Food Shortage Looming if Crop Focus Isn’t Altered
by Jim Goodman
As a child I was told to clean my plate because there were people
starving in China. It seemed silly. How would getting sick help hungry
Chinese? That was in the 1950s, the heart of the green revolution.
After college I was ready to farm as one of the green revolutionaries. I
was ready to feed the world and open the cornucopia to everyone. Now, 40
years later, I admit I was wrong — high-tech agriculture wasn’t the
answer. There is still plenty of hunger in the world, and it looks like
our daily bread could get a lot more expensive.
In 1974 Secretary of State Henry Kissinger said that by 1980 “not a
single child should go to bed hungry.”
When the U.N. General Assembly opened the Second United Nations
Development Decade in 1980, it set 2000 as the new deadline for
eliminating hunger.
In 2000 the U.N. set 2015 as the target date for completion of the U.N.
Millennium Development Goals — eight goals that respond to the world’s
main development challenges. The first of these is, you guessed it,
ending extreme poverty and hunger.
In 2006 the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization estimated
854 million people or 12.6 percent of the world’s population was
undernourished.
An abundance of food is something we take for granted, but we have
money. Collectively as a nation, food has always been there, and we
could buy whatever we wanted. What if that changed? What if food became
really scarce and really expensive? Could it happen? It has already
started.
- Total world stocks of all grains are close to their lowest level in 30
years.
- USDA predicts wheat surpluses to be the smallest in 60 years.
- A virulent strain of wheat rust that can reduce yields to zero is
spreading worldwide.
- Wheat prices have risen well over 50 percent from a year ago.
- The FAO cites 37 countries as facing a food crisis due to rising prices.
Food price is dependent on the price and availability of grain. Since
1960 the world grain harvest has tripled, and the world population has
doubled. So why isn’t there more grain available at a lower price? Why
have the prices jumped?
I can see what’s gone wrong from my front door. Beyond my wheat, pasture
and hayfields, I see two crops, genetically engineered corn and soy —
two of the most widely grown crops in the world. Government subsidies
encourage planting more corn and soy while companies like Monsanto
deliver their package of GE seed and herbicides. Government works in
partnership with industry to establish an agricultural system that
places more value on commodity crops than food crops. It’s the neo-green
revolution.
Too many acres growing corn and soy for animal feed and agrofuels, too
few growing wheat, rice, millet and vegetables for people. With grain
stocks low, record food prices and more people slipping into poverty
daily, droughts, floods or water shortages could trigger faster and more
devastating shifts in world food supplies. We could, in the near future,
experience food shortages and increased hunger in this country as well.
Jacques Diouf, head of the FAO, has admitted that the best way to feed
poor countries is to let them grow their own food locally — food
sovereignty. International agencies and governments need to revisit
their agricultural policies and allow people to feed themselves by using
farming practices and crops they have developed and passed on through
the generations.
Monsanto’s GE seeds and chemicals have not, nor will they ever, make
more food available at a lower price. The neo-green revolution is
failing. We need to prioritize grain for people, not for cattle or cars.
Unless we act, we will face food shortages, and our daily bread will not
come cheaply.
