Will there be food shortages in the next decade?

There was a piece on the news last night about the rising cost of food in Britain, with part of the reason being that as China becomes wealthier the shopping habits of its 1 billion inhabitants becomes more luxurious, creating big demand for things like dairy products and fruit.

I've also read this morning that corn crops are at their lowest levels since records began due to the rise in biofuel production with US maize inventories at just 40 days, half the traditional average.

Will there be food shortages in the next decade?

[agent orange]

Retail food prices are heading for their biggest annual increase in as much as 30 years, raising fears that the world faces an unprecedented period of food price inflation.

Prices have soared as the expanding biofuels industry, climate change and the growing prosperity of nations such as India and China push up the costs of farm commodities including wheat, corn, milk and oils. -

FT

Most other countries are seeing food prices rise as well. Since the beginning of 2007, U.S. food prices have climbed 6.7 percent, seasonally adjusted, compared to 2.1 percent for all of 2006, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. If this trajectory continues through the rest of the year, it would be the largest annual increase since 1980, the FT notes. And the United Kingdom’s consumer price index indicated annual food price inflation of 6 percent in April, compared with 2.8 percent overall inflation. - World Watch

[Cricket Tragic]

It depends on how you want to define food shortages. There already are food shortages in various parts of the world for many reasons: drought, pest damage, storm damage, war and politics. These will no doubt continue into the future. The current concern stems from poor crops in a number of major exporting countries and increased demand in China, India and to a lesser extent for biofuels. Most corn grown in the US is fed to animals in the US, so if it goes to biofuels, they will need to find something else to feed to the animals. Costs of meat will rise and perhaps those who will suffer most will be the US poor.

Of course if food crop costs rise, there will be a switch from growing crops for fuel to crops for food as growers attempt to take advantage. At this point, provided agricultural productivity continues on its present rate of increase, we are in no danger of running out of food in the near future.

[geoguy]

Originally Posted by delboy

I've also read this morning that corn crops are at their lowest levels since records began."

That's odd because acording to the USDA corn crop is at record acres planted this year. I'm surprised yield is even speculated upn this early in the growing season. Farmers in southern Alberta haven't increased potental production because of uncertainty about 'too much' corn planted on the market.

It's surprising that European farmers aren't subsidized to keep in the market. I thought there were protected markets but I must be wrong. It's the opposite here in North America where there are quotas on eggs, milk production, cheese and so on because there is the capacity to produce way more production than is needed and thus flood the market. There is an over capacity to produce food that isn't being used. Food has never cost less in North America when measured against the amount of man hours needed to purchase it.

Europeans shouldn't worry. We in North America have more to sustain you if there are shortages. Tell us when your ribs are showing. Something tells me, however, that food production in Europe is protected from inexpensive imports and it has nothing to do with shortages. Europeans love to pay taxes to maintain bloated bureaucracies.

[Richard]

The European agricultural sector is massively subsidised via the CAP (Common Agricultural Policy). I can't remember the exact figures but the EU spends about half it's budget on the CAP, a total of several tens of billions of £. There have being attempts at reform but these are always blocked by groups with vested interests, especially French farmers who recieve a disproportionate amount of the CAP funding.

[Haanu]

http://www.peakfood.co.uk/

[Richard]

www.Peak_Environmental_Hysteria.com

[bruce]

According to the United States Department of Agriculture, rising prices for crops—dubbed “agflation”—has begun to drive up the cost of breakfast. The price of orange juice has risen by a quarter over the past year, eggs by a fifth and milk by roughly 5%. Breakfast-cereal makers, such as Kellogg's and General Mills, have also raised their prices. Underpinning these rises is a sharp increase in the prices of grains such as corn (maize) and wheat, both of which recently hit ten-year highs. Analysts are beginning to ask, as they have of oil and metals, whether higher prices are here to stay.

On the face of it, that is an odd question. After all, if the world runs short of corn or wheat, farmers can simply grow more, weather permitting. That is exactly what they have been doing. In the coming year, the International Grains Council, an industry group, estimates that global production of grains will reach a record of 1,660m tonnes, well above last year's figure of 1,569m. But demand for grain is growing even faster. The council reckons it will reach 1,680m tonnes this year. In three of the past four years, demand has exceeded supply.

The culprit is the growing use of grains to make biofuels, such as ethanol. Most grains are used as food either for people or for livestock. But the increase in human consumption has been slowing for decades as population growth moderates. Demand for animal feed, meanwhile, has grown steadily, as more people in booming countries such as China grow rich enough to afford meat.

Demand for biofuel feedstocks, by contrast, is soaring. The amount of corn used to make ethanol in America has tripled since 2000; ethanol distilleries now consume a fifth of the country's corn crop. And America is only one of 41 countries where governments are encouraging the use of biofuels to reduce oil consumption.

As a result, demand for grains has accelerated. During the 1990s, when oil was cheap and biofuels unheard of, demand grew by 1.2% a year, according to Goldman Sachs. But in recent years, it has increased by 1.4%, and over the next decade, Goldman projects, it will rise by 1.9% annually.

Farmers are struggling to keep up. The Economist Intelligence Unit, a sister company of The Economist, projects that demand for corn, at least, will continue to exceed supply until at least 2009. Moreover, even to produce as much corn as they are now, farmers are growing less soya and wheat, and so pushing up the prices of those crops too. With all the main grains to feed poultry and livestock becoming more expensive, the cost of meat and eggs is rising, and so it goes on.

When demand was growing more slowly, farmers could meet it through gradual improvements in their yields. But to cope with today's boom, yields will have to rise much faster, or farmers will have to bring more land into production.

Both are possible. Greater adoption of genetically modified strains of corn and wheat, for example, could improve yields. But they are expensive and politically controversial. There is also quite a bit of fallow land to be sowed, especially in developing agricultural powers such as Brazil and Ukraine. But those countries are far from the biggest markets and their idle land tends to be found in areas with poor transport links. A strong price signal will be needed to overcome such obstacles and induce extra supplies.

But even if new land is planted, argues Jeffrey Currie of Goldman Sachs, it will not necessarily reduce the cost of grains. Since high oil prices and generous government subsidies ensure that biofuels are profitable, any extra grain will be used to make more of the stuff. That will not dent the oil price, since the volumes remain tiny compared with global oil consumption. Instead, the price of biofuels has risen to that of petrol, and the price of corn and crude oil, the main feedstocks for the two, have converged (see chart). For grain prices to fall, Mr Currie argues, either governments must pull the plug on biofuels programmes, or the oil price must fall.

Neither seems very likely in the near future. This week America's Congress is debating whether to double its targets for biofuel production. At the same time, the oil price rose to its highest level in ten months, thanks to a strike and other disruptions in Nigeria. The chaos in the Niger delta, it turns out, has a surprising amount to do with the price of eggs.

[Cannonball]

Low farm commodity prices has promped many Idaho farmers to go to planting corn, there seems to be a great idea that the cars will be able to run on 200 proof corn whisky.

Miles of corn fields exist this year where miles of potatos have existed in years past.

The good news, (for us) hay prices have doubled in one month! At the first of June, the going rate was $100.00 a ton, the price now is $200.00, a ton! Word is, its going a lot higher. If all the farms go to corn to feed the nations hungry cars, there will be little land growing food for people? That just my own wild guess.

There is not enough food now for all the worlds people. If 50% of the produce goes to feed cars, where will the food come from?

[screener]

I have to go with a yes vote. Despite being an adaptable and ingenious bunch, we don't have a broad enough focus to recognize that as we, the wealthy, monopolize the earths resources, the poor suffer. There will be shortages of imported foods as transportation costs go up, I expect higher prices for all foods, and if we persist in Needing to buy toys it will be at the expense of people who won't have the option.

http://www.straight.com/article-1011...oney-and-lives

is an interesting opinion piece, bringing what looks like a variety of causes and effects to light.