Mon, March 8, 2004 -- Winnipeg SunI have often been skeptical to print articles which propound a doomsday mentality. However, when I read the following statements by Les Brown of the Earth Policy Institute, I feel compelled to make an exception. His observations have always shown to be well-researched and level-headed.
I do not feel that we should use fear as a rallying cry to implement the orders of Srila Prabhupada. Y2K should have been enough proof of that. However, this is somewhat different. The events stimulating the article are persistent and perceivable around the world and do not rest merely upon the unknown quirks of a computer chip.
The impetus for developing rural communities must ultimately come from our yearnings to follow Srila Prabhupada's instructions that 50% of his mission is to establish rural-based settlements aimed at food self-sufficiency and Krsna conscious social development. Obviously, looking at the opinions presented in this article, our neglect of these instructions may prove short-sighted indeed. Certainly, we will eventually suffer at the hands of our own neglect. Editor.
Grain shortage looms?
China's shortfall equals Canada's total harvest
By CP
OTTAWA -- The world is on the verge of a grain shortage that will destabilize poor countries, drive up food prices and send financial markets reeling, says a leading U.S. environmental thinker. Lester Brown, founder of the Washington, D.C.-based Earth Policy Institute, predicts climate change and depletion of freshwater aquifers around the world will result in a global food crisis within two years.
"I've been saying for some years now that if the environmental trends of recent decades continue we'll eventually be in trouble," said Brown, interviewed during a visit to Ottawa.
Trouble on food front
"What was not clear was what form the trouble would first take, and when. I now think it's going to come on the food front and within the next two years."
Brown, author of numerous books, has been described by the Washington Post as "one of the world's most influential thinkers."
He says global grain production has been flat for the last eight years and has fallen short of demand for the last four years. China's grain production last year was 70 million tonnes below demand -- a shortfall equal to Canada's total grain harvest.
Chinese farmers are pumping too much water from underground aquifers, reducing the water available for irrigation, he said. Meanwhile, temperatures are rising due to the greenhouse effect, reducing crop yields.
By next year China will be forced to purchase massively from a global market where stocks are already at a 30-year low, causing prices to soar, Brown predicts. Grain is a key input in bread, meat and dairy products.
"At the international level, higher food prices ... could lead to political instability in a lot of low-income countries that import substantial amounts of grain," said Brown.
"That political instability could occur on a scale that would disrupt global economic progress. At that point we may realize that the environmental trends that we've been neglecting in recent decades are going to have to be addressed."
Brazil's agricultural production has been rising sharply in recent years, but Brown doubts that can be sustained.
He said the fastest-growing wheat markets in recent years have been North Africa and the Mideast, where countries are running up against the limit of water supplies. It takes 1,000 tonnes of water to produce a tonne of grain, he said. "To satisfy the growing needs of the cities, they take irrigation water from agriculture and then they import grain to offset that loss of production," Brown said.
"What's happening in fact is that the competition for water is beginning to take place in grain markets. Grain has become the currency with which countries balance their water budgets."
