Sowing the Seeds of Self-Reliance for Forty Years
A New Season,
New Hope and Sobering Realities
12 April, 1997
by Geri Guidetti
All contents copyright © 1997, Geri Guidetti. All rights reserved.
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Here we go again! Another spring filled with the faith of farmers worldwide that this will be a good year--better than last, even--and so they plant and many pray. The latter is a good idea given Nature’s recent penchant for "surprising" us all with her (his?) moods and madness. Can you believe the incredible flooding and freezing, the battles to save people, animals, homes--to survive--in the Dakotas and Minnesota? Not to mention that their farm land is under 3 or more feet of water, still frozen by single digit temperatures in April! Plant wheat and corn in May? Not THIS May. When the Red River and water from 17 blizzards finally recedes, it will take weeks of warm weather for the fields to dry. For many farmers, this year is already a wash--quite literally.
Let’s pray this is an anomaly while we’re at it. The Agriculture Department released its crop projections for this season yesterday, and we will be needing to have a good season. The following data were just released:
For Wheat: "Projected U.S. 1996/97 ending stocks are down 14 million bushels from last month as larger exports more than offset reduced food and seed use and expanding imports. Projected imports are up 10 million bushels because of a recent surge in imports from Canada....Projected 1996/97 global supply, use, and trade are up from last month, but ending stocks are down....Larger exports are forecast for Canada, Australia and the United states. These three countries also account for most of the reduction in global ending stocks from last month."
For Corn: "Projected U.S. 1996/97 ending stocks of corn are down 50 million bushels from last month as higher domestic use more than offsets reduced exports... Projected ending stocks of the other feed grains are also down from last month, largely because of increases in projected domestic use."
For Rice: "U.S. rice imports for 1996/97 are raised to a record 10.5 million hundredweight based on the strong pace of imports through January, particularly from Thailand and Vietnam... World rice supply, consumption, and ending stocks ..are projected higher than a month ago, due primarily to an increase in China’s rice crop."
For Soybeans: "Prospective U.S. soybean ending stocks are reduced this month to 125 million bushels, the lowest since 1976/77 and the lowest relative to disappearance since 1972/73."
Livestock, Poultry, and Dairy: "The U.S. meat production forecast is down slightly from last month as a reduction in poultry output more than offsets a higher pork forecast....broiler production is trailing anticipated levels and the hatchery flock is not expanding as rapidly as expected. The broiler production forecast for 1997 is reduced by 250 million pounds."
Keeping in mind that this is a global food marketplace, let’s look at the bigger food picture. The last really good year the world had for grain harvests was the 1994/95 season. The following year, 1995/96 was a bad one. We’ll compare the ending stocks (total supply minus the total used--what we have left to eat until this season’s crops come in) of 1994/95 with projected 1996/97 for April:
Crop Ending Stocks 94/95 Ending Stocks 96/97
(projected) (in million metric tons)
World Wheat 119.51 108.34
World Coarse Grains 135.53 110.10
World Rice 49.29 51.29
World Total Grains 304.33 269.73
World Oilseeds 27.14 19.23
World Oilmeals 6.34 5.60
U.S. Wheat 13.79 12.53
U.S. Coarse Grains 45.34 27.32
U.S. Rice 1.05 0.79
U.S. Total Grains 60.18 40.63
U.S. Oilseeds 10.27 4.60
U.S. Oilmeals 0.26 0.24
Coarse grains include corn, sorghum, barley oats, rye, millet and mixed grains. Total grains include wheat, coarse grains and milled rice. Seeds such as soybeans that are crushed to yield both soy oil and meal for animal feed.
One last set of interesting numbers:
U.S. Wheat Supply and Use 1994/95 1996/97 Projections
Area planted to wheat 70.3 75.6
(million acres)
Area harvested 61.8 62.9
Yield per harvested
acre 37.6 36.3
*Beginning Stocks 568 376
*Ending Stocks 507 460
There are enough numbers to see some definite trends:
*Ending stocks continue to go down despite more land planted to these crops.
*Despite more acreage of wheat planted, less is expected to make it to harvest this year.
*Yield per acre has declined.
According to Worldwatch Institute President, Lester R. Brown, "When the grain harvest began in 1996, world carryover stocks had dropped to 246 million tons or 51 days of world consumption, the lowest level on record... the inability to rebuild depleted stocks to a more secure level from the 1996 harvest has left the world living close to the edge at least through the 1997 harvest... The combination of slower growth in production in recent years, along with a strong growth in demand, has led to a dramatic reduction of world grain stocks and commodity set-aside land since 1990. The experience of 1996 indicates that rebuilding stocks as we approach the new millennium will not be easy..."
Undersecretary of State, Timothy Wirth, recently told the Associated Press that the Green Revolution that dramatically increased yields through fertilizers, pesticides, etc. 30 years ago had leveled off and was dying. The State Department official said it was "absolutely imperative" that nations cooperate to create similar breakthroughs. According to the AP report, Wirth said that, worldwide "the problem is getting worse as the world’s population is growing by about nearly a hundred million people per year." (His figure is off. Latest estimates place it a bit less than 1.7 million new mouths to feed/week or 88.4 million/year.)
But creating another Green Revolution will be very difficult. Though the tools of molecular biology and biotechnology have the potential to create more productive plants with greater disease resistance, they still have to be grown on good land that is becoming more scarce and with water that is diminishing rapidly. Yields are leveling off or diminishing and no amount of additional fertilizer makes any difference. They have reached their biological, their genetic limits on lands that are declining in quality.
The weather in the United States this spring is downright frightening from at least an agricultural point of view. A spokesperson for the State of Minnesota just released a statement saying that 2 million acres of prime farmland are now under water. Crop losses may be as high as $1 billion. That’s just Minnesota. The Dakotas have been especially hard-hit.. There have just been two killer freezes in the Northeastern United States – temperatures as low as 19 degrees the day after high 70s and low 80s. Needless to say, all of the fruit trees were in full bloom. Most of the peaches have been wiped out in our area and apples in many areas north of us. There are hard freeze and/or snow warnings up tonight, April 12th, for Arkansas, Wisconsin, Michigan, Missouri, parts of Texas, Oklahoma and Iowa. Not good. International weather is equally unusual. Impacts are not yet fully realized.
This is a good year to begin that food garden as food will be expensive. It may even be in lower supply than we’re used to, than we’ve come to take for granted. Then begin to plan for the longer term....Geri Guidetti, The Ark Institute
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Email for information: arkinstitute@aol.com
This article may be reprinted IF my copyright and Sig. File are reprinted intact.
All contents copyright © 1997, Geri Guidetti. All rights reserved.
Revised: 2 Apr 97
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