Food Shortages ‘the Real Threat’

By BASHAM, Laura

Future food shortages are a far bigger threat to the world than global warming, a Golden Bay dairy farming seminar has been told.

Irish farmer and businessman Mike Murphy told the 70 farmers at the DairyNZ seminar yesterday: “Global warming gets all the publicity but the real imminent threat to the human race is starvation on a massive scale.

“Taking a 10 to 30-year view, I believe that food shortages, famine and huge social unrest are probably the greatest threat the human race has ever faced.”

Mr Murphy, who started dairy farming in 1974 and now has net assets worth $75 million, said the world reached a tipping point in 2007-08, when demand for food and energy began to outstrip supply.

The inevitable outcome was that food prices were rising and would continue to rise, he said.

“The era of cheap food is well and truly over.”

The outlook for grass-based dairying was extremely good, Mr Murphy said.

He expected that the price of milk would inevitably be driven up because 90 percent of the world’s milk was produced in confinement dairy units, where cows were housed and fed in buildings. These units were heavily dependent on and high users of energy and grain.

“The costs of both energy and grain are rising rapidly. This means that production costs for 90 percent of world milk production will also rise.

“So unless the world stops drinking milk and eating cheese, world milk prices will have to rise to keep confinement producers in business.

“The result – a very bright future for efficient grass-based milk producers.”

Mr Murphy warned that dairy markets would be more volatile than in the past, with rapid changes in milk prices over the next three to four years.

However, after that, prices would increase because European Union and United States producers could not survive on low milk prices, he said.

(c) 2008 Nelson Mail, The. Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning. All rights Reserved.