lets start the year off with a lil doom and gloom

[Guest guest]

The food bubble facing imminent collapse

http://www.i-sis.org.uk/TFBE.php

ISIS Press Release 10/01/05

The Institute of Science in Society

 

----------------

Dr. Mae-Wan Ho reviews Plan B: Rescuing a

Planet under

Stress and a Civilization in Trouble, by

Lester Brown, Earth

Policy Institute, W.W. Norton & Company, New

York, 2003,

ISBN 0-393-05859-X

----------------

 

Global warming is happening; and at a much

faster, more

abrupt rate than projected by the

International Panel on

Climate Change (IPCC) (see " Abrupt climate

change

happening " , SiS 20).

 

The news media have been filled with reports

of heat waves,

floods, droughts, hurricanes, accelerated

melting of the

polar ice caps and sea levels rising. And

yet, they may be

missing the most serious consequence of

climate change

that's staring us in the face: a collapse of

food production

on a global scale; or as Lester Brown of

Earth Policy

Institute puts it, " the bursting of the food

bubble " .

 

The economy must be restructured at " wartime

speed " , Lester

Brown says, because we have built an

" environmental bubble

economy " , where economic output is

artificially inflated by

over-consumption of the earth's natural

resources. He adds:

" the destruction wrought by terrorists is

likely to be small

compared with the worldwide suffering if the

environmental

bubble economy collapses. "

 

This same warning was first put forward no

less forcefully

by Edward Goldsmith and colleagues in A

Blueprint for

Survival published in 1972, and echoed by

many since;

notably Paul Hawken's The Ecology of Commerce

(1993) and

David Korten's When Corporations Rule the

World (1995).

 

What's new in Lester Brown's message is that

the most

vulnerable economic sector may be food. Food

production is

facing imminent collapse unless the urgent

problems of water

shortage, overpopulation and rising

temperatures are tackled

right away. (And no, he does not think GM

crops are the

answer to feeding the world.)

 

Water is fast running out

 

The world is fast running out of water after

decades of

unsustainable over-pumping of aquifers to

expand food

production to feed a growing world

population. Water tables

have fallen sharply and rapidly in scores of

countries

including China, India and the United States,

which together

produce nearly half of the world's grain.

Other more

populous countries with depleted aquifers

include Pakistan,

Iran and Mexico. As water tables fall, rivers

fail to reach

the sea, lakes disappear and wells dry up.

 

Conventional industrial agriculture is

extremely water-

intensive. It takes 1000 tonnes of water to

produce a tonne

of grain. Worldwide, 70 % of all the water

diverted from

rivers or pumped from underground is used for

irrigation;

20% is used by industry and 10% for

residential purposes.

 

Growing needs of industry is diverting

irrigation water from

agriculture, and countries are turning to

grain imports to

make up for the shortfall. A person drinks 4

litres of water

a day and an additional 2 000 litres is

needed to produce

the food eaten. In rich countries where grain

is consumed to

feed livestock, the water needed to produce

food per person

can easily reach 4 000 litres a day.

 

Water shortages are generating conflicts

between upstream

and downstream claimants.

 

Crops cease to produce at high temperatures

 

Another challenge facing farmers to keep up

productivity is

global warming. The 16 warmest years since

record -keeping

began in 1880 all occurred from 1980 onwards,

the three

warmest years were 1998, 2001 and 2003. Crops

are facing

heat stresses that are without precedent.

 

As the temperature rises above 34 C,

photosynthesis slows

down, dropping to zero for many crops at 37

C. At that

temperature, corn plants in the US Corn Belt

suffer from

heat shock and dehydration, shrinking the

harvest.

Researchers at the International Rice

Research Institute in

the Philippines and the US Department of

Agriculture

developed a rule of thumb that each deg C

rise in

temperature above the optimum during the

growing season

reduces grain yields by 10%. Thus, according

to projections

of the IPCC – which some say is already an

underestimate -

grain harvests in tropical regions could be

reduced by an

average of 5-11 percent by 2020 and 11-46

percent by 2050.

 

Research at Ohio State University indicates

that as

temperature rises, photosynthesis increases

until 20C, and

then plateaus until 35C when it begins to

decline, ceasing

entirely at 40C. At that temperature, the

plant is in

thermal shock, simply trying to survive.

 

The most vulnerable part of the life cycle is at

fertilization. Corn silk dries out rapidly in

the heat, and

prevents pollen tubes from reaching the

kernels. Similarly,

the fertility of rice falls from 100% at 34C

to nearly zero

at 40C. In north India, a 1C rise in

temperature did not

reduce wheat yields, but a 2C rise lowered

yields at almost

all of 10 sites. There was a decline in

irrigated wheat

yields ranging from 37 to 58% from heat

alone; and when

increased CO2 was factored in – which tends

to increase

photosynthesis - the decline ranged from 8 to

38%.

 

Grain production has been dropping

 

The problems of water shortage and increased

temperatures

are already hitting grain yields. Grain

production has been

declining in some smaller countries; but it

is now falling

in China, the most populous country in the

world. Over the

past five years, China's grain harvest has

dropped from 390

million to 340 million tonnes – a drop equal

to the grain

harvest of Canada.

 

Sooner or later, says Lester Brown, China

will enter the

world grain market for imports, and that will

cause food

prices to rise, especially as world grain

reserves are at an

all time low.

 

In 2002, the world grain harvest of 1 807

million tonnes

fell short of the world grain consumption by

100 million

tonnes, or 5 percent. This shortfall, the

largest on record,

marked the third consecutive year of grain

deficits,

bringing stocks to the lowest level in a

generation.

 

In such a situation, the first to suffer will

the world's

poorest and hungriest. The United Nations

Food and

Agriculture Organisation (FAO) latest

estimates, based on

data from the years 1998-2000, put the number of

undernourished people in the world at 840

million. But since

1998-2000, world grain production has fallen

5 percent,

suggesting that the ranks of the hungry may

be swelling.

 

" Food is fast becoming a national security

issue as growth

in the world harvest slows and as falling

water tables and

rising temperatures hint at future

shortages, " says Lester

Brown.

 

More than 100 countries now import wheat.

Some 40 countries

import rice. Iran and Egypt rely on imports

for 40 percent

of their grain supply. Algeria, Japan, South

Korea and

Taiwan import 70% or more. Israel and Yemen

import more than

90%. And just 6 countries - the US, Canada,

France

Australia, Argentina and Thailand - supply

90% of grain

exports. The US alone controls almost half of

world grain

exports.

 

China importing grain to make up for its

deficits could

destabilize world grain market overnight.

When the former

Soviet Union bought grain from the world

market in 1972 for

roughly a tenth of its grain supply following

a bad harvest,

the world wheat prices climbed from $1.90 to

$4.89 a bushel.

 

" Ecological meltdown "

 

The problem of declining food production is

dwarfed by the

ecological impacts of the over-exploitation

of resources to

keep production high. China is singled out

for " ecological

meltdown " .

 

Since 1980, China's economy has expanded more

than fourfold.

Income has also expanded by nearly fourfold

lifting more

people out of poverty faster than at any time

in history.

But this has resulted in over-ploughing,

over-grazing, over-

cutting of forests and over-pumping of aquifers.

 

With a population of 1.3 billion and 400

million cattle,

sheep and goats, " weighing heavily on the

land " and grazing

flocks stripping the land of protective

vegetation, a dust

bowl has been created on a scale not seen

before. China is

at war with expanding deserts. Old deserts

are advancing and

new deserts forming. With little vegetation

remaining in

parts of northern and western China, the

strong winds of

late winter and early spring can remove

millions of tonnes

of topsoil in a single day, soil that would

take centuries

to replace. The Gobi Desert expanded by 52

400 square

kilometres between 1994 and 1999, and is now

within 150

miles of Beijing.

 

Millions of rural Chinese may be uprooted and

forced to

migrate eastward as the deserts claim their

land.

Desertification has already driven villagers

from their

homes in Gansu, Inner Mongolia and Ningxia

provinces.

Unfortunately, they do not have an obvious

place to escape

to within China. Such ‘environmental

refugeesÂ’ will be

increasingly common.

 

China's dust storms are spreading beyond its

borders. On

April 12, 2002, South Korea was engulfed by a

huge dust

storm from China that shut down schools and

cancelled

flights, and clinics were overrun with people

having

difficulty breathing. Koreans have come to

dread the arrival

of what they now call " the fifth season " of

dust storms from

China.

 

Plan B for survival

 

Plan A " business as usual " must be replaced

by plan B as a

matter of urgency if we are to avoid the food

bubble

bursting, and with it, famine on a global

scale, disease

epidemics, social and political unrest, and

wars.

 

Plan B means shifting from a carbon-based

energy economy to

a hydrogen-based one to stabilize climate

change. Iceland is

the first country to adopt that as its

national plan.

Denmark and Germany are leading in

wind-generated energy;

Japan in solar cells. The evolution of fuel

cells and

availability of hydrogen generators will

contribute to

building a climate-benign hydrogen economy.

The Netherlands

has shown what can be achieved by phasing out

motorcars in

favour of bicycles. The Canadian province of

Ontario is

phasing out coal. It is replacing its five

coal-fired power

plants with gas-fired plants, wind-farms and

making

efficiency gains; the net result is to reduce

carbon

emissions equivalent to taking 4 million cars

off the road.

 

Plan B means stabilizing world population at

around 7.5

billion, as some 34 countries in the world

have already

stabilized their populations. It means

increasing the

productivity of water in agriculture, for

example, by drip-

irrigation pioneered in Israel. It means

halting soil

erosion by replanting trees, adopting

minimum-till, no-till

and other soil-conservation practices.

 

Finally, it means restructuring the entire

economy by

creating an " honest market " , one that " tells

the ecological

truth " , by including the indirect costs of

goods and

services into the prices, that values

nature's services

properly and respect the sustainable-yield

thresholds of

natural systems such as fisheries, forests,

rangelands and

aquifers.

 

For petrol, calculating the true costs to

society means

including the medical costs of treating

people made ill from

polluted air, the costs of acid rain in

damages to lakes,

forests, crops and buildings, and most of all

from global

warming. Various studies have produced

estimates of petrol

prices raised to $3.30, or even $8.64 a

gallon if drivers

were to pay some of the indirect costs,

including the

military costs of protecting petroleum supply

lines and

ensuring access to Middle Eastern oil.

 

An example of valuing nature's services is

the decision of

the Chinese government to ban all tree

cutting in the

Yangtze River basin after the flooding in

1998, which

inflicted $30 billion worth of damages. The

ban was

justified by according to standing trees a

worth three times

that of cut trees.

 

A further measure is to shift taxation –

lowering income

taxes while raising taxes on environmentally

destructive

activities.

 

Sustainable agriculture left out

 

While most of the measures in plan B are

laudable, they do

not add up to the radical " restructuring " of

the bubble

economy called for.

 

Edward Goldsmith, Paul Hawken, David Korten

and others have

argued convincingly that the fatal error of

our bubble

economy is that it is predicated on unlimited

growth. A

major part of the solution may well involve

abandoning

unlimited growth as a matter of policy and as

an index of

progress and well-being, for an alternative

economic model

that emphasizes stability, autonomy and

self-renewal at

every level. But that's not going to happen

so long as the

dominant model of economic globalisation of

the World Trade

Organisation (WTO) holds sway.

 

Another weakness of plan B is that after

having painted a

dire picture of the unsustainable food bubble

created by

decades of industrial monoculture, Lester

Brown nevertheless

fails to call for a comprehensive shift to

sustainable

agriculture that would tackle the problems he

has mentioned

head on, as well as ones he hasn't mentioned,

the most

obvious being that industrial monoculture is

extremely

energy inefficient and dependent on fossil

fuel, which too,

is fast running out.

 

Organic and agroecological farming, by

contrast, are proving

productive, energy and resource efficient and

environmentally friendly; they are able to

provide food

security for the poorest farmers, to protect

biodiversity,

to regenerate degraded land, and to turn soil

from a carbon

source back into a carbon sink. They are the

key to

delivering health to the nation, whether rich

or poor (as

described in articles in successive issues of

Science in

Society http://www.i-sis.org.uk/isisnews.php;

also The Case

for a GM Free Sustainable World

http://indsp.org/ISPreportSummary.php.).

 

It is nothing short of scandalous that out of

the £500

million allocated to implementing the UK

government's

Strategy for Sustainable Farming and Food

(Department for

Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, London

www.defra.gov/farm/sustain/newstrategy/strategy.pdf),

only

£5 million was earmarked for supporting

organic agriculture.

 

The reason is that adopting truly sustainable

agriculture

would entail major conceptual and structural

changes to the

food production and delivery system that many

governments,

including the UK, are not prepared to face up

to. These

include rejecting global " competitiveness "

and " efficiency "

as artificially defined by the WTO to

perpetuate the

iniquitous exploitation of the world poor by

the rich that

has added untold misery to the lives of Third

World farmers

and food miles to agricultural produce

shipped across the

globe. They include, instead, supporting

local production

and consumption and shortening the

food-supply chain to

ensure that farmers get a fair price for

their produce and

consumers get the benefit of fresh,

nutritious and health-

promoting food while reducing global carbon

dioxide

emission.