Ill-Conceived Schemes Contribute to Higher Global Food Prices
In December 2010, the U.N.’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) published a policy brief warning that “extreme price volatility in global agricultural markets” could compromise world food security. Less than six months later, violence erupted in much of the Middle East, caused in large part by rising food prices.
The so-called Arab Spring was preceded by natural disasters – floods in the Midwest, wildfires in Russia, heavy rains in Canada, dry weather in Argentina, and plant diseases in the Middle East – that decimated crops. The FAO’s global food price index had its highest increase over the previous 40 years in 2011.
“When crops fail and prices rise, people don’t have the money to purchase food, which can lead to stealing, then riots, social unrest, and mass migrations,” intelligence official Torreon Creekmore told Trajectory, the official publication of the U.S. Geospatial Intelligence Foundation. Creekmore is a program manager with the U.S. Office of the Director of National Intelligence’s Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity, which looks at countries’ vulnerabilities.
Throughout history, high prices and shortages of food have helped foment many of the world’s conflicts.
Once again, Mother Nature is wreaking havoc on global agriculture, but this time she’s being aided by man-made conditions, including supply chain disruptions, a war in Ukraine, worldwide inflation at levels not seen since the 1980s, and extremist activists’ schemes against modern, science-based agricultural production techniques. In the Netherlands, Dutch farmers face severe emissions restrictions, and in Sri Lanka, the government’s 2021 ban on fertilizer saw crop yields fall and food prices rise dramatically. The resulting riots ousted the president. Now, Canada is considering a similar ban.
In the United States, the pork industry faces multiple manufactured hurdles to meeting the demand for pork.
Elitists in California and Massachusetts, for example, won approval of, respectively, Proposition 12 and Question 3, which effectively set nationwide unscientific and costly sow housing standards. Producers soon may be contending with rules related to buying and selling livestock, restricting technologies such as gene editing, and prohibiting the use of certain animal health products.
These pressures are coming as the FAO estimates that 50% to 70% more food must be produced to feed a world population expected to reach 9.7 billion by 2050 – it’s 7.9 billion now – and at a time when more technology, not less, is needed.
Today’s farmers rely on technology to at least battle the elements to a draw – they can’t defeat them – and to provide the masses with a standard of living that only the royalty of 300 years ago enjoyed. But they can’t do much to fight the folly of man.
And while today’s elitists can afford to pay a higher percentage of disposable income on food, the average consumer in the United States and around the world cannot.
Ordinary people in history often have faced the prospects of unaffordable or no food, and their response to the upper crust’s “let-them-eat-cake” attitude sometimes has resulted in a little revolution now and then. One leader even lost her head!
Read more:
Don’t Miss the Bright Spots in the U.S. Pork Industry Benchmarking Data
What are the Greatest Threats Facing Pig Farmers? Leaders Speak Out
