Why Food Shortages Are Our Problem Too
Posted on: Wednesday, 12 March 2008, 03:00 CDT
O now it's official. What many food writers, environmentalists and other commentators have been predicting for some time has finally entered the political arena. The Government's new chief scientist has made his mark by declaring that food security is "the elephant in the room" that no one can ignore. Professor John Beddington and his colleagues know only too well that this issue has been mounting for a while, yet his political masters have seen fit to ignore it - until now.
In the words of Tim Lang, professor of food policy at London's City University, the Government is "sleepwalking into a crisis".
When the Common Agricultural Policy was set up in 1962, it was for food security reasons. European politicians feared that their nations might again face starvation as had happened during and immediately after the Second World War.
In Britain it was the same story. Years before we joined the Common Market in 1973, successive governments had held annual discussions with farmers' representatives to ensure that agriculture prospered and was in a fit state to feed the nation should the need arise. In 2008, Britain is unable to do that, producing about 60 per cent of our needs. This is something that 21st century politicians and Whitehall mandarins seem to overlook. Prosperity and bulging supermarket shelves have allowed them to turn a blind eye on what is becoming as important as, and more immediate than, climate change. For the past two decades and longer, they have been content to think that imported food would save the day, should a crisis arise. This too has been the philosophy of the supermarkets, until recently.
But we have arrived at a point where imports will either be unavailable, or highly expensive.
British Agriculture plc is finely balanced between extinction and survival, due to a combination of rising feed, fuel and fertiliser prices, and other day-to-day costs, and growing global demand.
Why, when demand for pork is rising everywhere - particularly in China, where the average consumer eats 50kg of meat a year, compared with only 20kg in 1985 - are British pig farmers losing an average of pounds26 for every pig they produce? Answers on the back of a postcard please, but expect those answers to include the words "feed prices", "supermarkets", "looking the wrong way" and "maintaining profits".
Add up the disparate food protests that have been taking place around the world over the past year or so, and suddenly the threat of genuine food shortages, and the effects they bring, become very real.
Starting with the tortilla protests in Mexico, pasta riots in Italy and uprisings in West Africa, Uzbekistan, Yemen, Guinea and Jakarta, it is only a matter of time before they erupt regularly in first as well as third-world nations.
The horrible truth is that so many factors contribute to this global crisis that food shortages in the near future are inevitable. Start with climate change. Seven years of drought in Australia have seriously disrupted wheat supplies, while last summer's floods had a significant impact on UK vegetable and dairy production.
While on that subject, another crucial factor will be water shortages. Pressure on supplies will be exacerbated by the growing world population as well as drought and the need to grow more crops to feed the rapidly increasing number of hungry mouths. Add the fact that, in places like the American mid-west, water rights have been sold by hard-up farmers to keep Californians' swimming pools full and gardens and golf courses green.
India has banned exports of rice, apart from basmati. Global stocks of wheat are at an all-time low and prices have doubled in the past 12 months. As the world population grows, forecast to increase by 50 per cent by 2050 to nine billion, more food will be needed. This may sound a statement of the obvious, but then factor in the changing eating habits in China and India, the world's two fastest-growing economies, and the pressure on existing food stocks suddenly seems unsustainable.
The next factor is biofuels. Claimed by some governments, including our own, as the answer to the oil crisis and global warming, the land needed for growing biofuels is competing with land needed for growing food crops or grazing livestock. So at a time when the world's farmers need to produce more food, they are being encouraged to grow fuel, which many scientists and environmentalists believe is not as environmentally benign as first claimed.
British farmers should be cheering about the prospect of markets booming. Instead, the dairy sector is only just moving into recovery, while pigs and poultry are still in intensive care, vegetables and horticulture are in decline and beef and sheep are ailing. Why? Partly due to higher feed prices, or the better profitability of growing cereals or biofuels, but also because the marketplace has been dominated by the multiple retailers and their refusal to pay fair prices that cover the real cost of producing chickens, pigs and so on, and allow enough profit for farmers to invest for the future.
How quickly this can change remains to be seen.
For real food security, read higher prices and less choice - difficult concepts to accept. In Britain we have become so used to too much choice that for anyone under the age of 45 the idea of shortages is hard to comprehend.
Unless there is a complete change of lifestyle, or real alternative sources of energy and fuel are found, the future does not look bright. A radical change of how and what we consume, not just as food but also in our homes, cars, what we wear and how we spend our free time, is unlikely. What is certain is an end to decades of "cheap" food policies as prices continue to increase.
In the winter of 1846/47, there were bread riots in Truro, inflamed by the shortage and high price of corn. Now, 160 years later, a repeat performance could be a very real possibility.
(c) 2008 Western Morning News, The Plymouth (UK). Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning. All rights Reserved.
Source: Western Morning News, The Plymouth (UK)
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