THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA
An Online Journal of Political Commentary & Analysis
Volume X, Issue # 118, May 10, 2008
Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor
Government Committed to & Acting in Accord with Conservative Principles
Ensures a Nation's Strength, Progress, & Prosperity
MUST WE SUFFER GLOBAL FAMINE AGAIN?
By Dennis T. Avery
BIOFUELS & THE WORLD'S FOOD SUPPLY: THE IMPACT OF BIOFUELS MANDATES ON CROPLAND AVAILABILITY &
FOOD PRODUCTION -- THE PERNICIOUS INFLUENCE OF THE ENVIRONMENTALISTS ON AMERICAN ENERGY, AGRICULTURAL,
& ENVIRONMENTAL POLICY
FULL STORY:
Do today’s soaring food prices and Third World food riots mean we’re headed for global famine?
Not any time soon — if we suspend the biofuels mandates quickly. Unfortunately, if we keep burning corn, wheat, and palm
oil in our vehicles, there’s no limit to the hunger, malnutrition, wildlife extinction, and political disruption we can cause.
The problem is simple: Food demand is inelastic. People need about the same number of calories whether they’re expensive
or cheap. But the demand for biofuels is almost without limit. An acre of corn produces only 50 gallons worth of gasoline
substitute (ethanol) per acre, while humans worldwide burn more than a trillion gallons of gasoline per year.
Biofuels could absorb the whole world’s crop production without bringing down gasoline prices — because we’re banning
coal and refusing to drill for oil. If we want to keep on eating, we’ll have to scrap the false “fuel security” of the biofuels.
Even giving up biofuels won’t stave off the world’s hunger for long, because we’ll need more than twice as much food and
feed per year by 2050. The number of humans is likely to peak at about 8 billion, up from today’s 6.4 billion, and at least 7
billion of them are likely to be affluent enough to eat meat and ice cream. They’ll have fewer children — but more pets, few
of them vegetarian.
If the world plans to have forests, wildlands, and wildlife species in the Twenty-second Century, then we’ll need to triple
the crop yields on the land we already farm — just for food and feed. Except for a chunk of western Brazil, there isn’t much
high-quality cropland left in the world for cropland expansion, and none of it “extra” for biofuels.
But the same people who don’t want us to burn coal are telling us not to raise high-yield crops either. Greenpeace and the
World Wildlife Fund tell us not to use nitrogen fertilizer taken from the air. They demand organic-only nitrogen from cattle
manure or green manure crops — but such low-yield systems produce only half as much food per acre.
We’re locked into the same “don’t use it” debate on food as on energy. Is the Greens’ information on high-yield crops any
better than their “advice” on global warming — which tells us to stop burning fossil fuels, though the world has cooled
over the last ten years?
The funding for farm science has declined sharply since Dr. Norman Borlaug led the Green Revolution and saved a billion
people from starving. America’s land-grant universities are now researching how to farm organically, though such
“research” has never produced a yield breakthrough. The high-yield studies are being done mainly by agribusiness — and
by Bill Gates, who has vowed to rekindle a Green Revolution for Africa, whether the Greens like it or not.
Now, a big new report from the International Assessment of Agricultural Knowledge, Science and Technology for
Development (IAASTD) has been cited as evidence that industrialized food production is screwing up the planet. This
report was supposed to be the “big tent” laying out the consensus path for future agricultural research. The land-grant
agriculture schools, Greenpeace, agribusiness and FAO, were all included. But, by the time the report was issued, only
Greenpeace seemed to be at the drafting table.
And guess who’s in charge of this new “pattern for farming’s future”? Robert Watson, a British-born chemist who served
as Chairman of the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change from 1997–2002.
What are the chances that the Greens’ farm science is any more honest than the IPCC’s global warming “science”?
LINKS TO RELATED TOPICS:
Agriculture, the Economy, & Human Welfare:
Policy Issues Relating to Food Production
Political Environmentalism Versus Human Progress & Prosperity:
Policy Issues Relating to Energy, Environment,
& Natural Resources
The Earth's Natural History, Global Climate Changes,
& the Future of Human Life & Civilization on the Planet:
Science, Ideology, & Public Policy
Political Economy -- Philosophies, Systems, & Public Policies:
Government, the Economy, & Economic Prosperity
Dennis T. Avery is a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute in Washington, D.C., and is the Director of the Institute's Center for
Global Food Issues (www.cgfi.org). Formerly he was a senior policy analyst for the United
States Department of State, where he won the National Intelligence Medal of Achievement. He is the co-author, with
atmospheric physicist Fred Singer, of the book, Unstoppable Global Warming: Every 1500 Years (Blue Ridge Summit,
Pennsylvania: Rowman & Littlefield, 2006). Avery's book, Saving the Planet With Pesticides and Plastic: The Environmental
Triumph of High-Yield Farming (Washington, D.C.: Hudson Institute, 1995), continues to be popular as a readable overview
of realistic agriculture for the future and for today. Readers may write Avery at Post Office Box 202, Churchville, Virginia, 24421.
Email: cgfi@rica.net
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THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA
An Online Journal of Political Commentary & Analysis
Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor
Conservative & Free-Market Analysis of Government, Politics & Public Policy, Covering Political, Legal, Constitutional, Economic,
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Conservative Government Ensures a Nation's Strength, Progress, & Prosperity