Where did it all go wrong? The world food crisis.
by Drew Price on June 4, 2008
in Uncategorized
This blog was first published in March 08
- Emergency food control measures in the developing world
- Fears of riots over the shortage of rice in Asia
- Countries stopping exports to safeguard their own supplies
- 40 days stocks of grain left in some western countries
- Staples doubling in price in a matter of months
It all sounds like the prelude to scifi films like Soylent Green but it’s actually happening right now.
With an increasing population there is an increased need for food, which is clear enough but add to this factors such as global client change and the use of agriculture to produce biofuels and the problem deepens. Another pressure is economic development populations in countries such as India and China grow richer their expectations and consequently their diet change to include more meat. Animals are very efficient at converting plant matter into meat as it were but it still takes around 4.5 to 6lb of grain to produce 1lb of meat.
Meat is a great source of protein as well as other nutrients and I often advise people to seek more high quality ‘clean’ sources of protein in their diet but clearly something has to change if we’re to feed the growing population. As it stands at the moment there is sufficient food but it is not evenly distributed amongst the worlds population causing famine and poor health and this may hint at the first of the possible components to the solution
Changing food markets and food control may enable us to distribute food better with less waste and more even ‘nutrient coverage’ but it is probably only a piece of the puzzle. Other solutions may be wholesale change in food behavior and diet especially in the west where a huge proportion of the food is just sent to landfill and with the aid of food technology but of course the major recent innovation has been GM foods.
We have genetically modified plants and animals since we first started farming using breeding techniques but modern molecular biology allows us to speed up this process hugely. Can this save us? What does it mean for existing species? Will it ruin our environment whilst at the same time just allowing for great population expansion, whereupon we will be faced with the same problem again?
These are all questions and issues we debate in developed countries and many are rightly worried seeking tighter controls on GM crop use and with many groups up in arms about their development. Suffice to say whilst we chew these questions over endlessly, in countries where people are living on a cup of millet a day these issues are not of such immediate concern.
Further reading and resources