Thursday, March 28, 2024

Surging food demand double-edged sword

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Turning global mega-cities into food-producing centres will be a necessity as resources become scarcer and food more expensive, Lincoln University professor of agricultural systems Tony Bywater says.
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Bywater has expanded on some concepts he put forward in a sobering lecture delivered recently to Lincoln staff and students.

New Zealand primary producers have basked recently in the warmth of Asian demand for protein and timber.

However, Bywater said there were two time frames, one medium and one longer term, threatening the boom enjoyed by Asia’s burgeoning middle-class demand.

As producers also wrestled with the volatility that had become a fact of life post-2008, the longer-term effect of population growth and greater demands of that middle class was creating intolerable pressure on global resource systems, he said.

As the world consumes resources at a rate of 1.3 planets now, the continuing pressure of population growth – with the global population estimated to reach 11 billion by 2100 – will require the equivalent of two planet Earth’s resources to keep up by 2050.

“The really scary aspect of all this is that when we say longer term, we are only talking 20-25 years, where the population pressure and greater wealth put huge pressure on land, water, energy, and minerals.” 

Much of Bywater’s his concerns are based on the work of Australian science communicator Julian Cribb, author of “The coming famine”.

Participants in a relatively buoyant primary-exporting economy at the bottom of the world could be excused for not fully appreciating the dire pressure being bought to bear elsewhere, he said.

“You only need to look at the falling water tables in the American Midwest and on the northern China Plain and the prospect of cities running out of water. These things we are not cognisant of here.”

Continuing surges and spikes in food prices meant NZ consumers would not be immune in a global trade environment, he said. 

The tolerance of trade partners to pay high prices for commodities would diminish, contributing to unrest like that seen in 2007-08.

Another consequence would be mass global migration of people seeking more resources or a better quality of life in a resource-scarce world.

“There are already 250 million people a year on the move and we are not immune to those movements.” 

NZ was already experiencing resource acquisition as countries move to build a portfolio of land and water resources to bolster their diminishing stocks, he said.

“The purchase of Lochinver by Shanghai Pengxin was not done on a whim and we need to decide how much of that we will allow to happen.”

The easy response to the world’s problems could be to hope technological breakthroughs would take care of the challenges.

“The problem is the extent to which the world is investing in research to solve these problems is declining, not increasing.” 

NZ ranked about 10th in Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development countries for research and development expenditure, while globally US$40b a year was spent on agricultural research, compared to US$1500b on military weapons.

“The problem is, as long as food may remain relatively cheap the incentive is not there to increase that investment.”

Bywater recalled the short, sharp rises in food prices that occurred in 2007, with a kilogram of cheese almost doubling from $8 a kilogram to $15.

“It may be that sort of rapid movement that would have to occur to put the pressure on.”

However, he believes some solutions are closer than appreciated in a Western economy rich with food choices.

“You just need to look at the amount of waste in households of wealthy countries and post-harvest in developing economies. 

“It would be naive to think we can eliminate waste but we need to be more aware of how much is wasted.” 

A United Nations report last year found a third of the world’s food production was wasted, an amount equivalent to the gross domestic product of Switzerland.

With mega-cities surging over farmland and urban freshwater demand set to double by 2050, Bywater said urban-based food production in those cities would become the face of future farming.

“The thing is here in Christchurch we are rebuilding a city, something few get a chance to do, and we have the potential to look at those options and incorporate them into the city.”

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