The world food crisis

Well we all know there's a crisis. For a start we have increasing prices: the World Bank says food prices generally have risen 83% over last 3 years It's particularly bad for some staple foods: in the space of one year, the cost of corn has risen by 31%, rice by 74%, soya by 87% and wheat by 130%!

There have been food riots in at least 40 countries this year.

Soaring food prices hit poorer people and poorer countries hardest, since they spend a much higher proportion of their income on food. In developed countries such as the UK, the average consumer spends 10% or less of income on food, but the poorest fifth of the population spends 25-30% of income on food. In developing countries, poor people may spend 50-80% of income on food, so price rises quickly translate into going hungry.

And people are dying. Every year, some 3.5 million children lose their lives as a direct result of lack of food.

Don't forget that chronic malnutrition is a feature of life in many poor countries and 1bn people world wide live on less than $1 a day - imagine spending 80% of that on food.

Why is it happening?

A number of reasons have been given for this crisis, with different economists emphasizing different factors:

• rising demands in countries with growing populations and rising incomes. For instance, people in emerging economies such as China and India are able to buy more meat, eggs and dairy produce
• the use of food crops for the production of biofuel. 30% of the US corn crop is expected to be diverted to biofuel this year;
• low food stockpiles and hoarding in fear of further price increases. The FAO reckons that world grain stockpiles were reduced by 50m tones in 2007
• protectionism - some countries are banning exports
• speculation aided by volatile exchange rates which are causing enormous price fluctuations
• a lack of long-term agricultural investment
• low farm productivity
• the use of unsustainable farming practices
• some poor harvests
• high oil prices mean that transport and fertilizer costs have pushed up the cost of food production dramatically in the last year: Fertiliser is up more than 70%, fuel for tractors and farm machinery is up 30%. Pesticides, which depend on oil, are up too, as are labour costs;

Food and Climate Change

The current crisis isn't directly down to climate change although erratic weather/climate chaos has definitely played its part with droughts in some areas, floods and cyclones in others. Probably the low level of global food stocks is down to extreme weather conditions.

But food is definitely a climate related issue and all the talk of food provides a good opportunity to look at how crazy food production methods are threatening us all.

Farming's contribution to global warming

Two facts to consider:

1. Growing crops, raising livestock and clearing forest to create farmland account for early a third of global greenhouse gas emissions,
2. Farmed animals produce more greenhouse gas emissions (18%) than the world's entire transport system.(13.5%)

Livestock production: Some facts to make you think:

• There are more than 20 billion livestock animals on Earth - more than three times the number of people.
• 30% of the world's grain goes to feed livestock
• To produce 1 kg of beef, it takes 10 kg of plant protein and 100,000 litres of water.(Council for Agricultural Science Technology)
• One third of the world's cultivatable land is used to grow cereal and soya for livestock. 7% is used for actual grazing (FOE)
• 1 acre of land produces 113 kg of meat - or 4535 kg of green beans, 13,607 kg of carrots or 22,679kg of tomatoes.
• The world's cattle consume a quantity of food equal to the calorific needs of 8.7 billion people - more than the entire human population on Earth.
• Over 70% of the food grains produced in the US are consumed by cows and pigs for the production of meat.
• 7 billion livestock animals in the US consume 5 times more grain than the amount directly consumed by the American population.
• Farming one acre of decent land can produce 138lbs of protein from grain, but one acre given over to beef farming will produce only 20lbs of protein;
• Cows also soak up vast amounts of water: it takes a staggering 990 litres of water to produce one litre of milk.

To find out more: http://www.foe.co.uk/resource/briefings/hoofprints.pdf

Compassion in World Farming http://www.ciwf.org.uk/

Other reasons why food production impacts on the climate

1   Transporting food around the world - due to the increasing globalization of food production.

According to a Government  report in 2006, UK food transport now accounts for 16m tonnes of CO₂ but this is particularly difficult area to be accurate about. FOE tells us that

• Food transport accounts for one quarter of all heavy-goods vehicle miles in the UK
• Around one in ten car journeys is for food shopping .
• Even though most of us could walk to the shops to buy basics like bread and milk, many of us don't.
• The food miles ‘wasted' on unnecessary car journeys are thought to be the equivalent of over half a million transatlantic flights a year 
• The average number of miles that our food travels has doubled in 30 years
• Air freight is the fastest growing mode of food transport - it accounts for 11 per cent of the food industry's transport emissions despite only carrying 1 per cent of the food and making up just 0.1 per cent of the food miles

Why are food miles increasing?

First, food and feed is being imported and exported all over the world much more than ever before.

1. The fact that fewer, larger companies are supplying is also contributing to the problem.
2. Changes in retail are also responsible. The rise of the supermarkets means that more food has to go through regional distribution centres, mainly travelling by heavy-goods vehicle.
3. We have also changed our shopping patterns. We have gone from making frequent trips on foot to local shops to weekly car trips to out-of-town supermarkets, topped up by further car trips for essentials like bread and milk throughout the week.

For more information: http://www.foe.co.uk/resource/briefings/food_climate_change.pdf

One crazy thing is the way we export and import the same things. According to the New Economics Foundation, in 2006:

• From all trading partners in total, the UK imported 14,000 tonnes of chocolate covered waffles, and exported 15,000 tonnes.
• We both imported from and exported to Italy, 600 tonnes of, 'gums and other jelly confectionary'.
• We sent 21 tonnes of mineral water all the way to Australia and brought 20 tonnes all the way back.
• The large, two-way traffic of beer between Spain and the UK is also almost identical in amount

To read the full report http://www.neweconomics.org/gen/news_ecologicaldebtday06102007.aspx

Caroline Lucas MEP has also written on this. See

Food refrigeration is estimated to account for up to 3.5 per cent of the UK's greenhouse gas emissions. Our increased consumption of meat and dairy, plus processed foods and chilled drinks has increased refrigeration needs.

3.  Reheating Some processed food such as ready-meals are also particularly damaging because they have to be cooked and cooled more than once

4. Packaging  Each year an estimated 6.3 million tonnes of packaging comes into British homes, at a cost of £450 to the average family, says the Government-funded Waste & Resources Action Programme (WRAP). That's what we're paying for all those unwanted wrappings and containers we have to dispose of. Food isn't the only culprit, but one-sixth of the average household food budget goes on packaging and it makes up a third of our household waste.

5. Waste

A third of the food we buy in the UK gets thrown away. This means £10b worth of food is thrown away every year in Britain.

UK households spend an average of £420 a year on food they throw away!

Land for landfill space is feared to run out within 10 years

You can find out more abut this on http://www.lovefoodhatewaste.com/

6. Water

It can take 100,000 litres of water to make a single kilo of beef, 3,500 for a kilo of chicken, 1910 for a kilo of rice. These products can cause a massive problem in areas where water supplies are limited. And a recent report has shown that each Briton uses 4,645 litres a day, when the water embedded in the production process is counted in. Lots of this comes from countries with serious shortages of water.

See http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/aug/20/water.food1 

7. Deforestation

Huge farms and plantations owned by agribusiness companies are growing at the expense of biodiversity and forest cover. We've all heard about soya in the Amazon basin and palm oil plantations in the disappearing forests of Indonesia. Deforestation produces 5.9 billion tonnes of CO2 per year or 18 per cent of global CO2

8  Use of pesticides and fertilisers

Around half of the CO₂ produced by farming comes from producing (and transporting) fertilisers (especially nitrate fertilisers). In any case there are lots of concerns about the use of pesticides - see the Pesticide Action network UK: http://www.pan-uk.org/

Three key problems

1.  The role of agribusiness.

" Big business is killing small farming. By extending intellectual property rights over every aspect of production, and by developing plants that either won't breed true or don't reproduce at all, big business ensures that only those with access to capital can cultivate. As it captures both the wholesale and retail markets, it seeks to reduce its transaction costs by engaging only with major sellers. If you think that supermarkets are giving farmers in the UK a hard time, you should see what they are doing to growers in the poor world. As developing countries sweep away street markets and hawkers' stalls and replace them with superstores and glossy malls, the most productive farmers lose their customers and are forced to sell up. The rich nations support this process by demanding access for their companies. Their agricultural subsidies still help their own large farmers to compete unfairly with the small producers of the poor world" George Monbiot. Guardian June 10 2008

2.  Food insecurity. "Many countries are vulnerable to food shortages because of a dependence on imports. The UK, for example, currently relies on imports to provide almost one third of food consumed, giving us one of the lowest self-sufficiency rates in the EU". Caroline Lucas MEP 2008

3. Unfair trading arrangements

Poor countries are particularly vulnerable. They have been pushed into producing food for export and into dependence on imported foods. They are still being pushed into opening markets and into trade liberalization under so called Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs)

Rich countries dump their agricultural surpluses (usually grown with huge subsidies to farmers and processing companies) and this undermines local production.

World trade rules prohibit most poor countries from subsidising their farmers even though the rich ones still do so.

Small farmers can't compete and millions of families are forced to move to cities. More than half the world's population now lives in cities.

Small farmers around the world are impoverished. Small farms in the UK are closing and farmers worldwide are selling their farms. There have been record levels of suicide among Indian farmers.

Poverty means that farmers can't afford seeds or the costs of fertilisers. Many are in poor health, which undermines productivity.

To read more about these global issues

The Sustainable Development Commission Report: Green, Healthy and Fair focuses on the role of government in enabling supermarkets to deliver a sustainable food system in the UK.Christian Aid Food crisis Report

To download

Food Matters - a report for the Cabinet Office on food policy

To download 

Christian Aid's Food Crisis Report

To download

Oxfam Food crisis report:

To download

International Assessment of Agricultural Knowledge, Science and Technology for Development (IAASTD) (This is an important report for international agricultural policy)

FOE report on the food crisis:

To download

What you can do

  ◊  Change the balance of what you eat. Generally, eating lower down in the food chain has less climate impacts i.e. more plant-based wholefoods like cereals and vegetables and less meat and dairy.

◊  Accept more variability in the appearance of your food. Imperfectly round tomatoes can still taste perfect!

◊  Check where your food has come from and what costs have been involved.

◊  Shop local!y.  Local shops tend to be within walking distance, reducing car travel and helps local food producers survive. You should get fresher food which has wasted less energy in transportation and cold storage.

◊  Seek out seasonal produce.

◊  Watch out for too many ingredients in processed food like ready meals, sauces etc. Buy fresh produce as much as possible.

◊  Try and reduce food waste - if you're not going to be able to eat a whole bag of apples, just buy a few.

◊  Buy food with less packaging

◊  Put pressure on local supermarkets to stock local and organic products and to pay farmers (at home and abroad) a fair price.

◊  Buy organic whenever possible. You will be saving the resources and energy used in the production, packaging and transport of pesticides and fertilizers which are used in conventional farming methods. Organic food also tastes better and offers more health benefits.

◊  Grow your own

◊  Choose Fairtrade because it offers a fair price to poor farmers, builds community projects, helps small farmers stay in business, use more organic methods and diversify.

◊  Fight unfair trade rules which are forcing poor countries into food dependency..

◊  Find out more about the way your food is grown and processed

◊  Get involved with campaigns for better food, fair trade rules and animal welfare

Some useful websites:

On Waste  http://www.lovefoodhatewaste.com/

The End of Development a report from the New Economics Foundation which attacks current policies to tackle climate change http://www.neweconomics.org/gen/uploads/e_o_d.pdf

On food and climate change:

http://www.foe.co.uk/resource/briefings/food_climate_change.pdf

The Soil Association

http://www.soilassociation.org/

Greenpeace on Food Security

http://www.greenpeace.to/publications/food-security-and-climate-change.pdf

On Slow Food including linking food production to biodiversity conservation and strengthening local markets

http://www.slowfood.org.uk/

On food issues generally - Sustain, the alliance for better food and farming  http://www.sustainweb.org/index.php

On vegetarianism and animal welfare http://www.viva.org.uk/

To find the dates of local farmers' markets http://www.farmersmarkets.net/

Permaculture magazine has lots of ideas about where to get organic supplies, growing your, living sustainably... http://www.permaculture.co.uk/main2.html

On unfair trade http://www.wdm.org.uk/campaigns/trade/index.htm

On City farms and communal gardening

The federation of city farms & community Gardens http://www.farmgarden.org.uk/

Greenspace http://www.green-space.org.uk/

Britian in Bloom www.rhs.org.uk/britaininbloom

The Food Up front Network http://www.foodupfront.org/

Useful Books

Stuffed and Starved Raj Patel Portobello 2007

http://stuffedandstarved.org/drupal/frontpage

Eat Your Heart Out Felicity Lawrence Penguin 2008

The Rough Guide to Ethical Living Duncan Clark 2006