Opinion: Food Crisis: Over-Production

C S Liew is Managing Director of Pacific Agriscience, Singapore

C S Liew is Managing Director of Pacific Agriscience, Singapore

At the recent Food Security Summit held at the United Nations Convention Center in Bangkok, most presenters were barking up the wrong tree by clamoring for increase in food production when food production is at an all-time record high this year.

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Thirty percent of food produced is lost post-harvest, 15% to 20% is wasted on dining tables, some food warehouses (especially the rice ones in Thailand) are bulging with lack of demand and many farmers around the world are going broke or making no money.

The rallying cry for increase in food production and agricultural productivity centers around the need to feed the 800 million or so who are malnourished, as well as the often-cited prediction in growth of world population from the current 6 billion to 9 billion by 2050, and therefore, the need to double food production.

So I raised my hand at question time to paint the over-supply scenario we are in. I added that unless we address the issues of food politics, food value (in fact, the lack of it!) and distribution to where it is needed, we will never solve the issues of the 800 million who are malnourished.

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Even the Asian Development Bank talks about “high food prices.” In a working paper entitled: “Food Security Challenges in Asia,” the author states: “Despite the region’s rapid growth, hundreds of millions of people suffer from malnutrition. High food prices significantly reduce the real income of the poor and constitute a setback in Asia’s achievement of poverty reduction.”

This is so wrong in its analysis and conclusion! Food is in fact too cheap, especially at farmgates. That’s the fundamental reason why there is so much of it being wasted — it is simply not worth saving. Post-harvest technologies are there for it. Farmers will use these technologies if there is a positive return on investment (ROI).

On the contrary, my own analysis and conclusions are:

When you have no or very little income or money, I can make food dirt cheap and you still can’t afford to buy enough and eat enough of it. The average American spends only about 10% of their disposable income on food; Australians, Japanese and British, 20%; and Indians, 50%.

Malnutrition has its roots in the low economic development of the area or country. If there are no jobs or gainful economic activities, people are going to face issues with buying food, regardless of prices prevailing.

If local food prices in the poor countries and areas go down any further than they are now, there will simply be even more poor people there because their local farmers are going to fare even worse than they are now.

It appears to me that the simplest and effective way to solve the issues of these millions suffering from malnutrition is to generate economic activities there to allow them to earn a decent income to pay for food. When they can pay, automatically, food will show up! I guarantee that. Education is the foundation. Wiping out corruption and selfish acts of people in power in these countries and areas is the key. Having said the latter, how on earth can one do that?

As for feeding the predicted increase in world population, my view is that even if we hit the 9 billion 10 years from now and not in 2050, we can produce and deliver all the food that is needed, if there is money in doing so. The needed agri-technologies are already here. For instance, hybrid rice varieties with 9 MT/Ha yield potential exists but some farmers planting these are getting only 3 MT/Ha. Why? Because they hadn’t provided the extra water, fertilizers and other inputs for generating the extra 6 MT. And why didn’t they? Because, if they did, there would be over-production and price of the output would go down and they would not get a positive ROI.

The limiting factor in increasing food production, if indeed needed at a point in time in the future, is water — clean, uncontaminated water!

The upcoming Water Security Summit in early 2014 will no doubt address this critical factor.

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Avatar for Hans Hans says:

CS. Liew seems to live on another planet which I have traveled as farmer’s son and an academic agriculturist in the last 40 years. Currently in 2013 we have reached the maximum of food production because all major food production regions and sub regions had optimum growing conditions. The next time if for example we have drought in US/CDN and AUS at the same time in the season price for a ton of Wheat may reach 500 USD. If you can yield in Central Europe 10 to /ha wheat, your yield in Argentina will be at maximum at 3 to/ha whatever you do. You think you can irrigate, where water is already scare? Why invested a Multinational in weather forecast. El Ninio has a bigger impact on food supply than you imagine. Population and Farmers decrease in the rural world globally dramatically. So who will drive the tractors and combines?

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