The great food crisis looming ahead-Is the world prepared to face it

Beating a horse beyond its limit of tolerance can obviously lead its incapacitation eventually. This seems to be true with the agricultural land humanity depends on so heavily to coax it to produce more and more food for meeting its survival needs of food. This stark reality has been highlighted by a group of scientists in the US to warn the world that global security is already jeopardized though not beyond redemption if adequate measures are taken to restore soil fertility through appropriate remedial action. Green revolution was applauded as the arrival of a panacea for solving food problems faced by many countries and provided a means to increase food production by boosting land productivity. But it is now realized that the very same technological break through has already caused heavy damage to the soil health by depleting the nutrients at a rate beyond the sustainable level. Though the report is alarming it does promise a way out to which the world will have to listen. Here is the take on this crucial issue.  

"The soil fertility of the world may soon reach the point of jeopardizing global food security. A group of the country's top environmental scientists has authored a review paper about the tantamount importance of correcting the imbalance of soil depletion and replenishment.
Soil degradation and erosion – combined with damage to agricultural land from urbanization, as well as the expanding global population – are among the century's most urgent concerns for the international community, according to the researchers. The "green revolution," which started in the late 1960s, considerably improved food production through concentrated farming that utilized agro-chemicals. The researchers however said that those principles and techniques would not be able to match the needs of the increasing population today — unless greater attention is given to soil fertility and soil preservation. In a review of global soil fertility published in the journal Science, the research team said the most industrious farmland is a result of the domestication of wild soils produced by advance farming exercises. The challenge for these domesticated soils is preserving the quality of their wild inherited stock. From 1970 to 2000, an area of agricultural plot the size of Denmark was developed and urbanized. In the next 20 years, an agricultural area the size of Mongolia – about 600,000 square miles – will be enveloped by city modernization, the scientists wrote. Dr. Ronald Amundson – the study's lead author and a professor of environmental science, policy and management at the University of California, Berkeley – added that agricultural methods through the years have triggered the enhanced loss of soil through nutrient removal and erosion. This is one of the crucial game-changers for the extended, maintainable production of the soil — the living top layer of Earth. One of the major challenges of future food security is maintaining the supply of artificial soil fertilizers — specifically potassium and phosphorus, which have to be extracted from reserves held in minerals and rocks."

It is true that agricultural land suffers not only qualitatively but also quantitatively and the major reason for quantitative loss is the high rate ofurbanization taking place around the world sacrificing the agricultural land in the name of development. Alarmingly this frenetic pace of urbanization does not seem to be slowing down with the real possibility that available arable land left over might not be sufficient to provide enough food for every body. Added to this the modern agriculture plus faster depletion of natural forests are causing a great damage to the environment by releasing the vast storage of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere accelerating the global warming  effect with unimaginable consequences. It is mind boggling that the top 10 feet of soil in earth holds about 2300 gigatons ( 1 gigaton= i billion ton) of carbon and humans have already lost about 50-70 gigatons through out its history because of agriculture.Most of this loss came from agricultural practices during the last 200 years. Some of the solutions suggested include changing the way agri operations are carried out without tilling and manufacturing nitrogenous fertilizers like urea without burning fossil fuels. Recovery of nutrients like phosphates and potash from sludges through appropriate technological means may also be necessary to overcome the monopolistic hold of Morocco and China where phosphate mining provides bulk of the world supply and greater afforestation. 

  

V.H.POTTY
http://vhpotty.blogspot.com
http://foodtechupdates.blogspot.com

GLOBAL FOOD CRISIS-THE PARADOX OF PLENTY

Amidst plenty of foods available in the market, Africa remains an island of poverty and hunger because most of the population there cannot access these foods due to abject poverty and insignificant income levels that could buy the much needed food for survival. Same applies on a relatively smaller scale to some segments of population in Asian and South American continents. Due to paucity of "accessible food", these unfortunate fellow denizens are going to be destined for a "sub-human" way of life, despicable to the conscience of the entire world. Here is a critique on the consequences of such a paradox on the future of the world.

'Scientists, like everyone else on this planet, need to differentiate the theoretical from the economical and the practical. If, as a result of grain embargoes by Russia and (possibly) Ukraine, the price of bread doubles this year, the impact on the world's urban poor — many of whom are living on less than $1.25 a day — will be devastating. And it matters not whether wheat reserves are rotting in India or whether Russia and Ukraine have surplus wheat. And it doesn't matter how many bread crumbs we discard. The dictates of the marketplace can be brutal. There is plenty of money in the world, far more than is needed to eliminate severe poverty, but severe poverty persists. In a global economy, where people's ability to feed themselves depends on the cost of rice or bread, hunger can exist on a wide scale, even if there is plenty of food–in theory–to go around.Don't believe that? Take a look at what's happening today in the African Sahel. Last month, Josette Sheeran, the executive director of the World Food Program (WFP),warned that, as a consequence of widespread hunger, Niger was in danger of "losing a generation." She said that the development of children under the age of five in Niger will be severely impaired unless food relief arrives soon. WFP plans to reach 4.5 million people in the region in the next few months, but Sheeran warned that the situation is deteriorating rapidly and that WFP needs about $100 million to bridge the funding gap".

"The current rise in prices stems largely from the prospects of a lower than expected wheat harvest in Russia, the consequence of high temperatures and drought. The reduced demand attracts speculators who further push up the prices. Supply is further reduced when nations implement export bans. In response to an imminent poor harvest, today Russia imposed a ban on exporting grains. By shutting the door on exports, nations hope to keep the food in country to feed their citizens. This was a strategy adopted by several countries during the 2008 food crisis, which placed further upward pressure on prices. By disallowing exports, the global grain supply suddenly gets a lot smaller with no concomitant change in demand, and prices rise. When Russia decided to ban grain exports prices reacted predictably: they soared to their highest levels in two years" reaching "the highest level since August 29, 2008″. August 2008 is notable because it marks the height of the 2008 global food crisis, the food price index for cereals reached a whopping 238 (compared to 167 in August 2007, and 85 in 2000). Russia did not just ban exports on wheat; corn, barley, rye and flour were also banned from export, with predictable impacts on corn and other grains: Today corn futures shot to a 13 month high. It is likely that fertilizer will also increase in price as declining yields drive increased fertilizer application".

It is a reflection on the moral weakness of rich nations which after solemnly promising billion of dollars of food aid, reneged on it, probably obsessed with protecting and preserving the super quality of life their citizens are enjoying currently. Forgetting that no country can live in isolation, however powerful or rich it may be, when there is no peace and tranquility in the world, can be perilous to the future of this planet. It is ironical that many Western nations view Africa as a continent of opportunity for selling their GM technologies and other agricultural inputs as a part of a business strategy and rarely see the aid seekers as stable future partners in achieving harmony and prosperity for every denizen on this earth.

V.H.POTTY
http://vhpotty.blogspot.com/
http://foodtechupdates.blogspot.com

ANOTHER GLOBAL FOOD "MELT DOWN" IN THE OFFING?

Recent focus on food prices that is threatening to plunge the world into a crisis is inevitable considering the disastrous consequences mankind is going to face in the coming years due to inadequate food production and dwindling reserves. With population surging ahead in many developing countries with inadequate resources to raise enough food, starvation is a distinct possibility. While land productivity in most of the developed countries has reached achievable limits, the focus must be on helping the poorer nations with plenty of low productivity lands to increase food production through injection of much needed inputs in the form of high quality seeds, fertilizers, crop protection technology and crop processing infrastructure. The alarm about a possible food crisis comes from no less a person than the chief of FAO, the UN body specialized in food and agriculture.

"Food prices remain high in many developing countries. And Diouf says the threat of another global price hike persists. Energy prices have not fallen to pre-crisis levels, and crops are still being diverted for bio-fuels. In fact, he says, except for larger grain reserves, not much has changed since 2007. "All the other factors that led to the price crisis are all here. They have not changed," he says. "So, I think that, if we have -- and I pray that we don't have it -- serious problems of flood and drought in major exporting countries, we're back to square one."Experts say floods, drought and other extreme weather are becoming more frequent, brought on by climate change.And the world's population is expected to grow by nearly 50 percent, to 9 billion by 2050. Developing countries will grow the most".

That poorer countries cannot marshal necessary resources is a well known fact. If the promised $20 billion food assistance promised during the food summit last year materializes there is hope that the looming food crisis can still be averted. But the trend so far has been continued reluctance on the part of rich nations to release the promised economic assistance

V.H.POTTY
http://vhpotty.blogspot.com/
http://foodtechupdates.blogspot.com