Cows By The Fence

I originally read this article on Dave’s ESL Cafe and it really got me thinking about how we as a society could avoid certain doom in regards to food shortages. More and more crops are being grown to power our industrial society, doing this drives up food prices and diverts food from those who need it to satisfy our consumer economy. The rising middle classes in the developing world are also driving up the costs. I will post the article in full below.

Forget oil, the new global crisis is food

BMO strategist Donald Coxe warns credit crunch and soaring oil prices will pale in comparison to looming catastrophe

Alia McMullen, Financial Post Published: Monday, January 07, 2008

Scott Olson/Getty ImagesCorn grows in a farm field near Seneca, Illinois. Rising demand for grain to make fuel, food and livestock feed has helped push the prices of corn and soybeans.

A new crisis is emerging, a global food catastrophe that will reach further and be more crippling than anything the world has ever seen. The credit crunch and the reverberations of soaring oil prices around the world will pale in comparison to what is about to transpire, Donald Coxe, global portfolio strategist at BMO Financial Group said at the Empire Club’s 14th annual investment outlook in Toronto on Thursday.”It’s not a matter of if, but when,” he warned investors. “It’s going to hit this year hard.”Mr. Coxe said the sharp rise in raw food prices in the past year will intensify in the next few years amid increased demand for meat and dairy products from the growing middle classes of countries such as China and India as well as heavy demand from the biofuels industry.”The greatest challenge to the world is not US$100 oil; it’s getting enough food so that the new middle class can eat the way our middle class does, and that means we’ve got to expand food output dramatically,” he said.The impact of tighter food supply is already evident in raw food prices, which have risen 22% in the past year.Mr. Coxe said in an interview that this surge would begin to show in the prices of consumer foods in the next six months. Consumers already paid 6.5% more for food in the past year.Wheat prices alone have risen 92% in the past year, and yesterday closed at US$9.45 a bushel on the Chicago Board of Trade.At the centre of the imminent food catastrophe is corn - the main staple of the ethanol industry. The price of corn has risen about 44% over the past 15 months, closing at US$4.66 a bushel on the CBOT yesterday - its best finish since June 1996.

This not only impacts the price of food products made using grains, but also the price of meat, with feed prices for livestock also increasing.

“You’re going to have real problems in countries that are food short, because we’re already getting embargoes on food exports from countries, who were trying desperately to sell their stuff before, but now they’re embargoing exports,” he said, citing Russia and India as examples.

“Those who have food are going to have a big edge.”

With 54% of the world’s corn supply grown in America’s mid-west, the U.S. is one of those countries with an edge.

But Mr. Coxe warned U.S. corn exports were in danger of seizing up in about three years if the country continues to subsidize ethanol production. Biofuels are expected to eat up about a third of America’s grain harvest in 2007.

The amount of U.S. grain currently stored for following seasons was the lowest on record, relative to consumption, he said.

“You should be there for it fully-hedged by having access to those stocks that benefit from rising food prices.”

He said there are about two dozen stocks in the world that are going to redefine the world’s food supplies, and “those stocks will have a precious value as we move forward.”

Mr. Coxe said crop yields around the world need to increase to something close to what is achieved in the state of Illinois, which produces over 200 corn bushes an acre compared with an average 30 bushes an acre in the rest of the world.

“That will be done with more fertilizer, with genetically modified seeds, and with advanced machinery and technology,” he said.

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Sounds pretty bad doesn’t it? It seems to me there are some things we can however do to soften the blow of food shortages. I will try to highlight and elaborate on a few of them in this blog entry. Those of you who grew up during the World War Two years may remember the image below or different ones promoting the same goal/message.

What is it for or about? It is a Victory Garden, a program started by the US (and Canadian) governments during the war years to encourage people to grow food at their homes to ease and reduce the pressure on the food supply during the course of the war. Citizens grew food on their lawns,on apartment rooftops, and wherever possible. Victory Gardens ceased to be when the war ended and things went back to their old ways, being dependent upon supermarkets and grocery stores for our food. Now if we are facing severe food shortages, why wouldn’t we restart this program and encourage people to once again turn their manicured lawns into a means of survival? It sickens me to see perfectly manicured suburban lawns heavily doused with chemicals when these could be turned into gardens to not only feed families, but to also teach children about gardening and self sufficiency. I’m hopeful that people will come to their senses, but I’m also not going to hold my breath either.

I’m going to turn my attention to Cuba now. Cuba? That’s right! During the Cold War, Cuba’s industrial agricultural system was fueled by oil from the Soviet Union. When the Soviet Union collapsed, Cuba lost its source of oil and the system began to come crashing down. Food shortages were common and things were looking bad for the island. However, Cuba prevailed by being smart and takig a different approach to their farming methods. In David Suzuki’s The Sacred Balance, Suzuki explains what the Cubans did:

Out of that crisis emerged an incredible success story- urban agriculture in which more than 80% of the vegetables consumed in cities is also grown within them. Yards and vacant lots were put into food production, while the state provided expertise and equipment to get farmers started. Today, more than ten thousand urban farms provide fresh, cheap, organic food to local neighborhoods in Cuban cities while providing incomes and jobs to tens of thousands of people. The gardens achieve a productivity level comparable to yields from industrial agriculture. They do it by mimicking nature rather than bludgeoning it into submission with chemicals, artificial fertilizers and excessive irrigation. (David Suzuki, The Sacred Balance, P. 157).

There is hope and a chance we can curb these foot shortages if we act now and do something. However, time is quickly running out and the more we sit idle, the worse things will only get. Oh and while you’re at it, watch these clips below. These guys were my a source of inspiration for me.