The New Geopolitics of Food (6)

With grain stocks low and climate volatility increasing, the risks are also increasing. We are now so close to the edge that a breakdown in the food system could come at any time. Consider, for example, what would have happened if the 2010 heat wave that was centered in Moscow had instead been centered in Chicago. In round numbers, the 40% drop in Russia's hoped-for harvest of roughly 100 million tons cost the world 40 million tons of grain, but a 40% drop in the far larger U.S. grain harvest of 400 million tons would have cost 160 million tons. The world's carryover stocks of grainwould have dropped to just 52 days of consumption. This level would have not been only the lowest on recort, but also low below the 62-year carryover that set the stage for the 2007-2008 tripling of world grain prices.
There would have been chaos in the world grain markets. Grain prices would have climbed off the charts. Some grain-exporting countries, trying to hold down domestic food prices, would have restricted or even banned exports, as they did in 2007 and 2008. The TV news would have been dominated not by the hundreds of fires in the Russian countryside, but by footage of food riots in low-income grain-importing countries and reports of governments falling as hunger spread out of control. Oil-exporting countries that import grain would have been trying to barter oil for grain, and low-income grain importerswould have lost out. With governments toppling and confidence in the world grain market shattered, the global economy could have started to unravel.
Ww may not also be so lucky. At issue now is weather the world can go beyond focusing on the symptoms of the deteriorating food situation and instead attack and underlying  causes. If we cannot produce higher crop yields with less water and conserve fertile soils, many agricultural areas will cease to be viable. And this go far beyond farmers. If we cannot move at watertime spead to stabilize the climate, we may not be able to avoid runaway food prices. If we cannot accelerate  the shift  to smaller families and stabilize the world population sooner rather than later, the ranks of the hungry will almost certainly continue to expand. The time to act is now.