foodcrisis #1 comic

8/10/2019 Foodcrisis #1 comic

1/15PROMOTIONAL COPY - FULL ISSUE TO BE RELEASED EARLY NOVEMBER!


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Copyright 2014 by Evan D. G. Fraser

All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in anymanner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for

the use of brief quotations in a book review or scholarly journal.

First Printing: 2014

ISBN

Evan D. G. Fraser

@feeding9billion

www.feedingninebillion.com

PROMOTIONAL COPY - FULL ISSUE TO BE RELEASED EARLY NOVEMBER!


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This document is a preview of Evan Frasers graphic novel webzine entitled#foodcrisis. The document begins with a preface that lists eleven things you

should know before reading the webzine. This is then followed by the first sevenpages of #foodcrisis giving you a sneak peak before its official release in earlyNovember! After the seven-page preview, Evan has written a background essaythat will give you further insights into what inspired this story... We hope you

enjoy what is contained herein, and please continue to visitwww.feedingninebillion.comto stay up to date on what is going on with the global

food system!



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Preface: Eleven things you need to know before reading this story

1. There is enough food for everyone to live a healthy life. In fact, the UnitedNations show there are about 2800 kcal per person per day available globally.

But the global food system is so inequitable that about 870 million people gohungry while there are about 1.5 billion who are overweight or obese.

2. The price of food is wildly volatile. In 2008, the UNs Food Price Index almostdoubled in less than a year before crashing in 2009. Prices then shot up again in2010 and 2011. Despite this volatility, our supply of food stayed stablethroughout this period. This suggests that the price of food is not determinedby our ability to produce food at a global level.

3. While some people believe that rising food prices cause riots, the links betweenprices and unrest are not obvious. Political problems, unemployment in urbanareas, corruption and perceptions of injustice all combine with food price risesto create the situation where people are willing to riot. Food price rises andhunger on their own are not enough to destabilize politics.

4. About 1/3 of the worlds food is wasted before it is consumed. In the developedworld, most of the waste happens in grocery stores or in refrigerators. Most ofthe waste in the developing world happens on farms due to inefficient storage

and processing facilities.

5. Not all food being grown on our planet is being used as food. About 40% of thecorn grown in the US is being turned into biofuels like ethanol. However,creating bioethanol only uses the sugar in the corn. This leaves a protein richbyproduct called Dried Distillers Grain that can be fed to livestock.

6. Since 2008, over 56 million hectares of land (the size of France) has beenpurchased in the Global South by international companies. Some believe that

this represents meaningful foreign direct investment in places like rural Africa.Others are worried that the companies are exploiting the Developing World.

7. A very small number of corporations control the vast majority of the worldsfood trade: Four companies produce over 55% of the worlds seeds; four othersare responsible for over 80% of beef processing; yet another four produce over60% of the agrochemicals farmers use.


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8. We all know that too much meat, dairy and junk food causes obesity anddiabetes. What we dont always appreciate is that one of the causes of this isUS governmental policy. Between 1995 and 2012 the US government paid US$84 billion in subsidies to corn farmers alone. This has resulted in massive

overproduction. Farmers feed this extra to livestock and this has driven downthe price of meat. Sugars from this excess corn are turned into high fructosecorn syrup and this has caused the price of junk food to drop too.

9. Agriculture is responsible for 75% of deforestation worldwide, and is thelargest contributor of non-CO2 greenhouse gas emissions.

10. Recently published scientific work suggests that climate change may reducecrop yields by 2% per decade over the next 100 years. The poorest regions of

the world are expected to be the worst hit. Whether these crop reductionshappen, however, depends a lot on if farmers have access to the tools they needto adapt.

11. Recent studies suggest that the farmers of this world will have to produceabout 70% more food by 2050 in order to meet global population growth. Butmany other commentators contradict this and point out that if we addressinequity and waste we may be able to feed 9 billion without big increases inproduction. This is one of the key unresolved debates about global food

security.



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Background Essay 1: The Coming Food Crisis

One of the major inspirations for this story comes from the food crisis of2008-2012 (this is referred to at the start of page 3 in the text box that opensthe scene). The trouble began in early 2008 when food prices shot up and aroundthe world angry crowds gathered, protesting an unfair food system that allow someto profit while others go hungry. Protestors raised French baguettes into the airas a symbol of their oppression and the government in Haiti fell. From SouthAmerica to Southeast Asia people died, cars were burned, marketplaces looted, andarmies were called in.

Then things calmed down, and 2009 saw steep declines in the price of food.Experts let out a sigh of relief and everyone assumed that things would go back tothe way they had been, with low food prices being the norm. But the problemsreturned in 2010 when Russia experienced a bad drought; within weeks, 25% of theharvest was ruined. The Russian government took action and stopped exportingwheat to the international market. This was supposed to keep Russians calm andensure that Russian grain fed Russian citizens. But panic spread onto worldmarkets and world prices soon exceeded the levels they had reached in 2008.



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While commoditybrokers and grainmerchants smiledall the way to the

bank, theseevents hit theMiddle Eastparticularly hardbecause countrieslike Tunisia andEgypt import hugeamounts ofRussian grain each

fall.

Very quickly,food price protests began and again the French Baguette was raised as aninternational symbol of resistance.

But this time the protests morphed into much more than simple upset overthe cost of food. The food price rises had energized an emerging grassrootsrevolution that quickly mobilized against deeply entrenched dictatorships that had

been in power for decades. The Arab Spring erupted onto the headlines in early2011. In country after country, political powers fell before the demands forreform and across Northern Africa and the Eastern Mediterranean politics anddaily life have been chaotic ever since.

The lessons from these years is that food prices, and conflicts over ourdaily bread, are capable of toppling governments and upending the social order.

But as dramatic as these events were, since 2011 there has been an uneasy

calm on international food markets. Food prices have dropped (a bit). Governmentsin Asia have established larger stockpiles of rice to help protect themselves andtheir consumers. Higher commodity prices have also justified farmers spendingmore on fertilizer and seeds. And notwithstanding the US drought in 2012 thathurt corn (maize) production, by and large the weather has cooperated with grainfarmers.

Taken together, events of the last few years have caused food expertslike me to scratch our heads and I have been involved in a noisy, sometimes



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acrimonious, debate over both what caused this crisis and (more importantly)whether or not the 2008-2011 food crisis was an isolated event or if it is the tipof the iceberg and a sign of things to come.

After all, over the last few decades the global human population has tripledand currently sits at about 7 billion souls. Most projections suggest that by 2050there will be 9 billion people on the planet who need to be fed, watered, andhoused. Does this soaring demand mean that well face worse instability in the nearfuture?

The situation seems bleak. Making matters even scarier is the growth inAsia's middle class, and in particular the fact that as Asians have becomewealthier they have also started to eat much more meat. Meat consumption is

important because producing 1 kg of meat takes many kilograms of grain, so risingmeat consumption increases our demand for food much faster than populationgrowth does alone. (Of course, this is also a problem in Europe and North America,but Asia is typically blamed because the population there is so much larger andpeople have only recently become wealthy enough to eat substantial amounts ofmeat and dairy.)

Worse still is the specter of climate change. In 2008, droughts in Australiareduced the amount of wheat produced, helping push prices higher. Similarly, 2007

was an El Nio year, and this hurt rice production in Asia. While some expertsdebate whether the drought in Australia was all that significant in 2008, mostscientists realize that climate change will likely grow as an issue confrontingfarmers in the future.

Altogether, some scientists argue that the farmers of this world will have toproduce 70% more food by 2050 and that rising demand and climate changerepresent a perfect storm of problems that threaten to unleash civil unrest andinternational conflict.

Stay Tuned For Updates!

@feeding9billion

www.feedingninebillion.com


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