Food Scarcity

The changing weather patterns that have been so different than what we have become familiar with in the past since environmental records have been kept will continue their trajectory, making the world a warmer, drier place than we've known.  There will be some areas of the world for which this will not be a negative occurrence, but far many more areas of the world where it will spell catastrophe, with projected rising sea levels, continual drought conditions, and agricultural failure.

Still, according to figures released by the United Nations in 2007, if all the food produced on Earth were taken and equally divided among the entire population of human beings there would be a more than ample diet for everyone on a daily basis; about 2,795 calories.  The sticking point is that those who suffer hunger are usually those for whom distribution of food is a problem, and will likely remain a problem.

Food scarcity has much to do with availability opportunities.  The cost of basic food production and products will increase.  Those living marginal existences will continue to find their existence hampered by a lack of adequate nutrition.  Those living in third-world conditions have seen an improvement in their lives; there are fewer people living in the world today in starvation conditions than has been the case traditionally.

But weather conditions and crop failures resulting from them result in large areas of the world, like the African Sahel, suffering a severe shortage of food, causing people to migrate in desperation, looking for food elsewhere.  In the process creating large displaced persons camps living in misery and privation, with humanitarian organizations working alongside nations' administrations to feed the desperate.

Angry, restive populations facing higher food prices and lacking the wherewithal to pay more for their basic sustenance is what really caused the social phenomenon of the Arab Spring, when people rose up in protest.  The label the outside world gave to the protests was that of a cry for social democracy, but it was really an appeal for more food availability at an affordable cost.

The summer of 2012 sees one of the worst droughts in 50 years ruining corn yields across North America, with prices rising to all-time highs.  Wheat and soy have followed.  And India too is looking at the potential of a catastrophic rice harvest if the anticipated monsoons don't eventuate.  Because of the higher cost of grains, consumers are being warned to expect a rise in the price of dairy products, and of meats.

Despite the dreadful growing conditions in the corn belt of the United States, this year's corn crop in the U.S. will represent the third- or fourth-largest in history.  But the problem is that the world has no strategic grain reserves.  We have consumed what we have grown, relying on the market forces to determine how much carry-over stock remains at the end of the growing year.  Little-to-None.

Which doesn't respond to the need to have grain reserves as a national and international assurance of food security.  Grain stores have dwindled, and food stocks set aside for the proverbial rainy day simply no longer exists.  Most corn merchants sold down inventories when prices were high last year, for example.  The commodities markets are sensitive to sell-off in anticipation of glut or plenty.

Science in agricultural processes and new technologies have made us more proficient than ever in growing food and reaping large harvests when conditions are ideal.  But when conditions are less than ideal, the harvests decline.  Corn in particular has a narrow seasonal window for pollination to take place during which time copious amounts of water are required.  If that water is absent, the corn will not set ears.

This planet is only as resilient with respect to food availability as our weather conditions will allow us to be.  And though human beings control technology and innovation in new growing methodology, we can have no impact whatever on weather conditions.  Other than possibly to exacerbate them by our incessant burning of fossil fuels.