Yes, food is expensive, but according to experts who track world food supplies, fuel prices, fertilizer supplies and some very grim predictions for world grain production, “We ain’t seen nothing yet.”
Much of the reduction of world grain production had been predicted because of some very wild swings in our climate. There have been an ever-increasing number of extended dry-heat spells from Canada’s mid-west to China who is the world’s largest wheat producer. This year China predicts a 15 per cent reduction in wheat production.
We have also seen devastating floods in . . .
B.C., Manitoba and India which delayed or will delay planting crops which will result in lower yields. Some people swear that there is no climate change, but there are millions who would disagree. World scientists have agreed that the entire world must address, slow and reverse climate change as quickly as possible to avert a premature end to the world as we know it.
Scientists tell farmers that we must “lead the charge” in reducing climate change by changing the way we farm. Just as a world food shortage is predicted, farmers are advised to reduce the use of chemical fertilizer, chemical weed killers and pesticides.
Farmers have become used to relying on chemicals to grow crops and get rid of weeds and bugs and increase yields. Some of those miniature bacteria and bugs that are killed by sprays and residues from sprays are necessary to the health of our soil, where as many as a million miniature animals like rhizobia in each teaspoon of topsoil breakdown organic matter and minerals into a natural fertilizer that plants can use to grow. Some of those minute bacteria are necessary to maintain a healthy lining in the gut of farm animals and humans.
Although scientists in universities are working hard to teach farmers how to grow crops like our grandfathers did, only better, this great swing from a dependance on chemicals to farming with less harmful products will take a few years and we will see a reduction in crop yields as farmers reeducate.
Meanwhile as fuel, fertilizer and other crop inputs increase in price many farmers are switching to crops that are less costly to plant. This also leads to a greater shortage of grain. Then Russia decided to take over Ukraine which led to bombing of some of Ukraine’s biggest grain storages, blockading seaports where Ukraine shipped out its grain to countries who couldn’t feed themselves, even in good years. Ukraine’s farmers cannot even plant many of their fields this year because they are littered with unexploded bombs, burned out tanks and other remnants of war.
It’s true that there were some large surpluses of grain in the world, but those surpluses are stored in grain silos of rich nations and are not for sale even though people are starving in the world’s poorest countries.
It’s true that some animals consume grain in the process of growing fat but ruminants like cows, sheep and goats use pasture and forages (all of which humans cannot digest) for a large portion of their diet. A healthy crop rotation of a combination of grain, hay, and pasture will give the most economical production of grain with the least use of chemical fertilizer.
People in under developed countries spend 40 per cent of their total income on food while people who live in a more affluent society use as little as six and a half percent of their wages on food. We often forget that clean air, safe drinkable water and safe nutritious food are most important to our survival. Something that we will hear more about in the years to come is the nutritional density of food that we buy and eat has been overlooked for many years.
It has been calculated by those much smarter than me, that one third of the food grown in the world never gets into the mouths of people who need it.
