Another Reminder About the Future Food Supply

I was probably attracted to this article in the Sydney Morning Herald because I agree with everything it says, and I couldn't have said it better. 

Decades of rapid population growth, especially in developing countries, means there are more mouths to feed. The world's population will reach 7 billion this year and is forecast to top 9.5 billion by 2050. That will be three times more than in 1950. But it's not just the extra people adding to food demand - rising prosperity, especially in Asia, is playing a role. As people get wealthier they eat more and they eat differently. The consumption of products such as meat and milk has been growing rapidly. Dietary shifts linked to rising wealth that took centuries to occur in Western countries are taking place over a few decades in developing counties.

The push for biofuels - fuel made from plants - is another factor stoking demand. High global energy prices prompted many Western governments to encourage the production of biofuels with a combination of subsidies and mandates. As a result, millions of tonnes of cereals have been diverted away from food markets to energy needs.

World Population Day 2011

Today is World Population Day and is also the first anniversary of this blog. We are still officially in the countdown to 7 billion people being alive on the planet at the same time, but of course the official counter is only approximate since we are continually trying to get a better handle on data through censuses and vital statistics. 

In reality, every day is world population day because the population is constantly growing and constantly testing the limits of the earth's resources. A terrible reminder of this is the current drought in Somalia:

The head of the U.N. refugee agency said Sunday that drought-ridden Somalia is the "worst humanitarian disaster" in the world after meeting with refugees who endured unspeakable hardship to reach the world's largest refugee camp.

The Kenyan camp, Dadaab, is overflowing with tens of thousands of newly arrived refugees forced into the camp by the parched landscape in the region where Somalia, Ethiopia and Kenya meet. The World Food Program estimates that 10 million people already need humanitarian aid. The U.N. Children's Fund estimates that more than 2 million children are malnourished and in need of lifesaving action.

The New Nation of South Sudan

Today was the first day of reality for the nation of South Sudan, which came into being as a result of a "divorce" (as the BBC calls it) from the rest of the nation of Sudan. This followed a vote for secession that took place this past January, which I noted at the time was itself the result of a peace agreement made back in 2005.

The population of the new country is estimated to be somewhere between 7.5 and 9.7 million, and it is described by everyone as one of the poorest nation's in the world, although it does have oil reserves, and apparently has been getting some direct foreign investment from China. However, there are still rebel groups working in the new nation, so it will probably have a rocky start to life, hampered by very low levels of literacy, and very high rates of infant and maternal mortality.