Intellpuke: This commentary was written by Lester Brown,
president of the Washington, D.C.-based Earth Policy Institute and
author of "Plan B 3.0: Mobilizing To Save Civilization". Mr. Brown's
commentary appeared on Spiegel's online edition for Wednesday, February
11, 2009.
In some countries social order has all begun to break down in the
face of soaring food prices and spreading hunger. Cold the worldwide
food crisis portend the collapse of global civilization?
One of the toughest things for us to do is to anticipate discontinuity.
Whether on a personal level or on a global economic level, we typically
project the future by extrapolating from the past. Most of the time
this works well, but occasionally we experience a discontinuity that we
failed to anticipate. The collapse of civilization is such a case. It
is no surprise that many past civilizations failed to grasp the forces
and recognize signs that heralded their undoing. More than once it was
shrinking food supplies that brought about their downfall.
Does our civilization face a similar fate? Until recently it did not
seem possible, but our failure to deal with the environmental trends
that are undermining the world food economy - most importantly falling
water tables, eroding soils, and rising temperatures - forces the
conclusion that such a collapse is possible.
These trends are taking a significant toll on food production: In
six of the last eight years world grain production has fallen short of
consumption, forcing a steady drawdown in stocks. World carryover
stocks of grain (the amount remaining from the previous harvest when
the new harvest begins) have dropped to only 60 days of consumption, a
near record low. Meanwhile, in 2008 world grain prices have climbed to
the highest level ever.
The current record food price inflation puts another severe stress
on governments around the world, adding to the other factors that can
lead to state failure. Even before the 2008 climb in grain prices, the
list of failing states was growing. Now even more governments in many
more low and middle-income countries that import grain are in danger of
failing as food prices soar. With rising food costs straining already
beleaguered states, is it not difficult to imagine how the food crisis
could portend the failure of global civilization itself.
Today we are witnessing the emergence of a dangerous politics of food
scarcity, one in which individual countries act in their narrowly
defined self-interest and subsequently accelerate the deterioration of
global equilibrium. This began in 2007 when leading wheat-exporting
countries such as Russia and Argentina limited or banned exports in an
attempt to counter domestic food price rises. Vietnam, the world's
second-largest rice exporter after Thailand, banned exports for several
months for the same reason. While these moves may reassure those living
in exporting countries, they create panic in the scores of countries
that import grain.
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