Sowing the Seeds of Self-Reliance for Forty Years
Big Picture Shows Global
Food Security Slipping
26 May, 1997
by Geri Guidetti
All contents copyright © 1997, Geri Guidetti. All rights reserved.
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A headline on the front page of yesterday’s Baltimore Sun reads, "North Koreans Endure a ‘Famine in Slow Motion.' " It is still months before a harvest in that country, and even a full harvest will be insufficient to feed its citizens this year into next. People are now eating seaweed, ground pine bark, leaves, corn cobs and bean pods, according to the article. So begins a day when many of us in the United States will struggle with temptations to overeat this Memorial Day holiday—those belly rolls are getting harder to hide—knowing full well that most of us will happily surrender to just one more... beer, hot dog, hamburger or juicy steak off the grill.
No, this isn’t some misguided attempt at inflicting guilt; it’s just one woman’s awareness that at every and any moment on this planet there exists a stark contrast between those who have and those who don’t, those who can eat and those who can’t. The reasons for the often heartbreaking disparity range from the complexities of power and politics to the "simplicities" of weather and water. The desperate situation in North Korea has roots in all four, yet weather extremes of recent years bear the biggest blame in the evolution of the current crisis. What’s more, similar food crises of multiple causes can happen anywhere, to any population, in any year.
Here in the United States, spring planting progressed rapidly over the past two weeks as abnormal spring weather settled down a bit. As reported in the last update, corn looks very good this year. That has not changed. By May 18th, 88 percent of the intended corn planting had been completed in the 17 major corn-producing states. The average for that date is 67 percent, so this is promising indeed. Keep in mind that the majority of this corn goes for animal feed both here and abroad, so this bodes well for the supply of meat.
Likewise, soybean planting had progressed to 46 percent complete, well above the average 26 percent by this date. Given current, historically low global soybean stocks , this is very hopeful news.
Winter wheat, some of which is currently being harvested in Texas and Georgia, was rated mostly fair to good. Fifty percent was in fair to very poor condition, 40 percent in good and 10 percent in excellent condition. Lack of rain in Colorado, Montana and Nebraska caused a decline in wheat condition there, and falling soil moisture in Kansas threatened continued wheat crop development. The hard freeze of April 11 - 13 caused considerable damage to winter wheat. Average yields are expected to be higher than last year’s drought devastated crop, but will not be up to normal levels. Hard red varieties usually make up 40 percent of the total U.S. wheat harvest. Soft red winter wheat actually harvested is forecast down 10 percent. This type of wheat usually makes up 18 percent of the total U.S. crop. White winter wheat production in Oregon, Washington and Idaho is forecast down 14 percent from 1996 and harvested area down 6 percent. White winter normally makes up 11 percent of the U.S. crop.
Spring wheat planting is still lagging seriously. As of May 18, only 59 percent of the intended crop had been planted. The average planted by this date is 70 percent, but that is only part of the story. Only 24 percent of the planted wheat had emerged, while 44 percent is the average emerged by this date. Bottom line, we only have 54 percent of our usual spring wheat crop up and growing as of May 18th. The Red River - flooded fields of the Northern Plains must dry out enough to plant spring wheat by the first week or two of June, or it will be too late to plant to ensure enough time to ripen before the fall freeze. By June 30th we should have data on how much made it into the ground.
Interestingly, in assessing this data, the Department of Agriculture states:
"Total U.S. wheat production is forecast at 2.26 billion bushels in 1997, down just 1 percent from 1996 and down 3 percent from the 5-year average of 2.33 billion. ...With higher beginning stocks and steady year-over-year imports, the U.S. wheat supply in 1997/98 is forecast to rise 2.5 percent to 2.82 billion bushels, marking the first increase in 4 years." Note the reliance on imports to supplement our supplies.
They go on to say:
"Demand is projected to be fairly strong, with domestic food use and exports expected to rise almost 2 percent. A moderately tight world wheat market, with relatively strong world trade, is expected to push U.S. exports to 1 billion bushels, up from a projected 985 million in 1996/97. However, domestic feed and residual use is expected to decline 20 percent to 250 million bushels as an expected larger corn crop will likely weigh on corn prices this summer, making wheat feeding less attractive.....Prices are expected to be supported this season by the relatively tight world situation." The one billion bushels they are projecting we will export is a full 44.3 percent of the total forecast U.S. wheat crop. We expect to import to maintain stocks.
And how do we fit into the global food security picture? The Worldwatch Institute, a research organization which monitors global human ecology issues including food supply, released the following analysis this spring:
When the grain harvest began in 1996, world carryover stocks had dropped to 51 days of consumption, the lowest level on record. (Obviously, if we lost just one season’s harvest due to any natural or man made global calamity, 51 days worth of grain would not go far.)
Despite exceptionally favorable weather and a record 1996 harvest of 1.84 billion tons, depleted carryover gain stocks were rebuilt in 1997 by only 4 day’s worth of consumption. This 55 days of consumption was the second lowest on record, slightly less than in 1973...
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. To reduce price volatility and restore some semblance of stability to grain markets, the world needs carryover stocks of 70 days of consumption...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...
The experience of 1997 indicates how difficult it now is to rebuild world grain stocks at current world population levels. Over most of the last half-century, this was a relatively simple matter of returning idled cropland to production. But unfortunately all of the land set aside...in the United States was in production in 1996, leaving only a modest amount of set-aside land in Europe.
Water scarcity is also emerging as a major constraint on efforts to expand world food production. Water tables are falling in the major food-producing regions including the southern Great Plains of the United States, the Punjab of India and much of central and northern China.
Aquifer depletion in already leading to irrigation cutbacks in the southern Great Plains. The resultant shrinkage in irrigated area in Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, and Colorado is slowing growth in grain harvest. For example, Texas—one of the largest U.S. agricultural states—has lost 14 percent of its irrigated area since 1980.
In scores of arid and semi-arid regions of the world, cities are now pulling water away from farmers....In the southwestern U.S., sunbelt cities like Denver, Phoenix, Tucson, Los Angeles, San Diego and Las Vegas expand their water consumption at the expense of farmers....At least one noted water expert, David Seckler, director of the International Irrigation Management Institute in Sri Lanka, went on record in the spring of 1996 saying that he thinks the world irrigated area may now be shrinking.
In many parts of the world, farmers are faced with a diminishing response of grain yield to the use of additional fertilizer. Once the use of fertilizer rises to the point where a wheat, rice or corn plant is getting all the nutrients needed to realize its full genetic potential, the application of additional nutrients has no effect on yield.
One consequence of little or no growth in irrigation worldwide and the diminishing response to the use of additional fertilizer is a slower rise in land productivity....After rising at 2.1 percent a year annually from 1950 to 1990, land productivity during the nineties appears to have dropped to roughly 1 percent a year.
As the growth in production slows, the growth in demand is accelerating. While public attention focuses on the role of population growth in boosting the demand for grain, rising affluence has become an even stronger source of additional demand for grain in some rapidly expanding economies...The rise in demand for meat, driven largely by rising affluence, is so strong that even the doubling of corn prices in 1996 was not sufficient to halt the growth in world consumption. Much of the rise in affluence is occurring in Asia, led by China....Much of this additional income has gone to diversify diets, enabling China’s 1.2 billion people to move up the food chain—eating more pork, poultry, eggs, and beef, and drinking more beer—all of which require grain.
The causes of widespread famine such as that occurring now in North Korea are often the result of several years of either drought or floods—natural disasters. Political alliance with or alienation from states not currently affected by these natural phenomena will usually determine who survives and who doesn’t. Most of the free world is dragging its feet on feeding North Korea for fear food will go to its million plus military in lieu of its starving children. It is a tough call. Yet, the next natural famine could easily be in the free world, perhaps the continent of North America. Remember the Dust Bowl? Who will feed America and Canada when much of the world looks to us to feed them?
Our nearly complete and growing dependence on production, distribution and, yes, political systems for basic human sustenance—for every bite we eat, every drop we drink—is just not smart. This week, for example, Congress adjourned for the holiday without passing the emergency moneys promised for weeks to the people in the Dakotas and Minnesota whose homes, farms and businesses were destroyed by the 500-year floods of the Red River. All funding bills have failed passage because of unrelated attachments placed on them in order to meet some other pet political agendas. Many of these strong people are without their homes, jobs, running water or the ability to buy food on their own. They are unaccustomed to dependence on institutions, charities, their government for their sustenance, for roofs over their heads-- yet they need help and fast. What would happen if we had this disaster concurrent with a big quake in California or an Andrew-size hurricane in Florida? Because population density is so much greater today than it was when natural disasters struck a hundred years or more ago, many, many more people would suffer greatly.
The more self-sufficient, the more self-reliant, the more prepared we are to provide the essentials of our own survival, the better we will weather the inevitable economic, natural or manmade disruptions and calamities that lie ahead of us all sooner or later. Personal food security is a great place to start....Geri Guidetti, The Ark Institute
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Food and Grain Supply Updates may be reprinted without permission IF no revisions are made and copyright and signature files remain intact.
All contents copyright © 1997, Geri Guidetti. All rights reserved.
Revised: 26 May 97
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