Varied Menus for Sustaining a Well-Fed WorldVaried Menus for Sustaining a Well-Fed WorldBy By ANDREW C. REVKINANDREW C. REVKIN

JANUARY 10, 2011 5:06PM 65

On many issues relevant to charting a smooth humanjourney in this century, arguments are often framedbetween camps seeking to promote and spread“sustainable” behaviors and those pushing to advanceand/or disseminate “better” technologies. In such polarizeddiscussions, it’s hard to find acknowledgment that avariegated world heading toward roughly 9 billion peopleby 2050 will almost assuredly require “all of the above.”

Still, there is plenty of room for agreement, and potentiallyprogress.

Exchanges here this morning between Vaclav Smil andLester Brown on food security revealed utterly divergentforecasts and preferences, but agreement on oneuncomfortable reality — that substantial technologicaladvances, along with shifts in appetites in prosperoussocieties, will be needed to fit human appetites on a finite,thriving planet.

On the production end, finding agreement on what thescience writer Paul Voosen recently described as “a unifiedtheory of farming” is unlikely. But finding ways to breakdown either-or thinking and foster traditional agriculturalmethods or advanced technologies where they fit best isclearly feasible.

On the consumption end, the challenges of moderatingappetites may be greater.

As promised, here are more reactions to this same queryfrom a wide range of other analysts and practitionersfocused on food:

Nina Fedoroff, a life sciences professor at PennsylvaniaState University and visiting professor at King AbdullahUniversity of Science and Technology in Saudi Arabia:

I don’t have a crystal ball, Andy, but myconsidered assessment is that [Paul] Krugman*(among many others) is right. That is why I amnow in Saudi Arabia developing a researchprogram at KAUST, the new King AbdullahUniversity of Science and Technology, in desertagriculture, with a special emphasis onhalophytes. Some of the most populous parts ofthe world are getting hotter and drier. Growing

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By 2050 or so, the humanpopulation is expected to passnine billion. Those billions will beseeking food, water and otherresources on a planet wherehumans are already shapingclimate and the web of life. DotEarth was created by AndrewRevkin in October 2007 -- in partwith support from a John SimonGuggenheim Fellowship -- toexplore ways to balance humanneeds and the planet's limits.

The blog moved to the Opinion side of The Times in 2010 whenRevkin left the Times staff to teach communication courses atPace University. He won a National Academies CommunicationAward for Dot Earth in 2011 and Time Magazine named himone of the web's 25 top bloggers in 2013.

In December 2016, Revkin ended the blog and left Pace toreturn to full-time journalism as senior reporter on climate andrelated issues for the public-interest newsroom ProPublica.

Click here for a narrated slide show on the roots ofRevkin's journalistic journey.

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zones are moving north, but it’s hard to knowhow well that will compensate for decreasingproductivity in the drylands, which have beenkept on life support with fossil water — a practicethat is self-limiting and whose time is just aboutup.

The continuing distaste for GMOs and theirconsequent absurd over-regulation means thatthe most up-to-date, environmentally benign cropprotection strategies are used almost exclusivelyfor the mega-crops that are profitable for biotechcompanies. The public agricultural researchsector remains largely excluded from usingmodern molecular technology. Will this changesoon? I don’t think so, although there are signs ofmovement here and there. India’s getting therewith brinjal, China seems to be creeping up onbiotech rice.

But I don’t see any really large-scale efforts todevelop new feed crops that can be grown onland that can’t be used for the current ones usingsalty water not currently considered suitable foragriculture.

The problem is not so much that we don’t haveor can’t develop the technology to increase foodand feed production, it’s that urbanization hasrendered an ever increasing fraction of humanityunable to produce its own food — and more thanthat — totally unaware of what it takes. (What’sthe problem? I just run over to the grocery store.)

Governments (including our own) subsidize foodin many different ways, knowing well that hungrypeople make destructive mobs. If you look backthrough history, a plausible case can be madethat empires unravel not for political reasons, butbecause of disruptions in the food supply chainsthat feed their urban seats of power. Those foodsupply chains are now vast and global. Theydeliver and will continue to deliver anything andeverything to those who can pay. The screams ofpain will come first from the poorest countriesthat already import way beyond their ability topay and too poor (or perhaps unwise) to makethe requisite investments in developing newhigh-tech approaches to agriculture in hot places.

And now we we’re pouring our ag bucks intobiofuels, of all the imaginable absurdities. Theidea that you could ever replace the rate ofutilization of energy from fossil fuels, which hasbeen estimated as consuming 400 years worth ofphotosynthesis per year, with a fraction of theannual photosynthetic harvest that does notimpinge on food production is part of today’smagical thinking, along with reducing deficits bycutting taxes while continuing to increasespending.

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Policy Research Institute:

A few thoughts. In the two pieces Andyreferences, Krugman tends to underestimate theability of humans to substitute one resource foranother. So the end of oil, for example, doesn’tmean the end of energy use or necessarily, ofhuman civilization. And more people with moreincome doesn’t necessarily mean massstarvation and riots.

But more people with higher incomes does meangreater demands. And with most of the additionalpopulation in developing countries, the additionaldemand is concentrated geographically. There isalso some indication, although with greatuncertainty, that the climate change challengeswill be concentrated in these same geographies.So the great food security questions are:

– the extent to which technical innovations cankeep up both with growing food demand (withmore or less the same resource use) and thedebilitating effects of climate change (a large setof biological challenges)

– the extent to which we (humans) will actuallyinvest in those innovations (some/many of theneeded innovations are likely to be public goods,ie, the private sector can’t capture the returnsfrom investing in them)

– the extent to which we can use internationaltrade to compensate for changes in agriculturalcomparative advantage driven by eithereconomics, demographics, or climate change.

The relative threats change with time. At themoment, population and income growth are thebig drivers, with random weather shocks causingmore problems today than they would have inthe past.

As we get closer to 2050 population growthbecomes less of an issue and income growth andclimate change grow in relative importance. After2050, climate change becomes the biggestthreat, unless something is done sooner ratherthan later about reduce GHG emissions.

Just a few findings from our recent researchmonograph:

Between 2010 and 2050, our scenarios result inmaize price increases of 87 to 106 percent in realterms; rice is 31 to 78 percent; and when is 44 to59 percent.

With a 40 percent increase over our baseproductivity growth in the developing countries,the price increases in the baseline scenario dropfrom 101 percent to 56 percent for maize; 55 to31 for rice; and 54 to 20 percent for wheat. Inother words, this increase productivity results inroughly a halving of the real price growth.

Juergen Voegele, director, agriculture and ruraldevelopment, the World Bank:

Somewhat higher food prices are a good thing foroverall global food production because theystimulate investments in the agricultural sectorwhich are long overdue. Those investments needbe economically, socially and environmentallysustainable, everywhere, but particularly in poorcountries because they are most vulnerable toclimate change and social disruption.

Somewhat higher food prices are a bad thing forthe poor because they cannot afford a healthydiet in the first place and are forced to makefurther cuts on education and health spending iftheir food bill goes up. We already have close toone billion people go hungry today, not becausethere is not enough food in the world butbecause they cannot afford to buy it.

The high food price volatility we have seen since2008 is a bad thing for both producers andconsumers because of the uncertainty and riskthat comes with it. Particularly poor smallholderfarmers have no means to absorb these risks asproducers and are discouraged from planting. Aspoor consumers they cannot risk not being ableto feed their families.

Can we potentially feed 9 billion people in 2050?Without a doubt we can. But not by continuingbusiness as usual. Or we will have have 1.5 to 2billion hungry people in the world by 2050. It willrequire very significant investments inagriculture R&D and in overall productivityincreases. And it will require a sustained global toeffort to target the poor and fundamentallyaddress rural poverty. The successful reform ofthe CGIAR is a positive step in this direction. Butboth the public and the private sector will be keyto achieve sustainable development for all.

Feeding nine billion will come at a highenvironmental cost unless we choose to go adifferent path. That different path includesminimizing further forest conversions,rehabilitating large-scale degraded eco-systems(the Loess Plateau story is a great example),climate smart agriculture with sustainable land,nutrient, water and carbon managementpractices, etc.

Arguably the two biggest challenges we face inthis century are to overcome poverty and tomanage climate change. One cannot be achievedwithout the other. Climate smart agriculture willbe key to achieving both because investments inagriculture help the poor – 70 percent live in ruralareas – more than any other program, andbecause agriculture is key to both mitigation andadaptation to climate change. It is the plants onthe planet that absorb carbon dioxide, so it is

between forests and the rest of the productivelandscape to take carbon out of the atmosphere.The mitigation potential for improved climatesmart agricultural practices is huge and needs tobe tapped. It’s a triple win: if done well, higherproduction and productivity leads to betterincomes, it improves resilience, and it capturescarbon.

Pamela Ronald, a plant pathologist at the University ofCalifornia, Davis, and “Tomorrow’s Table” blogger andauthor:

I see this latest price surge as another bump in along, climbing road and another stark reminderthat we need a global focus on food security toaddress the challenges ahead (Ronald andAdamchak, 2008).

Because the amount of arable land is limited andwhat is left is being lost to urbanization,salinization, and desertification, it no longerpossible to simply open up more undevelopedland for cultivation to meet production needs.Another challenge is that water systems areunder severe strain in many parts of the world.The fresh water available per person hasdecreased 4-fold in the last 60 years (UNEPGlobal Environment Outlook 3 2002). Of thewater that is available for use, about 70% isalready used for agriculture (Vorosmarty et al.2000). Many rivers no longer flow all the way tothe sea; 50% of the world’s wetlands havedisappeared and major groundwater aquifers arebeing mined unsustainably, with water tables inparts of Mexico, India, China, and North Africadeclining by as much as one meter per year(Somerville and Briscoe 2001). Thus, increasedfood production must largely take place on thesame land area while using less water. [Read therest.]

Matt Ridley, science writer and author of “The RationalOptimist“:

I see absolutely no reason that this food pricespike is any different from any of the ones in thelast four decades: ie, a normal self-correctingphenomenon in which a slight imbalancebetween demand and supply is reflected in aprice rise, which will result in higher output nextharvest. To read a trend into it is like trying toread a single flood in Pakistan as evidence ofclimate change (woops, they did that?).

Yields continue to rise faster than population,weather continues to matter less and lessbecause of technology and trade (in the 1690s,when it was cheaper to move people than food,15% of France’s population starved because of afailed harvest that today would register as asmall price blip), and famine continues to reflectmore and more political, not ecological causes.

Food prices will continue their relentless fall overthe long term.

Here are just a few pointers:

1. Remember the huge role ethanol and otherbiofuels are playing in competing for food crops,boosting price rises. Plenty of data on this.

2. Biotech is having a real impact on yields, seesoya and maize in particular. Water efficientmaize is going to be big.

3. High prices lead to more plantings and moreinputs leading to more yields. The recent rise inwheat prices makes the man who manages myfarm tell me in years when the price is good that“acreages planted for wheat are up acrossEurope’’ or similar.

4. Human beings have tripled the amount of thebig 3 cereals (rice, wheat and maize) we producein 60 years – from a broadly unchanging totalacreage. There is no sign of that slowing. Indeed,there is some sign of more and more landcoming out of production – for forests, golfcourse, etc. a lot of that can reverse quickly (see3).

5. The Chinese are getting richer at anastonishing rate – 10% this year – so they wantto eat more meat, which supports prices. In otherwords, it’s prosperity, not desperation.

6. Check out the CO2 fertilisation effect, which isalready far greater than any climate changeeffect on agriculture: 15-40% increases in wheatyields are likely from CO2 doubling.

Here’s an excerpt from my book. F.A.O. is a serial(and cereal) pessimist purely because that’s theway it gets headlines:

One of the hoariest causes for pessimism aboutthe fate of humanity is the worry that food willrun out. The prominent eco-pessimist LesterBrown predicted in 1974 that a turning point hadbeen reached and farmers could ‘no longer keepup with rising demand’. But they did. In 1981 hesaid that ‘global food insecurity is increasing’. Itwas not. In 1984, he proclaimed that ‘the slimmargin between food production and populationgrowth continues to narrow’. Wrong again. In1989 ‘population growth is exceeding farmers’ability to keep up.’ No. In 1994, ‘Seldom has theworld faced an unfolding emergency whosedimensions are as clear as the growingimbalance between food and people’ and ‘After40 years of record food production gains, outputper person has reversed with unanticipatedabruptness.’ (A turning point had been reached.)A series of bumper harvests followed and theprice of wheat fell to record lows, where it stayed

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for a decade. Then in 2007 the wheat pricesuddenly doubled because of a combination ofChinese prosperity, Australian drought, pressurefrom environmentalists to encourage the growingof biofuels and willingness of American pork-barrel politicians to oblige them by sluicingsubsidies towards ethanol producers. Sureenough Lester Brown was once again the darlingof the media, his pessimism as impregnable as itwas 33 years before: ‘cheap food may now behistory,’ he said. A turning point had beenreached. Once again, a record harvest followedand the wheat price halved.

Fred Kirschenmann, a farmer and president of the StoneBarns Center for Food and Agriculture and distinguishedfellow, the Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture atthe University of Iowa:

You might want to take a quick look at JulianCribb’s new book, The Coming Famine, which Ithink lays out some of the many inter-connectedchallenges that we are likely to encounter in thedecades ahead. Given that scenario, which Ithink is accurate, the short answer to yourquestion is that the food price spikes we see noware only a dim pretext to what is to come—unlesswe make some major design changes in our foodsystem. Personally I think that the U.N. IAASTDreport [The International Assessment ofAgricultural Knowledge, Science and Technologyfor Development], which we in the U.S. havelargely ignored, provides a pretty good road mapfor some of the design changes, economic, socialand ecological, that we need to take seriously. Inthe short term, we should take at least one ofCribb’s suggestions seriously—namely the wasteof food. We keep focusing on how much morefood we need to PRODUCE to feed 9 billionpeople—in fact we already produce enoughcalories to feed 9 billion people but we wasteover half of them. In the long term we cannotcontinue to devastate the healthy ecology that isvital to sustaining food production in the interestof keeping the current system going.

[* In my initial query to Brown, Smil and others, I notedhow Paul Krugman had migrated in the last several yearstoward the conclusion he made in December that risingcommodity prices were driven increasingly not byspeculation or other such factors but by fundamentalconstraints on resources in the face of fast-rising demand).There was more from Krugman on food, growth, andfiniteness on his blog on Tuesday.]

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