Severe World Famine Predicted in 20-30 Years

Julian Cribb discussed the limitations to the world food supply which could result in worldwide famine by mid-century. If we don’t reinvent agricultural science, we could see severe famines even within 20-30 years, he reported. Increased flooding and droughts will cause crop failures and this will drive up the price of grain and food.

With such famines, we’ll also see “tidal movements of refugees” looking for food, he said, and this could destabilize various countries. Water shortages are also going to be a huge problem, if we don’t start working on alternatives now, such as desalination plants.

Additional agriculture problems include the shrinking of viable farm lands, and the impending scarcity of important fertilizer ingredients such as phosphorous, he detailed. The food crisis can be solved with new efforts in science and technology, but right now the world spends 50 times more money on weapons and defense. “Food is vital to peace, if you don’t have enough of it, you have war, ” said Cribb.

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The Guardian reports that in 2007 approximately 40% of the world’s agricultural land is seriously degraded. If current trends of soil degradation continue in Africa, the continent might be able to feed just 25% of its population by 2025, according to UNU’s Ghana-based Institute for Natural Resources in Africa. As of late 2007, increased farming for use in biofuels, along with world oil prices at nearly $100 a barrel, has pushed up the price of grain used to feed poultry and dairy cows and other cattle, causing higher prices of wheat (up 58%), soybean (up 32%), and maize (up 11%) over the year. In 2007 Food riots have taken place in many countries across the world. An epidemic of stem rust, which is destructive to wheat and is caused by race Ug99, has in 2007 spread across Africa and into Asia.

Beginning in the 20th century, nitrogen fertilizers, new pesticides, desert farming, and other agricultural technologies began to be used to increase food production, in part to combat famine. Between 1950 and 1984, as the Green Revolution influenced agriculture, world grain production increased by 250%. Much of this gain is non-sustainable. Such agricultural technologies temporarily increased crop yields, but as early as 1995, there were signs that they may be contributing to the decline of arable land (e.g. persistence of pesticides leading to soil contamination and decline of area available for farming). This is often attributed to an association of inorganic fertilizers and pesticides with a lack of sustainability.Lake Chad in a 2001 satellite image, with the actual lake in blue. The lake has shrunk by 95% since the 1960s.

David Pimentel, professor of ecology and agriculture at Cornell University, and Mario Giampietro, senior researcher at the National Research Institute on Food and Nutrition (INRAN), place in their study Food, Land, Population and the U.S. Economy the maximum U.S. population for a sustainable economy at 200 million. The authors of this study believe that the mentioned agricultural crisis will only begin to impact us after 2020, and will not become critical until 2050. The oncoming peaking of global oil production, along with the peak of North American natural gas production will very likely precipitate this agricultural crisis much sooner than expected.

Geologist Dale Allen Pfeiffer claims that coming decades could see spiraling food prices without relief and massive starvation on a global level such as never experienced before. Water deficits, which are already spurring heavy grain imports in numerous smaller countries, may soon do the same in larger countries, such as China or India. The water tables are falling in scores of countries due to widespread overpumping using powerful diesel and electric pumps. Other countries affected include Pakistan, Iran, and Mexico. This will eventually lead to water scarcity and cutbacks in grain harvest. Even with the overpumping of its aquifers, China has developed a grain deficit, contributing to the upward pressure on grain prices.

After China and India, there is a second tier of smaller countries with large water deficits — Algeria, Egypt, Iran, Mexico, and Pakistan. Only Pakistan remains marginally self-sufficient. According to a UN climate report, the Himalayan glaciers that are the principal dry-season water sources of Asia’s biggest rivers – Ganges, Indus, Brahmaputra, Yangtze, Mekong, Salween and Yellow – could disappear by 2035 as temperatures rise and human demand rises. Approximately 2.4 billion people live in the drainage basin of the Himalayan rivers. India, China, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Nepal and Myanmar could experience floods followed by severe droughts in coming decades. In India alone, the Ganges provides water for drinking and farming for more than 500 million people