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September 17,
2003-8
Copyright © 2003 Earth Policy Institute
WORLD FACING FOURTH CONSECUTIVE GRAIN
HARVEST SHORTFALL
Wheat and Rice Prices Moving Up
Lester R. Brown
This year's world grain harvest is
falling short of consumption by 93 million tons, dropping world
grain stocks to the lowest level in 30 years. As rising temperatures
and falling water tables hamstring farmers' efforts to expand production,
prices of wheat and rice are turning upward.
For the first time, the grain harvest has fallen short of consumption
four years in a row. In 2000, the shortfall was a modest 16 million
tons; in 2001 it was 27 million tons; and in 2002 a record-smashing
96 million tons. In its September 11 crop report, the U.S. Department
of Agriculture (USDA) reported that this year's shrunken harvest
of only 1,818 million tons is falling short of estimated consumption
of 1,911 million tons by a near-record 93 million tons. (See .)
Agricultural leaders are now looking to next year's crop with fingers
crossed. If 2004 brings another large shortfall comparable to this
year or last year, there could be chaos in world grain markets by
this time next year as more than 100 grain-importing countries scramble
for scarce exportable supplies.
Higher temperatures are thwarting farmers' efforts to expand food
production. The earth's average temperature has been rising since
the late 1970s, with the three warmest years on record coming in
the last five years. As temperatures continue to rise, crop yields
start to fall.
Last year India and the United States suffered sharp harvest reductions
because of record temperatures and drought. This year Europe bore
the brunt of higher temperatures. Record heat in late summer scorched
harvests from the United Kingdom and France in the west through
Ukraine in the east. Bread prices are rising in several countries
in the region.
After several years of seeing crops withered by heat, scientists
are now beginning to focus on the precise effect of temperature
on crop yields. New research from crop ecologists at the International
Rice Research Institute and the USDA's Agriculture Research Service
shows an emerging consensus that a 1-degree Celsius rise in temperature
(1.8 degrees Fahrenheit) above the optimum during the growing season
leads to a 10-percent decline in grain yields.
How much will the earth's temperature rise? The Intergovernmental
Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)—with
some 1,500 of the world's leading climate scientists—is
projecting a rise of 1.4-5.8 degrees Celsius (2.5-10.4 degrees Fahrenheit)
during this century if carbon emissions continue to increase. Farmers
on the land now are facing the prospect of higher temperatures than
those faced by any generation of farmers since agriculture began.
Although the IPCC projections are presented as global averages,
the rise in temperature will be geographically uneven. Temperature
rise is projected to be much greater over land than over the sea,
in higher latitudes than in equatorial regions, and in the interior
of continents than in coastal regions. The higher latitudes and
continental interiors where the projected temperature rise is to
be greatest neatly defines the North American breadbasket—the
wheat-growing Great Plains of the United States and Canada and the
U.S. Corn Belt.
This generation of farmers is also the first to face widespread
aquifer depletion due in part to the use of powerful diesel and
electric pumps that have become widely available only in the last
few decades. Prospects for the big three grain producers—China,
India, and the United States, which account for nearly half of the
world's grain harvest—show
the potential consequences of future water shortages.
Under the North China Plain, which produces half of China's wheat
and a third of its corn, water tables are falling up to 3 meters
per year. A World Bank assessment of China's water situation says,
"Anecdotal evidence suggests that deep wells [drilled] around Beijing
now have to reach 1,000 meters [more than half a mile] to tap fresh
water, adding dramatically to the cost of supply." In unusually
strong language for a Bank report, it foresees "catastrophic consequences
for future generations" unless water use and supply can quickly
be brought back into balance.
In India, water tables are falling throughout most of the country.
As a result, thousands of wells are going dry each year. The USDA
reports that water tables have dropped by more than 100 feet (30
meters) in parts of Texas, Oklahoma, and Kansas. Water supplies
are even tighter in California.
Overpumping for irrigation is a way of satisfying the growing demand
for food today that almost guarantees a future drop in food production
when the aquifer is depleted. For a few countries, the day of reckoning
with aquifer depletion is already here. For many others it is drawing
near.
Over the last four years the world's farmers have fallen further
and further behind the growth in grain demand. We must now at least
ask the question: Are the positive influences on production, such
as advances in technology and investment in land improvement, largely
being offset by negative influences, such as soil erosion, aquifer
depletion, and rising temperature?
Since there has not been any growth in world grain production in
eight years, the answer to that question may be yes. If so, we will
need to move quickly to stabilize population, raise water productivity,
and stabilize climate. If future grain shortages lead to dramatic
price rises, they could destabilize governments in low-income grain-importing
countries, disrupting global economic progress. Food security could
quickly become the overriding security issue.
With most of the nearly 3 billion people who are due to be added
to world population by 2050 coming in countries where wells are
already going dry, there is an urgent need to stabilize population
size as soon as possible. Some 34 countries have already stabilized
their population. It is time for the remaining 150 countries to
do so.
With water shortages spreading, we need a concerted global effort
to raise water productivity, one patterned on the highly successful
effort to raise land productivity that was launched a half century
ago and that has nearly tripled world grain yields since then.
With rising temperature now shrinking harvests, we need to get serious
about stabilizing climate, going far beyond the global goal set
in the Kyoto Protocol of a 5-percent cut in carbon emissions by
2012. Reducing fossil fuel use is the key to stabilizing climate.
It is perhaps a commentary on the complexity of our time that decisions
made in ministries of energy may have a greater effect on food security
than those made in ministries of agriculture.
Future food security may depend not only on stabilizing population,
raising water productivity, and stabilizing climate, but on doing
all these things at wartime speed. A detailed plan to do this is
presented in the new book Plan
B: Rescuing a Planet Under Stress and a Civilization in Trouble.
Copyright
© 2003 Earth Policy Institute
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FOR ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
From Earth Policy Institute
Lester R. Brown, Plan
B: Rescuing a Planet Under Stress and a Civilization in Trouble
(New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2003).
Lester R. Brown, Janet Larsen, and Bernie Fischlowitz-Roberts,
The
Earth Policy Reader (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2002).
Lester R. Brown, Eco-Economy:
Building an Economy for the Earth (New York: W.W. Norton
& Company, 2001).
Lester R. Brown, "Record Temperatures Shrinking
World Grain Harvest," Eco-Economy
Update, 27 August 2003.
Lester R. Brown, "World Creating Food Bubble Economy
Based on the Unsustainable Use of Water," Eco-Economy
Update, 13 March 2003.
Lester R. Brown, "Rising Temperatures and Falling
Water Tables Raising Food Prices," Eco-Economy
Update, 21 August 2002.
From Other Sources
Sandra Postel, Pillar of Sand (New York: W.W. Norton
& Company, Worldwatch Institute, 1999).
U.S. Department of Agriculture, World
Agricultural Supply and Demand Estimates, 11 September 2003.
World Bank, China: Agenda for Water Sector Strategy
for North China (Washington, DC: April 2001).
LINKS
AQUASTAT, global information system of water and
agriculture from the Land and Water Development Division of the
U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization http:/www.fao.org/ag/agl/aglw/
aquastat/main/index.stm
Goddard Institute for Space Studies, Surface Temperature
Analysis
http:/www.giss.nasa.gov
/data/update/gistemp
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
http:/www.ipcc.ch
International Rice Research Institute
http:/www.irri.org
International Water Management Institute
http:/www.iwmi.cgiar.org/
United States Department of Agriculture (USDA)
http:/www.usda.gov
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