What's
behind rising food prices
Rabble.ca
March 28, 2011
http://www.rabble.ca/columnists/2011/03/whats-behind-rising-food-prices
What's
behind rising food
prices
By Ralph
Surette
The NDP
government (of Nova Scotia) has
blocked a move to
develop
lands
designated as agricultural in
King's County. The reasons
given
were in the
technical language of zoning
regulations. But this is
no
mere local
question.
Rising food
prices and increasing trouble in
the whole vast reality
to which
food is central is now one of the
world's biggest
problems
-- a
"silent tsunami" as The Economist
magazine called it -- a
part
of the
larger issue of climate change
and resource
depletion.
Food prices
are at their highest levels ever
and poised to rise
higher
(eight per cent in Canada, for
now). This news was working
its
way to
prominence a few weeks ago when
other events washed over it
--
upheavals
in the Middle East (of which food
prices are a cause),
catastrophe
in Japan (of which a compromised
food supply is a
consequence),
and election uproar in Canada
(where this should be
an
issue, but
isn't).
There's
both a downside and an upside to
this. The downside blew
open
in 2008
when there were food riots in
many countries because
of
rising
prices.
Because of
the recession and a good grain
harvest, things
stabilized
in 2009.
But last year trouble resumed,
mainly because of
droughts
and floods,
as the world consumed 60 million
tons of grain more
than
the 2,180
million it produced, drawing down
stocks. This year,
according
to some estimates, we'll need as
much as 150 million
tons
more just
to return to
stability.
That much
extra production has happened in
a few fluke years over
the
past
decades, but it won't this year.
Although corn and rice
are
expected to
increase somewhat, the main wheat
crop is winter wheat
--
planted
last fall for this year -- and
that's already compromised
by
drought in
the main breadbaskets of Russia,
China and the
Southwest
U.S.
Increasing
climate mayhem, irrigation
running dry in some
countries
(the World
Bank says 175 million people in
India are being fed
with
grain grown
by over pumping aquifers),
erosion and desertification
in
some
others, corn being used for fuel,
yields-per-acre having
levelled
off in the advanced countries,
phosphorus for
fertilizer
getting
scarce, 80 million more mouths to
feed every year and a
couple of
billion more in Asia moving up to
the Western-style
banquet
table: all
this doesn't add up.
Further,
international corporations are
scouring the Earth for
farmland,
especially in poorer countries,
an indication of its
rising
value.
And, of
course, higher prices mean
primarily more malnutrition
and
starvation
in the poorest countries, and to
some degree among the
poorest in
our own societies. But there's
better news, too. Even
in
many of the
poorest countries there's a turn
away from dependency
on
the grains
which are basically the
artificial staple of
the
globalized
economy. In sub-Saharan Africa,
for example, it's
being
reported
that people are returning to
native cassava and sorghum
as
internationally
traded grains rise out of
sight.
The UN's
office that watches such things
notes 57 poorer
nations
where
"innovative nonchemical
techniques" of food production
are
kicking in.
New life has even been observed
in those
still-existing
collective
farms in Russia, a relic of
Soviet era non-
production.
Rice-eating
countries are doing better than
wheat- and corn-eating
ones,
because rice is more of a local
grain as opposed to
the
industrial
nature of the others.
Some
places, like the Philippines,
have never given up their
food
sovereignty
and are now largely immune to
these jolts, assuming
their
climate
doesn't give way. Meanwhile, on
the flip side of the
coin,
farmers do
better -- nowhere more than in
Canada -- when prices
rise.
In the
First World, the message with
grain is the same as with oil
--
we're using
too much of it, partly in the
form of junk foods,
but
mainly in
the form of grain-fed meat.
Reducing our consumption
of
meats would
not only result in better health
-- we're in a rising
epidemic of
obesity, heart disease and
diabetes, remember --
but
would also
improve the environment, since
livestock is a major
contributor
to global warming.
Eating less
of that stuff brings us back
home. Here, the
substitute
for too
much meat and junk food is more
vegetables and fruits,
most
of which
can be grown locally. That's why
protecting land is
imperative
-- although some form of land
trust should be set up
so
individual
farmers who can't sell when they
want to don't end up
on
the hook
alone.
And with
veggies, and some fruits, you can
do it yourself in many
cases. I'm
sticking my first seeds in the
ground next week,
under
plastic, as
I always do at this time --
radishes, leaf lettuce
and
spinach,
stuff that doesn't mind freezing.
Meanwhile, last year's
parsnips
are still in the ground. It goes
on year-round.
It's a
beautiful connection with Mother
Earth. How did we get so
far
away from
it?
