Perilous Times
Demand for food is severely costing the Earth
The fight is on over how to solve the global crisis in resources, says
Rose Prince.
Published: 8:00AM BST 28 Aug 2010
Bean and gone: coffee and other food prices are escalating as
agriculture is squeezed in the fight over commodities and land
Hardly a morning passes without food making the headlines. This week
has brought us the burger that thinks it’s a pizza and news that eating
asparagus helps you stay slim (fingers crossed it’s the type covered in
melted butter). And we heard that, if you eat pickled squid guts and
single cream together, it tastes like strawberry shortcake.
However, this month has also seen news reports on escalating wheat and
coffee prices due to bad weather and poor harvests. Then on August 19
came the headline “Australian mining giant launches hostile $40 billion
takeover bid for world’s largest potash supplier”. It is not
immediately apparent what we’re talking about here, but this is City
champagne bar speak for “world runs out of food”. This really is news
about food that consumers should be fearful of.
The takeover sprung upon Potash Corp of Saskatchewan, Canada, by BHP
Billiton of Melbourne, Australia, is a seismic shift in the future of
food. Demand for potash, a mineral salt that is mined and used as crop
fertiliser, has risen because the world needs to produce more food to
feed an increasing population, and there is limited land for
cultivation. Added to this is the rising wealth of highly populated
countries in Asia, with a growing appetite for meat. If you want to
produce a lot of meat, you need a lot of grain – 7kg for every 1kg of
beef – and the broad view is that to achieve this, you need large
quantities of NPK – or fertiliser that combines nitrogen with
potassium, the latter found in potash.
There is a finite quantity of naturally occurring potash, or potassium
carbonate, in the Earth’s crust. You can manufacture it by burning down
forests of broad leaf trees – let’s not go there. Digging it out of the
ground is the agri-business-preferred option. Meanwhile, to produce the
nitrogen for fertiliser you need to burn an awful lot of – er – crude
oil. Yep, the world is going to look like a perforated airflow golf
ball by the time we’ve finished with it.
Every government needs to pay attention to what is happening. This is
the opportunity for a debate about what is the right way forward and it
may well be that if, at this juncture, we choose the wrong food policy,
there will be no going back.
The two colleges of thought - chemical farming and organic - both
possess many unknowns. Choice one is to allow corporate control of the
supply and let agri-business go ahead with a fully developed
bio-technical revolution. Choice two is to restore fertility to the
globe with an ecological plan that promises a revolution in our
approach to utilising and recycling waste. Food policy experts are
divided, with some saying squeamishness over controversial technology
has to stop, or we risk not being able to feed ourselves.
Séan Rickard, a senior lecturer in business economics at Cranfield
School of Management, and former chief economist at the National
Farmers Union says the challenge is to double food production on the
land we already farm. “Due to the rising cost of energy, the reduction
of water and climate change, we need to use more fertiliser, but the
price of fertiliser will rise and be affordable only to wealthy
countries.
“I think we are on the cusp of another agricultural revolution,” he
says. “We support farmers when we should support technology.” He
believes that we have to let feared bogeymen such as GM into Europe, in
order to realise the global potential. “We need to give science a
chance to make fertiliser more effective and increase yields,” he adds.
At present, the promises of the biotech firms to grow famine-resistant
crops still seem a long way off, with nearly 100 per cent of GM crops
being simply herbicide- resistant – they still need water and
fertiliser to grow. But Rickard likens the situation to the IT
revolution of the 1980s. “When it began, we had no idea how it would
develop – and it will be the same with biotechnology.”
Tim Lang, professor of food policy at City University, London,
disagrees with the “hi-tech” argument but agrees that soil fertility is
today’s key food issue .“The potash story is very significant,” he
says. “This is an attempt at a commodity grab. The price of potash will
rise and, with it, the price of food. Right now agriculture is like a
junkie, hooked on things like potash and oil. If the challenge is about
future soil fertility and human health, we can develop a system based
on nutrient recycling.
“Humans need to become part of the cycle, literally, using recycled
sewage to restore fertility to the land. At the moment we drain it out
to sea – it could be used to increase yield and health of crops.”
Lang fears that the activities of BHP signify an attempt to control the
food supply. I have similar fears about biotech firms. It is not that I
believe eating a genetically modified salmon will result in a turnip
growing out of the top of my head, but I dislike the idea that one
organisation will own the world’s soya seed supply. Finding the answer
to feeding the world is becoming a battle for control. If Ian Fleming
could pick up his pen now, the villain Blofeld would be taking a great
interest both in potash and bio-technology.
The population of Britain would have faced starvation in the 18th
century, had farms not been consolidated into enclosures. Today’s
government must look very carefully at the implication of the BHP
takeover bid. Food prices have risen after decades of low inflation.
Wealthier countries seem disinclined to adopt a more balanced, mainly
vegetarian diet. In highly populated, fast-developing China, sudden
unaffordability of food could cause a biblical catastrophe.
This week we discovered for certain that we are already running out.
Choosing what to do about it must be part of a democratic process. From
now on, scrutiny of government food policy is as essential as using a
knife, fork or pair of chopsticks, when it comes to putting food in
mouths.