Posted on 07/01/2009 3:41:53 PM PDT by FromLori
In my earlier article, I outlined the economic backdrop that will push agriculture and food prices higher in the not so distant future. If you missed that essay, you can review it here.
To rehash, we’ve added roughly three billion people to the earth’s population since the ‘60s. We accommodated this growth by using fertilizers, irrigation, and other systems that have deleterious effects on land overtime. As a consequence, worldwide arable land per person has essentially halved from 0.42 hectares per person in 1961 to 0.23 hectares per person in 2002.
Because of this, stocks-to-use ratios are now at their lowest levels since the ‘70s (a time that saw food prices spike dramatically). Thus we have growing demand, lower productivity and lower inventories. It’s not difficult to see where this is going.
Indeed, we have the makings of a real food crisis coming up in the next few years. A few bad seasons and it might come even faster. Indeed, 2007-2008 saw a record harvest for grains, but stocks-to-use ratios barely improved at all. So we’re already at the point that even a record harvest doesn’t dramatically increase the amount of extra food we’ve got lying around after demand.
There’s also another catalyst at work here: dumb government interventions. Last year’s rice shortage in Asia was induced NOT by lack of supply but by government restriction on exports. Given the unprecedented degree of government intervention we’re seeing in the financial markets (more in developed nations, than developing ones), it’s not a stretch to imagine the US or other developed nations imposing similar policies with equally disastrous consequences.
Barring some kind of serious change (a huge sudden wave of farms coming online, or some miraculous breakthrough in technology), the economics predict some kind of good shortage is coming our way. A few dumb moves by the government would set prices even higher, resulting in all out social unrest. Sounds crazy, but it’s already happened in 30+ countries worldwide in the last two years. And it’s not like the US or other developed nations are immune to food shortages.
For instance, corn per acre yield in the USA has risen from 55 bushels/acre in 1970 to 155 bushels/acre in 2007 on about 80 million acres of corn.
Other row crop yield improvements abound at the website.
We have higher productivity.
As a consequence, worldwide arable land per person has essentially halved from 0.42 hectares per person in 1961 to 0.23 hectares per person in 2002.
See, even you noticed it.
It’s not difficult to see where this is going.
A sales pitch? LOL!
I don’t buy into the whole “The Earth is Overpopulated!” scare/thing... besides, anyone that IS should be on the side of massive pandemic, famine, and/or war.
I would think some of the advances in agri genetics would counter some of the issues in the article.
Data hurts in the panic business.
Lets pick up the pace a bit here...
Communist Propaganda !!!
Obamagram !!!
BS. The fact that we have half the ‘arable land’ is because with current farming techniques WE DON’T NEED that extra land in production. Everyone’s fat and fed.
The land didn’t just disappear. That extra land could be put back into production (see New England) if there were an actual food shortage.
“We’re all gonna die!” - ‘70s Overpopulation Myth
This guy is just another scare-monger.
We most certainly have not added three billion since the 60’s. The statist thugs need crises to generate tyranny through raging democratic oligarchy.
The sudden rise in grain prices a year and a half ago was a consequence of the total loss of the Australian wheat crop, and the Argentine/Brazilian wheat and soybean failure.
That was followed by distress in the Northern Hemisphere which is still going on.
This year we lost half the planting/growing season in the US Corn Belt, Ukraine has its grain problems as well, and China has essentially lost its hard wheat lands with rice having problems in many places.
That's all due to the onset of the NEXT ICE AGE.
Ping 4 comments?
Bingo.
Just like global warming.
Yes witness the failures in India where the farmers committed suicide, etc.
In 1960, the world's population was 2,972,000,000. In 2005, the population was 6,450,000,000. By 2010 the projected population will be 6.8 billion. We add about 57 million a year to the world's population.
Your point is correct....for the US. But this guy is talking “the whole world”. Look at what happened to Rhodesia/Zimbabwe. Short-sighted government actions can be catastrophic. And the Zimbabweans STILL haven’t strung up Mugabe from the nearest light pole.
Seems to me that most of the lost farm land was probably due to urban areas spreading. That is very apparent south of Sacramento in the Kalifornia Central Valley. Of course now some of those new homes are abandoned and being stripped.
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