Bridges Trade BioRes • Volume 4 • Number 9 • 14th May 2004
Earth Policy Institute Warns of World Food Shortage
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According to Lester Brown, President of the Earth Policy Institute, a global food crisis is set to raise world food prices, as grain stocks are depleting to their lowest levels in 30 years. Environmental changes, such as expanding deserts, falling water tables and high temperatures, are affecting harvests in key producing countries, he noted at a 5 May briefing. “A rise in food prices is the first global economic indicator to reflect our neglect of environmental issues,” he warned. He added that a harvest shortfall on the scale projected “almost guarantees the emergence of a politics of food scarcity in 2005 of the sort that occurred in the early 1970s”. At that time, the US responded to a rise in food prices by restricting exports and using food for political leverage, negatively affecting food-importing countries such as Ethiopia and Bangladesh. Brown estimated that farmers needed to produce 120 million more tons of grain than last year to accommodate the current and projected population growth in 2004. While noting that genetically modified crops might provide modest increases in food production, Brown believes that the longer-term solution is a worldwide effort to reduce population, together with expanding water production and reduction of carbon emissions.
“Environmental neglect threatens food crisis, expert warns,” UN WIRE, 5 May 2004.
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