Food
is twice as expensive today as it was 10
years ago.
The United Nations Food Price
Index indicates that grain in 2014 was twice as expensive as in 2002–04, according to the Earth Policy Institute.
Reviewing trends in grain
production, the Washington think tank observes that with grain providing much
of the calories that sustain humanity, the status of the world grain harvest is
a good indicator of the adequacy of the food supply.
The picture that it paints
gives pause for thought. Already since 2007, the world has experienced three
major grain price spikes, it says.
One reason is that global
grain consumption has exceeded production in eight of the last 14 years,
leading to a drawdown in reserves.
This was due primarily to
population growth. In recent years, however, the annual growth in grain use has
doubled largely because of the increasing use for fuel ethanol and livestock
and poultry feed.
In 2013, the United States
harvested more than 400 million tons of grain, of which a third or 129 million
tons went to ethanol distilleries.
More than 2 billion tons of
grain are produced each year worldwide, nearly half of it in just three
countries: China, the United States and India.
Corn, wheat and rice account
for most of the grain harvest. Rice and most wheat are consumed directly as
food; corn is largely for livestock and poultry feed, and for industrial
purposes.
Rising yields are the key to
expanding the grain harvest as there is little unused cropland, says the Earth
Policy Institute in a Grain Harvest Fact Sheet released in mid-August.
Since 1950, over 93 percent
of world grain harvest growth has come from raising yields, it says.
However, the global grain
area planted per person has shrunk from about 0.2 hectares in 1950 to 0.1
hectares in 2013.
At 10 tons per hectare, U.S.
corn yields are the highest of any major grain anywhere. In Iowa, some areas
harvest up to 13 tons per hectare.
Global average grain yields
more than tripled from 1.1 tons per hectare in 1950 to 3.5 tons per hectare in
2013. However, yield growth has slowed from 2.2 percent a year between 1950 and
1990 to 1.4 percent in the years since.
In France, Germany and the
United Kingdom, wheat yields have been flat for more than a decade. The story
is similar for rice in Japan and South Korea.
World fertilizer use climbed
from 14 million tons in 1950 to 181 million tons in 2013. But in many
countries, fertilizer use has reached diminishing returns.
Then there is climate change.
Rising global temperatures threaten the world’s major
food crops; the “rule of thumb” is that each 1 degree Celsius rise in temperature above
the growing season optimum can cut productivity by at least 10 percent. (SciPhil)
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