said, because of climate change, which was likely to lead to a shortage of water.
Scientists say that intense dry spells will become more frequent over the next century. The supply of water will be put under further pressure because of the increased number of people who need it, not only to drink but to keep their crops alive. The production of a tonne of wheat, for example, requires 50 tonnes of water.
Because it was almost impossible to control the population increase in the short term, Professor Beddington told the conference, other measures would need to be taken. “Agriculture has been doing pretty well against the population size but things are changing now and they are changing quite dramatically,” he said.
“Don’t we need to do something about food? Demand has grown enormously, particularly in China and India, where much of the driving force is increased demand. By 2030 energy demand is going to be up by 50 per cent and demand for food is going to be up by 50 per cent.”
The increase in demand has been reflected by the rapid rise in the prices of basic commodities, including wheat, over the past two years.
Biofuels have been put forward as a means of reducing the greenhouse gas emissions pumped out by fossil fuels but recent studies have questioned their impact when all factors, such as the use of fertilisers on the crops, are taken into account. Critics have been angered by the loss of tropical rainforests, which have been cleared to allow farmers to grow biofuel crops.
Deforestation has been calculated to account for about 18 per cent of world greenhouse gas emissions and Professor Beddington said that to destroy rainforests in order to grow biofuel crops was “insane”.
He added: “Some of the biofuels are hopeless, in the sense that the idea that you cut down rainforest to actually grow biofuels seems profoundly stupid.”
He said that human ingenuity was extraordinary and he was confident that food production could be boosted, including by growing genetically modified crops.
Josette Sheeran, executive director of the World Food Program, told the European Parliament in Brussels yesterday: “The shift to biofuels production has diverted lands out of the food chain. Food prices such as palm oil in Africa are now set at fuel prices. It may be a bonanza for farmers – I hope it is true – but in the short term, the world’s poorest are hit hard.”
Source: Theaustralian.news.com.au
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