Food: the next crisis?
Those of us fortunate to be in the developed world take food for granted. It is quality rather than quantity which is our main concern and even with the 24-hour availability of an enormous range of high-quality food - something which would have been almost unthinkable just a generation ago - most people now spend a minor share of their household budget on buying food
Partly, this is because the price of most commodity crops has been low in both relative and absolute terms for quite some time. But, although the recent sharp rises in food costs may make us grumble, they don't threaten our well-being or quality of life.
But this is not so for the vast numbers of people in developing countries for whom food remains the largest part of their budget. Rising prices may benefit small farmers who have a surplus to sell, but are a major problem for the rapidly-increasing numbers of the urban poor. For them, this is getting serious. And for the 800 million people who don't get enough to eat anyway, this is desperately serious.
Agricultural productivity has increased enormously, so that the world is now able to feed 6.7 billion people from about the same area of farmland which previously supported only half that number. The apocalyptic visions of mass famine foreseen by Paul Ehrlich and others have not come to pass. But with the best projections suggesting that the global population will peak at around 9 billion in mid-century, there will be at least a further doubling in the demand for arable crops. Not only will there be more mouths to feed, but an increasingly prosperous developing world (particularly China and India) will demand more meat (with the proportionally higher grain production that entails) and there remain the chronically under-nourished who must be fed properly.
So, are the neo-Malthusian warnings finally coming to pass: are we simply nearing the limits of our ability to produce enough food? Fortunately, the answer is no, but this is no reason for complacency. One of the main reasons for rising prices recently has been a series of bad harvests in major growing areas, which has led to uncomfortably low reserve stocks of grain. Another influence - although this has almost certainly been overstated - is the current expansion of the use of first generation bio-fuels, which has created significant extra demand for corn and palm-oil in particular. Both of these have had the inevitable inflationary effect on prices.
However, harvests are likely to increase again in the short term. Farmers are very good at reacting to the economic signals and maximising their output (and profit). For them, rising prices are a boon, after many years of low profitability for even the most efficient farmer. Also, producing ethanol from grain is not economically competitive and has a rather limited impact on carbon emissions, and will undoubtedly be phased out in favour of the use of waste biomass. Although biomass will be used to provide fuel, this will have little direct impact on food production.
But these two factors together make a rather small difference to agricultural stocks. A far more important factor is the low yield achieved by farmers in many countries relative to the best that can be seen in the industrialised world. Improved seed varieties, appropriate fertilizer use, better crop protection: all these will significantly increase production in many places, as long as farmers can be supported in using them. And this increase will not just come from poor countries in Asia and Africa. Even new EU Member States, particularly Bulgaria and Romania, but also Poland, Hungary etc have much lower productivity than their neighbours further west.
As well as maximising yields, we also have to minimise waste as far as possible. Recently, there have been headlines highlighting the apparently shocking figures for the amount of food thrown away in the UK. To this, of course, we have to add food which is dumped because it passes the end of its shelf-life in the retail chain, which is not insignificant. But this is by no means just a rich-world problem.
We have the ability to extend the storage life of food significantly through the distribution chain, with most waste at the end of the chain, either in retailers or - the majority - in consumers' homes. Small farmers in developing countries don't have this luxury. Food cannot be chilled, neither cannot it be adequately protected against rodents and insect pests. And, because of poor infrastructure, it often cannot be taken far to market. Wastage of already small harvests can be very large. The scope for farmers to get better yields and store their produce better is enormous. If we add to this the ability to get surplus to market and make a small profit, we have a virtuous circle which increases both food security and prosperity.
On a global basis, the food supply situation is not a crisis yet. Overall, the sudden rise in the price of food is a warning that we cannot be complacent. The green revolution played a large part in averting a food crisis for the last generation. The best available technology now must be used to secure the food supply for future generations. Genetic modification must play a large part in this, and fashionable views about food miles and the organic agriculture will surely need to be revised.
The Scientific Alliance
St John's Innovation Centre, Cowley Road, Cambridge CB4 0WS
Tel: +44 1223 421242
