I can recall several famines over the last few decades which tugged on the heartstrings; indeed, it's a disturbing theme in history.
Australian science writer Julian Cribb in his new book The Coming Famine: The Global Food Crisis and What We Can Do To Avoid It warns that looming scarcities of water, land, nutrients, oil and fish will leave us unable to feed ourselves within 50 years. In an interview he argues:
"Because we've been so very successful in food production over the last 30 years, we've basically fallen asleep at the wheel. Countries like Canada, America, Australia, are awash with food... But what we really haven't noticed is the rate at which the basic resources for producing it are running out."
He believes there is some onus on the Western world, "because our diets are the ones that are most costly in energy and water. But it's going to apply to everybody. I think it's important for advancing economies like India and China not to take the same route. If Indians start consuming meat at the same rate we do, there's essentially no way the planet can produce enough of it."
"The biggest worry would be the Indo-Gangetic plains. They have to feed 1.3 billion people, not just in India but in central China. They're very vulnerable to water scarcity and land degradation, and they're likely to get hit very hard by climate change. Things are lining up in an ominous way for that part of the world."
Another thing that really concerns the writer is the thought of megacities. "When you have cities of 20 or 30 million that have no internal food production, they're 100-per-cent reliant on trucks coming every day. If you've got a fuel crisis or a major climatic disruption, you could have a city of that scale starving within a week or two. We're creating points of tremendous vulnerability."
The answers in avoiding a global famine are not easy but the writer suggests some of the requirements include reducing waste, continuing advancement in agricultural science, cultivating local consumption, downgrading meat in our diets, and educating the young about food.
