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Page added on April 22, 2014
Food shortage could occur within 40 years
Less than 40 years. That’s all the time available to try to find a way to avoid the looming crisis of a food shortage that will have serious implications for people and governments.
“For the first time in human history, food production will be limited on a global scale by the availability of land, water and energy,” said Dr. Fred Davies, senior science adviser for the U.S. Agency for International Development’s bureau of food security. “Food issues could become as politically destabilizing by 2050 as energy issues are today.”
Davies, who also is a Texas A&M AgriLife Regents Professor of Horticultural Sciences, recently addressed the North American Agricultural Journalists meeting in Washington, D.C. on the “monumental challenge of feeding the world.”
Population growth challenges ag productivity
He said the world population will increase 30 percent to 9 billion people by mid-century. That would call for a 70 percent increase in food to meet demand.
8 Comments on "Food shortage could occur within 40 years"
dsula on Tue, 22nd Apr 2014 8:55 am
promises, nothing but promises. Oil shortages were promised by 2005. Promises nothing but promises.
Nony on Tue, 22nd Apr 2014 8:56 am
I think it was about 45 years ago, that they said the food shortage would be 10 years away (from then). Now we are looking at almost 100 years from the original prediction dates. Cornies have won this won. Take that Malthus!
Davy, Hermann, MO on Tue, 22nd Apr 2014 9:17 am
TWGA (there we go again) with the 2050 sh*t. Please large brain academics show some rationality and be realistic. If you want to make a point with the GP you don’t talk in decades you talk in 5 years or less. In 5 years or less oil, gas, food, grid energy and stable money with be short. These vitals are already short but the short is camouflaged by central bank financial repression and parasitic/cannibalistic wealth transfer pseudo growth. Not only is food short because of the economics of distribution and costs but it is peaking on productivity from soil loss, aquifer depletion, water competition, pollution, development, and unstable climate. Please large brain academics from the universities, lobbyist from corptacracies, and NGO/UN impotent agencies get a grip on reality and time scales!
bobinget on Tue, 22nd Apr 2014 10:04 am
In our valley there’s a measure on the ballot to outlaw
the growing of GMO crops of any sort. Organic farming
groups have managed to raise millions of dollars forbidding gardeners farmers from planting legal crops. While many of these same ‘family farmers’ are growing ‘medical marijuana’ in huge greenhouses to survive low produce prices and high land, water, labor
prices. People are a mass of contradictions.
Campaign signs read: “Help Save Family Farms”
So many questions here.
When a serious farmer seek higher yields she can: Load up on pesticides (insecticides and weed killers)
Hire ‘crop dusters’ or deliver chemicals my land.
Or: She can buy seeds that claim drought and/or insect or weed control resistance because of genetic modification.
All you organic farmers are shouting about now about the third way. Mechanical weed removal (or none)
Safe (organic) insecticides and unpaid labor. (the family)
One on topic point that cannot be overlooked here.
Organic farming is so highly oil and labor intensive,
time consuming to make it impractical to
feed all of our current population.
Good organic food has been priced out of reach of the masses for years. Because of drought plus higher transportation, labor costs, so called ‘conventional’
unprocessed food is also becoming too expensive.
GregT on Tue, 22nd Apr 2014 10:31 am
Food shortages will not take another 40 years to occur, because they are occurring already. The Middle East, Africa, South America, and even parts of Europe have already experienced food riots, and political and societal unrest due to food insecurity. Even in the US, one in six cannot afford food right now. People can’t seem to connect the dots, when it comes to energy costs and their effects on economies, and food production and distribution. Just as the oil will stay in the ground when it becomes too expensive for the average person to buy, the food will no longer be grown, when it costs the farmer more to grow the food than what he can sell it for. Add in climatic instability, drought, water scarcity, desertification, dead soils, and rising energy costs, and we have a recipe for hunger.
Our economies are already on papered over life-support and teetering on the edge of the abyss. When they finally disintegrate, the oil will stop flowing, and the food will no longer be produced for the vast majority of us. Learn how to live sustainably, and how to grow your own food. We don’t have 40 years left until the current paradigm ends, we will be very lucky if we have 10.
J-Gav on Tue, 22nd Apr 2014 10:40 am
Agreed, Davy and GregT – nobody’s going to have to wait 40 years for the next major crisis to develop. I’m not sure food shortages will constitute the first whack (more likely financial mayhem) but they could follow on fairly quickly depending on how/where people live.
Kenz300 on Tue, 22nd Apr 2014 12:36 pm
Quote — “He said the world population will increase 30 percent to 9 billion people by mid-century. That would call for a 70 percent increase in food to meet demand.”
———————–
The world keeps looking for solutions everywhere but at the source of the problem —- Too Many People.
Endless population growth is not sustainable. That is where the focus needs to be.
Access to family planning services needs to be available to all that want it.
dissident on Tue, 22nd Apr 2014 4:31 pm
Things have been just stellar since 2005, eh, desula? Perhaps the shortages are manifesting themselves as structural adjustments in the economy. The US alone is consuming 3 million barrels per day less than before 2008. Jobless recovery and all.
Invoking the oil peak situation in the context of climate induced agricultural disruption is simply idiotic. Do you also judge your medical treatment based on the performance of your car mechanic?