Food. The biggest issue?

[SunnyJim]

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.

Corn +45.82%
Wheat +187.56%
Soybeans +89.41%
Soybean Meal: +67.99%

The only other major calorie provider to the world is rice. I have no idea how much that has gone up.

Conversion away from oil will reduce yeilds that are already struggling to feed everyone. The high prices (some due to 'investment money) will result in starving people and mountains of food no-one can afford. Back to the old food mountains again...

I suppose this is the 'market' in action.

[emordnilap]

The twin threats of climate change and scarcity of fossil fuel energy will overturn that 'green' (hah) revolution far faster than anyone is currently imagining.

Sadly, many people trumpet the benefits northern regions will accrue from a warmer planet (forgetting the chaos that will accompany it).

[SunnyJim]

I think while so much has been done to look at oil production and likely affects on various countries, more needs to be done on the food front.

Which areas are currently wealthy but rely heavily on food imports? The export land model is amplified by bio-fuels in America, with internal consumption rising fast.

How will the UK fare? I mean this is happening really really quickly. Much quicker than oil. A bad harvest next year and our imports might not be turning up....

[emordnilap]

I think while so much has been done to look at oil production and likely affects on various countries, more needs to be done on the food front.

Which areas are currently wealthy but rely heavily on food imports? The export land model is amplified by bio-fuels in America, with internal consumption rising fast.

How will the UK fare? I mean this is happening really really quickly. Much quicker than oil. A bad harvest next year and our imports might not be turning up....

The UK (and Ireland) are dire when it comes to self-sufficiency in food. Monocrops plus cheap foreign labour plus a host of other factors of course; in some respects these islands have a huge capacity for producing their own food but they're not doing it. They've lost the plot.

Next door in France they have kept their self-sufficiency and eat really well!

I agree, far more awareness is needed on the food front - the price of petrol is far more 'important'.

Never has 'buy local' been more necessary, yet more dismissed.

[stumuz]

I thought the UK was about 75% self sufficient in indigenous foods. Factor in the ?40 billion we throw away and the non urgent attitude to food, then we are probably more than self sufficient in food

[fifthcolumn]

See my posts about ammonia.

With this breakthrough, food costs in real terms now have a technological absolute price limit placed on them independent of peak oil.

[Aurora]

I thought the UK was about 75% self sufficient in indigenous foods. Factor in the ?40 billion we throw away and the non urgent attitude to food, then we are probably more than self sufficient in food

Theoretically correct, but try telling that to the hordes of people who will form queues when the current supermarket JIT policies start to unravel.

[SunnyJim]

See my posts about ammonia.

With this breakthrough, food costs in real terms now have a technological absolute price limit placed on them independent of peak oil.

What do you mean an absolute price limit placed on them?

This does indeed look like a very useful technology. I guess we need to have a bit of a read up about the inputs and the outputs of the system before we can decide if this is truly sustainable, but it certainly sounds hopeful.

[SunnyJim]

I thought the UK was about 75% self sufficient in indigenous foods. Factor in the ?40 billion we throw away and the non urgent attitude to food, then we are probably more than self sufficient in food

But who eats indigenous foods any more? The majority of air freighted food is made up of vegetables from Africa. Like they don't need them!

[fifthcolumn]

See my posts about ammonia.

With this breakthrough, food costs in real terms now have a technological absolute price limit placed on them independent of peak oil.

What do you mean an absolute price limit placed on them?

This does indeed look like a very useful technology. I guess we need to have a bit of a read up about the inputs and the outputs of the system before we can decide if this is truly sustainable, but it certainly sounds hopeful.

Jim,

Right now, most ammonia used for fertiliser is produced from natural gas to get the hydrogen and then combined with nitrogen from the air via the haber-bosch process.
This has two drawbacks: one is it dumps the waste C02 from the natural gas directly into the atmosphere and two it relies on the price of natural gas, which as we all know is going to the sky because of the excess of demand over supply, colloquially known as peak oil and peak gas.

This process cuts out the c02 AND the natural gas as it's input is clean energy from the wind turbines. It electrolyses a nearby water source to produce the hydrogen and vents the oxygen into the atmosphere instead of carbon dioxide in the natural gas derived process.

The reason it puts a ceiling on the price is that natural gas is taken out of the mix.
Wind is a stable renewable resource thus the costs are the up-front investment in the plant and wind turbines as well as the salaries and hourly wages of the maintenance crew.

Thus a ceiling. Costs of fertiliser produced from ammonia made this way CANNOT go any higher than the startup and maintenance costs.

This means that any such plants would be very cost effective compared to current processes depending on the price (and availability) of natural gas.

I'm so excited at this that I can hardly sit still.

[SunnyJim]

That's fantastic. However, there is only a celing on price if supply meets demand. Logically, in time it will but not for a long time. Also investors money may well distort markets, e.g. if fertiliser becomes a tradable commodity and the city folk pile in thinking its a safe haven.

Apparently one of the farmers in the village I live in was related to Haber of the Haber-Bosch process fame!

btw, I'm not convinced that using fertilizer on the land is a better thing to do than returning all spare organic matter. Maybe if we did both we'd see record crop yields?

[goslow]

But who eats indigenous foods any more? The majority of air freighted food is made up of vegetables from Africa. Like they don't need them!

Too right, especially at this time of year. Leeks and huge carrots are about all that's around right now if you eat fully seasonal. The UK has got used to globalised food and that will have to reverse.

[fifthcolumn]

btw, I'm not convinced that using fertilizer on the land is a better thing to do than returning all spare organic matter. Maybe if we did both we'd see record crop yields?

Well maybe not, it's possibly true that someone along the lines of no-till and seed-balls and permaculture and a lot of other things is a better way of doing it.

What I'm trying to do here, though, is convince myself (and others) that we don't face a sudden die-off necessarilly. We have choices.

I feel a lot better today than I did yesterday after reading about this.
I personally live in a city so I depend on big agriculture to meet most of my food needs even though I grow vegetables and fruit and what not so I think this is amazing news.

[emordnilap]

I thought the UK was about 75% self sufficient in indigenous foods. Factor in the ?40 billion we throw away and the non urgent attitude to food, then we are probably more than self sufficient in food

Aaah, we're not suffering from peak info, just peak memory. I was skimming through a piece recently and it was bemoaning how far the Brits were behind the French in food self-sufficiency and it gave some figures; maybe someone else here was reading the same piece and could quote those figures.

The amount of foreign-produced food in supermarkets in Ireland is worrying when you just know we could produce the stuff here.

It's probably a bit like Ballygowan going to France, passing ships loaded with Perrier going the other way.

[RogerCO]

The only other major calorie provider to the world is rice. I have no idea how much that has gone up.

This in the London Times on 13th March

Rice supplies set to fall to 25 year low which indicates that the price has risen by 40% since January and in some markets have gone up 10 fold over the past year.

Has anyone been tracking the end user UK cost of flour, rice and pasta on our supermarket shelves. I think that 1.5kg of strong wholemeal bread flour has gone up by about 20% since Christmas...