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VK2AAB > FOOD 19.07.07 06:04l 83 Lines 4966 Bytes #999 (0) @ WW
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Read: GUEST DK7NR
Subj: Biofuels-End of food ?
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Sent: 070719/0203Z @:VK2AAB.#SYD.NSW.AUS.OC #:44275 [SYDNEY] FBB7.00i
From: VK2AAB@VK2AAB.#SYD.NSW.AUS.OC
To : FOOD@WW
Here is something else for you to worry about.
73 Barry VK2AAB
The End of Cheap Food?
A perfect storm of three trends are currently causing global food
inflation: droughts in some of the main wheat growing areas,
growing crops for biofuels, especially corn for bioethanol in the
USA, and increasing demand for food in e.g. China. A brief
summary is provided in this BBC video, Food prices defy inflation
(2min 43secs).
The Financial Times have regularly reported the upcoming problems
recently, see: Growing biofuels demand raises food prices and
Floods and drought send price of wheat soaring. This
International Herald Tribune article, Rising pork prices in China
signal pricier times worldwide, focuses specifically on
increasing food prices in China, and the knock-on effects
elsewhere. The Times meanwhile reports that the price of milk is
increasing worldwide, Milk price soars as drought hits dairy
industry: "The price of milk is soaring worldwide as a drought-
stricken dairy industry struggles to meet surging demand for milk
products in China and the Middle East."
The Earth Policy Institute has been foremost in sending out alarm
bells regarding converting so much of the US corn crop to
bioethanol, and as Lester R. Brown keeps warning, "this is only
the beginning". See: Massive Diversion Of U.S. Grain to Fuel Cars
Is Raising World Food Prices and Biofuels Blunder. The EPI have
also just published this article, Losing Soil, emphasizing that
crop production in various parts of the world has fallen
considerably because of soil erosion which is ongoing, but is
also reversible: "Kazakhstan, at the center of this Virgin Lands
Project, saw its grainland area peak at just over 25 million
hectares (44 millions acres) around 1980, then shrink to 14
million hectares today. Even on the remaining land, however, the
average wheat yield is scarcely 1 ton per hectare, a far cry from
the nearly 8 tons per hectare that farmers get in France, Western
Europe's leading wheat producer. A similar situation exists in
Mongolia, where over the last 20 years half the wheatland has
been abandoned and wheat yields have also fallen by half,
shrinking the harvest by three fourths. Mongolia-a country almost
three times the size of France with a population of 2.6 million-
is now forced to import nearly 60 percent of its wheat."
Similar to Lester Brown's work, C. Ford Runge and Benjamin
Senauer recently published a lengthy but excellent article, How
Biofuels Could Starve the Poor, in the US Council On Foreign
Affairs magazine Foreign Affairs: "Thanks to high oil prices and
hefty subsidies, corn-based ethanol is now all the rage in the
United States. But it takes so much supply to keep ethanol
production going that the price of corn -- and those of other
food staples -- is shooting up around the world. To stop this
trend, and prevent even more people from going hungry, Washington
must conserve more and diversify ethanol's production inputs."
Top marks for the newspaper that covers the rising price of food
(and indeed Peak Oil) must go to the UK-based Independent
newspaper. Last Saturday (23 June) the front page article was on
this very topic, The fight for the world's food - Population is
growing. Supply is falling. Prices are rising. What will be the
cost to the planet's poorest?: "Most people in Britain won't have
noticed. On the supermarket shelves the signs are still subtle.
But the onset of a major change will be sitting in front of many
people this morning in their breakfast bowl. The price of cereals
in this country has jumped by 12 per cent in the past year. And
the cost of milk on the global market has leapt by nearly 60 per
cent. In short we may be reaching the end of cheap food." The
newspaper followed up with an editorial that leaves no room for
doubt, Leading article: We have to accept that the era of cheap
food is coming to an end. On Sunday (24 June), the Independent
carried a story that may well change the German public's attitude
towards the mass growing of crops for biofuels, Biofuels to blame
as beer prices soar 40 per cent in Germany. And only yesterday
(27 June), reported on a new bioethanol plant in the UK that will
be using wheat, A milestone on the road to green fuel.
As with Peak Oil, there are those who insist there is no problem.
Planet Ark (Reuters) recently reported that some 'analysts and
politicians' think that "Fears of world food shortages caused by
booming use of sugar cane and corn to produce ethanol fuel for
motor vehicles are overblown and politically motivated", Ethanol
Boom Won't Threaten Food Supply - Analysts. The evidence here
suggests otherwise.
[Posted 28 June 2007]
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