Posted on 08/30/2003 4:01:46 PM PDT by blam
Hot summer sparks global food crisis
By Geoffrey Lean, Environment Editor
31 August 2003
This summer's heatwave has drastically cut harvests across Europe, plunging the world into an unprecedented food crisis, startling new official figures show.
Separate calculations by two leading institutions monitoring the global harvest show that the scorching weather has severely reduced European grain production, ensuring that the world will not produce enough to feed itself for the fourth year in succession, and plunging stocks to the lowest level on record. And experts predict that the damage to crops will be found to be even greater when the full cost of the heat is known.
They say that, as a result, food prices will rise worldwide, and hunger will increase in the world's poorest countries. And they warn that this is just a foretaste of what will happen as global warming takes hold.
Sunshine and warmth are, of course, good for plants and there were hopes that this year's good summer would produce a bumper harvest. But excessive heat and low rainfall damage crops, and the heatwave - which brought temperatures of more than 100F to Britain for the first time, and gave France 11 consecutive days above 95F, killing more than 1,000 people - has done enormous damage.
The US Department of Agriculture has cut its forecast for this year's grain harvest by 32 million tons, mainly because of the European crop reductions. On Thursday, the International Grains Council - an intergovernmental body - reduced its own prediction even further, by 36 million tons, as a result of "heat and drought, particularly in Europe."
The damage has been most severe in Eastern Europe, which is now bringing in its worst wheat crop in three decades: in Ukraine, the harvest has been cut from 21 million tons last year to five million, while Romania has its worst crop on record. Germany is the worst-hit EU country: some farmers in the south-east have lost half their grain harvest. Official British figures will not be published until October.
The final tally of the summer's damage is likely to be worse still. Lester Brown, the president of Washington's authoritative Earth Policy Institute, predicts that it will cut another 20 million tons off the world harvest, making this a catastrophic year.
It has come at a time when world food supplies were already at their most precarious ever. The world has eaten more grain than it has produced every year so far this century, driving stocks well below the safety margin to their lowest levels in the 40 years that records have been kept. The amount of grain produced for each person on earth is now less than at any time in more than three decades.
Until about a month ago, this year had been expected to produce a reasonable harvest, allowing some recovery. But the heatwave has now ensured that it will make things even worse, and experts say that the crisis will deepen as global warming increases.
Grain prices have already increased, and Mr Brown warns that in coming years they may move to a permanently higher level. This would encourage greater production, he says, but at the expense of the world's hungry, who could then afford even less food, and of the environment, as farming intensified.
Interesting bit of news there.. I wonder why we haven't seen any food riots?
Let me know if you wish to be added or removed from this list.
I'd include the Ukraine, too. They are a huge producer of wheat and other crops and the Ukraine could really stick it to Europe by holding back wheat sales. :-)
Remember, this century is not quite three years old.
What a stupid statement since the century is only 2 years old.
Interesting bit of news there.. I wonder why we haven't seen any food riots?
You haven't parsed the sentence klintonially. "This century" is the 21st century, which is four year old. "This century" sounds a lot more scary than "the last four years".
Of course, even that statement is true, it meant the disaster started on the klintons' watch, but they didn't mention that.
"I'd include the Ukraine, too."
My very first thought on reading the article was "I wonder how much the extended growing season will help more northerly grain-producing nations".
How come this is not affecting the prices to the US farmers? Something doesn't compute here.
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