Food. The biggest issue?

SunnyJim · Post by **SunnyJim** » 13 Mar 2008, 09:20

I know we all sit and gasp at the latest WTI crude prices as it breaks records, but have we got our eye on the wrong commodity???

Wheat has risen 187% in the last year, compared with a measly 88% rise in crude prices!!!!!

Wheat has gone up 15% in the last week compared with oils modest 4%.

Isn't the food issue quickly becoming more important that the oil issue? I know that they are closely related, but I now feel that actually food shortages are more likely than fuel shortages. It's not rioting over petrol we've seen in the hardest hit places, but rioting over cooking oil.

Food I think is probably going to be the big issue that people notice, and it will all be blamed on the rising demand from china and india, where the real reasons are far more complex and involve biofuel demand, soil errosion, disease, polution of land (via pesticides), dependency on fertilizer, inability to return nutrients to the land (humanure and composting), monocrop growths, lack of bio-diversity, GM crop causing long term disease in soils, rising population, increasing costs forced by oil prices, and of course investors leaping on the commodities band wagon.

I suppose this will lead to the population reduction that is inevitable given that we're running out of our black gold inheritance. - Sad but true. We're going to see an awful lot of starvation over the next decades.

Andy Hunt · Post by **Andy Hunt** » 13 Mar 2008, 09:25

You might be right Jim - once half the world has starved to death, there will be plenty of oil to go around.

We're all saved . . . not.

Neily at the peak · Post by **Neily at the peak** » 13 Mar 2008, 09:34

Food is the biggest issue as far as I am concerned, I have felt this since day 1 that I discovered peak Oil in February 2005. However last year I started to come to the conclusion that the end of growth is the secondary huge issue that governments have not even begun to get their heads around. The fact that we will no longer be able to get from a to b cheaply is kind of irrelevant in the face of food, heating and job issues.

Neil

Norfolk In Chance · Post by **Norfolk In Chance** » 13 Mar 2008, 09:39

Before reading The Party's Over and learning about PO I read a book called 'Not On The Label' by Felicity Lawrence....All about food miles, top- soil degradation, cheap (almost slave) labour etc... Upon reading just the forward of the Party's Over the penny dropped straight away as I realised the energy inputs of what lay on my plate.

Food is definitely the major looming crisis...whilst grains have been rising at such alarming rates prices for meats has been falling as farmers dump stock which has been too expensive to raise. However meat prices (Live Cattle, Lean Hogs etc) now seem to be finding support and I wouldn't be surprised if the professional traders pile into these as the next commodity to take to new all time highs.

Post by **clv101** » 13 Mar 2008, 09:45

Food is critical for many reasons. I find it surprising that otherwise intelligent, clued up people think ~9bn will be fed in ~40 years time. Desirable, certainly when the alternative is billions of people dieing a premature death but it?s unlikely in my opinion.

Having said that - many people in the past, including my great grandfather have said similar things and been totally wrong.

SunnyJim · Post by **SunnyJim** » 13 Mar 2008, 09:49

I know there's been alot of discussion about food on the oil drum, with some saying technology will save us, and some saying localisation and people power will save us, but they always seem simplistic to me. Food growing (as anyone who has tried it) is incredibly complex and difficult. There are many factors that you must rely on that are not necessarily in your hands. e.g. pest populations, weather, rainfall, soil quality and so on. Yields also depend on prices, demand, seed stocks, fertiliser stocks, distribution, economies, and food trends and tastes. It would seem to me that it is a far more complex market than the oil market.

Agriculture is so messed up right now that it will take a huge change in attitude to turn it round to cope with the changes we face.

It works against nature in most circumstances. We create the right conditions for growth by destruction. We plough and harrow the land to create a tilth, we kill all diseases with pesticides, we provide food for our plants with oil. All of these are only possible by the use of heavy machinery and oil.

Possibly the worst crime is that we throw food waste into landfills. I know we're getting better and there are food waste recycling schemes, but I think it only scratches the surface.

Worse still we flush our shit and piss into the sea. We need to return these valuable nutrients to the land.

GM is making things worse not better. It is not guided by ethics, it is guided by money. It is not making disease resitant crops, but simply making crops resistant to pesticides so that more pesticides can be sold. These pesticides are causing long term damage to soil and rendering land unusable.

We really need to sort this out. I think I'm off to join the soil association.....

RenewableCandy · Post by **RenewableCandy** » 13 Mar 2008, 10:37

Yes I have to admit that PO didn't worry me overmuch until I 'got' the food connection (which added a certain piquancy to Chrismas Dinner 2005...) and I've read Not On The Label and it's just excellent.

emordnilap · Post by **emordnilap** » 13 Mar 2008, 10:38

The majority of the population will think the price of food is going up; they fail to realise that it's simply heading back to normal, that they've been a part of a hugely privileged one-off never-to-be-repeated generation.

Post by **clv101** » 13 Mar 2008, 10:42

emordnilap wrote:...they fail to realise that it's simply heading back to normal...

"Normal" is little comfort if you are currently a marginal consumer of food, such that price increase = less food.

emordnilap · Post by **emordnilap** » 13 Mar 2008, 10:45

clv101 wrote:
emordnilap wrote:...they fail to realise that it's simply heading back to normal...
"Normal" is little comfort if you are currently a marginal consumer of food, such that price increase = less food.

But where were these 'marginal' consumers when food was a more realistic price, ie before this 'green' revolution?

Essentially, what I'm saying is, we have to get back to the situation - we'll be forced back - where food consumed a far higher percentage of our income.

Post by **adam2** » 13 Mar 2008, 10:49

I agree that food is even more important than oil, some of us could survive without oil, but no one can live without food.

The prices of food and oil are closely linked, rising demand for bio-fuels will tend to increase food prices since most (not all) bio-fuels are grown on land previosly used for food production.

The rapidly rising oil price is of course increasing the costs of running farm machinery and of producing agro-chemicals.
We may see tractors replaced by horses or oxen, this though reducing reliance on oil, will reduce food production since such animals require considerable fodder.

Not all foodstuffs have gone up as much as wheat, though AFAIK all major crops have gone up by more than inflation.

Post by **clv101** » 13 Mar 2008, 10:52

emordnilap wrote:
clv101 wrote:
emordnilap wrote:...they fail to realise that it's simply heading back to normal...
"Normal" is little comfort if you are currently a marginal consumer of food, such that price increase = less food.
But where were these 'marginal' consumers when food was a more realistic price, ie before this 'green' revolution?

Essentially, what I'm saying is, we have to get back to the situation - we'll be forced back - where food consumed a far higher percentage of our income.

Where were they before the green revolution? They hadn't be born!

I agree we'll be forced to pay a higher percentage of our income on food, I've got no problem with that - but many people, tens of millions, spend most of their income on food. They simply can't pay more.

emordnilap · Post by **emordnilap** » 13 Mar 2008, 10:57

Where were they before the green revolution? They hadn't be born!

Exactly.

The debt incurred by getting food so cheaply will be paid for in lives.

Keela · Post by **Keela** » 13 Mar 2008, 10:59

emordnilap wrote:But where were these 'marginal' consumers when food was a more realistic price, ie before this 'green' revolution?

They weren't born yet.

In biology, food supply is one of the biggest limiting factors for population size. So when food supply increases population increases to match (provided other factors allow it). In the case of humans the green revolution coupled with improved health care has caused a massive rise in human population numbers.

Previously 'marginal' individuals died during famines (or wars over resources, space or whatever) and so left fewer offspring.

In animal populations there are always those whose survival is doubtful - take eagles they have two eaglets a year in the hope that there will be sufficient food to feed both, but the second one is always the 'marginal' individual as it only gets what the first doesn't eat. In times of hardship only one survives to leave the nest.

In recent generations there has been an increase in the survival rate of 'marginal' humans. Therefore in the current crisis there will be even more individuals whose survival is in doubt.

Our biggest mistake was our inability to realise that the increase in food productivity that we enjoy today was not going to continue indefinately. Only China seems to understand the necessity to control population size.

Keela · Post by **Keela** » 13 Mar 2008, 11:01

emordnilap wrote:
Where were they before the green revolution? They hadn't be born!
Exactly.

The debt incurred by getting food so cheaply will be paid for in lives.

Yup!

This thread moves quickly... several posts while I was writing mine!