PowerSwitch

Increasingly vulnerable “chokepoints� are threatening the security of the global food supply, according to a new report. It identifies 14 critical locations, including the Suez canal, Black Sea ports and Brazil’s road network, almost all of which are already hit by frequent disruptions.

With climate change bringing more incidents of extreme weather, analysts at the Chatham House thinktank warn that the risk of a major disruption is growing but that little is being done to tackle the problem. Food supply interruptions in the past have caused huge spikes in prices which can spark major conflicts.

The chokepoints identified are locations through which exceptional amounts of the global food trade pass. More than half of the globe’s staple crop exports – wheat, maize, rice and soybean – have to travel along inland routes to a small number of key ports in the US, Brazil and the Black Sea. On top of this, more than half of these crops – and more than half of fertilisers – transit through at least one of the maritime chokepoints identified.

Trade chokepoints – maritime, coastal and inland – pose an underexplored and growing risk to global food security.

Maritime chokepoints will become increasingly integral to meeting global food supply as population growth, shifting dietary preferences, bioenergy expansion and slowing improvements in crop yields drive up demand for imported grain.

Rising trade volumes, increasing dependence on imports among food-deficit countries, underinvestment, weak governance, climate change and emerging disruptive hazards together make chokepoint disruptions – both small-scale and large-scale – increasingly likely.

Climate change will have a compounding effect on chokepoint risk, increasing the probability of both isolated and multiple concurrent weather-induced disturbances.

Investment in infrastructure lags demand growth: critical networks in major crop-producing regions are weak and ageing, and extra capacity is urgently needed.

clv101 wrote:But the EU produces more than enough.

woodburner wrote:Please tell us how?

Little John wrote:We farmed the arse off this country between 1939 and 1945. Our population was just over half what it is now. And we came close to running out of food.

We now have nearly twice the population. Our lands have been farmed to death and can only sustain present yields on the back of the annual application of hydrocarbon based fertilisers which we must import along with much of the other energy inputs including, not least, diesel for farm machinery.

If international supply chains were to be suddenly cut today, we would be starving in a month. If they were to be cut slowly, we would be starving in a year.

woodburner wrote:For clv101's perception of sheep pasture being monoculture green desert, are you really telling us that you cannot understand that this is a minimum damage food generator? The fuel input is mostly solar power, and the meat is sought by customers in Europe as it is good quality, while they sell the UK their rubbish because no self respecting Frenchman would est it by choice. Agreed it may not be high output, but the problem is not insufficient output but an excessive human population.