If you eat, you’re involved in agriculture
Bread has long been thought to be the “The Staff of Life” . And wheat, the most important ingredient.
Humans have, by definition, need for food, water, shelter and security in order to survive and thrive. How we go about attaining those requires a myriad of factors that vary globally. For example, populations in huge urban metroplexes are much further removed from food sources than those living in rural areas. The human “food chain” is a web interlinking rural producers and unban consumers. Both are dependent upon the other without ever having experienced the limitations and experience's to which the other sectors must adapt.
Water is often the limiting factor in food production. Drought is most feared where irrigation is not possible.
The most severe regions affected this summer in North America (above) are clearly identified. Several 2023 production forecasts have been downgraded: wheat growing areas from Mexico, through Texas, to Kansas and the Canadian Prairies. Major corn production is at risk in the US Midwest (e.g., Iowa, Illinois). Forests absorb CO2 and contribute enormously to the health of natural watersheds. So far in 2023 Canada has experienced the worst fire season in its history. Much is due to an Abnormally Dry zone from the west coast (British Columbia) to the east coast (Quebec and the maritime provinces in Canada). Soil moisture deficiencies have been at the root of most of the extremely large and destructive fires this spring and summer.
The World’s Leading Land-based Foods
With the exception of sugar cane, in our western north latitude cities, it is likely that all of the plant and animal products shown below are available at your local market. More significantly, most consumers have become accustomed to year-round access to foods such as banana, many citrus and berry crops. There was a time when we only expected foods in the store during their normal season of growth.
These following data are available at the AgWeb.
“ Cow milk is the top agricultural product in 37 countries, while wheat is the top agricultural product in 14 countries.
Corn is the most produced crop globally with 1.1 billion tons, followed by wheat with 760.9 million tons and rice with 756.7 million tons.
Largest Producer by Commodity
- Apples: China
- Bananas: India
- Barley: Russia
- Beef: U.S.
- Chicken: U.S.
- Corn: U.S.
- Cow Milk: U.S.
- Eggs: China
- Green Beans: China
- Oats: Canada
- Pork: China
- Potatoes: China
- Rice: China
- Sugar Beets: Russia
- Sugar Cane: Brazil
- Tomatoes: China
- Wheat: China “
Eight Billion Mouths to Feed
Many of us have learned to assume that most of the food insecurity and poor nutrition is only among the so-called developing nations. Much of the northern hemisphere, the so-called western democracies, have a growing underclass that is increasingly feeling large impacts from food inflation and marginal incomes. Locally, our city’s food banks are stretched. Even with the sadness we can see everyday in our modern societies, there are huge gaps in the production system to provide all with adequate diets.
The World Food Programme works in 79 countries. Between 2020 and 2023 the number of people facing food scarcity doubled. Much due to COVID-19, migration, shortages of fertilizers and the dynamic impacts of rapidly changing climates having negative effects upon regional weather, in turn, impacting the production of sufficient food. Quoting: “The scale of the current global hunger and malnutrition crisis is enormous. WFP estimates — from 79 of the countries where it works (and where data is available) — that more than 345 million people face high levels of food insecurity in 2023. That is more than double the number in 2020. This constitutes a staggering rise of 200 million people compared to pre-COVID-19 pandemic levels.”
Here’s a quick comparison: the current estimate of the total US population is 340+ million. Imagine that entire nation without sufficient food.
There is enough food produced today to feed every person on Earth. There are many head-winds to accomplishing that. Supply chains have been disrupted badly since the beginning of COVID-19 in early 2020, though many are getting repaired. More current, and persistently perennial, are the refusals of many countries to cooperate and look beyond their borders, and some additional confounding due to extreme weather events.
Quoting Corinna Hawkes the Director of the FAO Division of Food Systems and Food Safety: “Some of the major challenges include the way food is grown and produced is contributing to climate change, which in turn weakens the agrifood system…One thing we have done is to take too much diversity out of the system which includes everything from what is on our plates all the way back to the farm. So, we need to bring that diversity back. Over the last decades there has been a specialization in producing certain key commodity crops. This was a great idea from the perspective of productivity and efficiency; it cheapens food, it means you can trade the food, and it reduces the cost of production. It is important we produce these crops efficiently. But what we have seen is that reducing diversity too much reduces the resilience of the system. And we have seen with recent conflicts how reliance on certain key producers further weakens resilience. Diversity is also good for biodiversity and the environment, as well as nutritionally for consumers.”
The take home message from the above is — — alternatives build in resilience and continuity. Don’t put all our eggs into one basket!
Food as a Weapon
July 27–28 marked the second the Russia-Africa summit in St. Petersburg.
- “The second Russia-Africa summit in St Petersburg on July 27 and 28 was predictably overshadowed by the war in Ukraine — and especially Russia’s refusal to agree an extension of the Black Sea grain deal, which expired earlier in the month. “Unsurprisingly, Putin also devoted considerable time in his speech to trying to justify Russia’s pull-out from the Black Sea grain deal… In its stead, he offered to replace Ukrainian grain shipments with Russian ones. This came in the form of a promise “to provide, free of charge, a supply of 25,000–50,000 tonnes of grain each to Burkina Faso, Zimbabwe, Mali, Somalia, the Central African Republic and Eritrea.”
The weaponization of food is not new but it has achieved special significance since the invasion of Ukraine by Russia in February 2022. Exporting grain (mainly wheat) through the Black Sea (largely controlled by Russia and Turkey) is the traditional route to Africa and the mid-East countries. Ukraine had been the world’s 8th largest producer:
- China — 134,254,710
- India — 107,590,000
- Russia — 85,896,326
- United States — 49,690,680
- Canada — 35,183,000
- France — 30,144,110
- Pakistan — 25,247,511
- Ukraine — 24,912,350
- Germany — 22,172,100
- Turkey — 20,500,000
Impacts of Climate Change upon Food Production
Though we’ve seen changes accelerating over the past several decades the past 18–24 months have now been recorded as having some of the highest temperatures and natural disasters in decades, or on record. The extremes have been mind-boggling: wild fires, hurricanes, tornadoes, floods, persistent drought, and heat, both terrestrial and oceanic.
Financial assistance to struggling economies hit hard by weather events and climate change are often dependent upon the World Bank. Here is its food security update, July 2023: https://www.worldbank.org/en/topic/agriculture/brief/food-security-update . What needs, and should be happening, is for multinational corporations begin, or increase, aid to support those many populations that have made them profitable.
Agriculture Canada has identified many climate(weather) related impacts upon crop production at our higher latitudes: ‘Increased temperatures, longer growing seasons, shifting precipitation patterns and an increase in the frequency and intensity of extreme events from climate change will bring challenges to Canada’s agricultural sector. In most of Canada, springs will be wetter, summers will be hotter and drier, and winters will be wetter and milder. “
Thank you for your time. I have learned new information and I hope that you did, too.
Zack Florence, Victoria, BC, Canada
