THE GOOD THOUGHT

by: Chita Dela Cruz-Heap

Food is Life

In 2008 there was a global food production crisis which affected food prices all around the world. Food prices increasing by 83% in just three years. The priceof rice rose by 14%, corn by 31%, soya by 87%, and wheat by a staggering 130%. Thankfully we are a people who sustain ourselves mainly on rice, much of which we grow locally, and so to some extent we were sheltered from the effect of these price hikes.

In this global age however, food prices are no longer determined simply by the yield from any particular area as was the case in days gone by. Food is now an international commodity with prices being subject to market forces, and food prices can go either up or down as a consequence of those financial institutions and individuals who speculate on the market.

Food prices are of particular concern to those who cannot afford to buy food, and even a 1% rise in prices means that many of these people will go hungry. There are currently some one billion people in the world who are undernourished.

With emerging nations such as India and China becoming more prosperous, many of their people now find themselves moving up the food chain and changing their diet accordingly, with ever increasing numbers now eating meat.

It takes 8kg of grain to produce 1kg of beef, this amount of grain being enough to feed an average person for 43 days. 18 million more people each year are now changing to a meat diet, such that by the year 2050 the number of meat eaters will rise from 3 billion to 9 billion

Climate change is also likely to have a significant impact on the future of our food supply. Over the last 1,100 years agriculture and agricultural techniques have developed in leaps and bounds, but these advances have been made during aperiod which has enjoyed a period with a relatively stable climate.

Predictions estimate a temperature rise of 6 degrees Celsius by the end of this century, with each degree of temperature rise resulting in a 10% decrease in yield. A two degrees rise in temperature would result in increased hardship for many people on this Earth. A five degree rise in temperature would cause changes which were irreversible.

One consequence would be that the ice sheets in Greenland would melt giving rise to a 7m rise in sea level. The Mekon Delta in Vietnam which grows most of the countries rice would be half submerged, whilst Bangladesh would be no more. In Kalibo too much of our arable land would be swallowed by the sea.

There are four major crises facing the world today, these being food, finance, fuel, and climate change. Agriculture is affected by all of these issues, with market forces, increasing demand, and nature itself serving to create a precarious balance.

Although there are some 50,000 edible plants in this world, rice, corn, and wheat represent 60% of the world’s food intake. Approximately 90% of the world’s farmland is given over to growing these crops, with only 9% used for others. Could global famine be just one bad harvest away?

Almost half of the world’s corn and soya bean are grown in Iowa in the USA. When a normal years snowfall recently fell in just thirty days, and with a wet summer preceding, the crop yield for that year was severely diminished. In 1977 the harvest suffered from a severe drought resulting in a 98% reduction in yield. The next drought is now overdue, and it has been estimated that there is a one in three chance of another drought hitting the US corn belt soon.

Due to Iowa’s abundant soil moisture, 30 to 35 thousand plants can be grown per acre to produce 250 million tons of corn each year. The prices of food and oil are however inextricably linked, since ‘ethanol’ is increasingly being made from corn oil, and land is increasingly being used to grow fuel crops. In their rush ‘to go green,’ ethanol is being used to fill the gas tanks of vehicles, when the equivalent amount of corn could feed one individual for a whole year.

Throughout the world some five billion bowls of rice are eaten each day, 90% of which are consumed in Asia. Some 50% of the world’s population depends upon rice for its survival. Due to a rapidly expanding population there will be another billion mouths to feed ten years from now.

Over the past few years rice production has fallen by 1%, and even at the present time producers are unable to supply the current demand. In order to keep pace with demand, an additional increase of 7 million tons of rice will be required each year.
In view of global warming many doubt that this will be possible, and almost inevitably many will go hungry.

For countries such as Thailand rice is also a major source of income, but Thailand is now in danger of loosing its position as Asia’s leading exporter as its supplies of rice are increasingly used to feed ts own people.

We urgently need to find a solution to prevent a food crisis which would most likely threatenus all. The Institute of Rice Research in Manila has in store samples of almost every strain of rice from throughout the world, and keeps 109,000 different varieties in its gene bank. These it tests for resistance to high temperatures, to drought, and for resistance to rising sea levels.

There is hope for the future however, for the human being is a remarkably adaptable species. We will need to make changes if we are to ensure our survival, a change to our current diet being one of these. Another change that will be required is for farmers to grow a more diverse range of crops so that we are not entirely dependent upon a successful rice harvest.

There are many amongst us who talk about saving the planet. I personally suspect that our planet will be around for many years to come, and that it is saving humanity itself that should become our overriding priority./TE