Four years ago Lester Brown, president of the Earth Policy Institute in Washington, wrote a book documenting the ways that human demands are outstripping the earth‘s natural capacities – and how the resulting environmental damage is undermining food production. (See: Falling water tables 'could hit food supply') As food production fell behind demand, he warned, soaring food prices would inevitably follow. And so it has come about.

The price of rice has jumped 55 per cent this year and protests over rising food costs have erupted in over a dozen countries. World Bank president Robert Zoellick says on the Bank’s website that ‘33 countries around the world face potential social unrest because of the acute hike in food and energy prices.’ The situation has been hugely exacerbated by the rush into biofuels, which, says Lester Brown, will eat up 18 per cent of the US grain production this year. (See: Crop switch worsens global food price crisis)

Other voices are now being raised as political leaders face up to the potential for popular unrest. The UK’s new scientific adviser, Dr John Beddington told a sustainable development conference in London last week that food production has been lagging behind population growth since 2005. As a result, the global food supply was running at an all-time low. Food security and the rapid rise in food prices make up the "elephant in the room" that politicians must face up to quickly, he said.

He predicted that price rises in staples such as rice, maize and wheat would continue because of increased demand caused by population growth and increasing wealth in developing nations. He also said that climate change would lead to pressure on food supplies because of decreased rainfall in many areas and crop failures related to climate. The cutting down of the Brazilian forest to grow biofuels, he castigated as ‘profoundly stupid’. The, largely unmentionable, word ‘population’ also came from Hilary Benn, the UK environment secretary, who reminded the conference that the world's population was expected to grow from 6.2bn today to 9.5bn in less than 50 years' time. "How are we going to feed everybody?" he asked.

And so, it seems, the food price crisis could finally act as the catalyst for a rethinking of policies, not only to increase food, water and energy productivity, and a more careful approach to biofuel production, but to a renewed concern about the broader environmental impacts of growing consumption and the wellbeing of the world’s least developed regions, where numbers are rising most rapidly. As many countries have shown, it would be possible to slow population growth and tackle poverty through investment in the education, health and family planning needs of this biggest-ever generation of young people.

John Rowley


Lester Brown’s latest book Plan B 3.0 Mobilizing to Save Civilisation may be ordered or downloaded by visiting the Earth Policy Institute website at www.earthpolicy.org