The world is in transition from an era of water and food abundance to one of
scarcity.
Over
the last decade, world grain reserves have fallen by one third. World food prices have more than doubled, triggering a worldwide land rush
and ushering in a new geopolitics of food. The basic factors behind
shortages in the food supply are increasing demand, rising costs of
energy, and soil and water depletion.
Groundwater supplies are diminishing as are glaciers and surface water supplies. The High Plains aquifer system is one of the world's largest. It covers an area
of approximately 174,000 square miles, and serves as an example of global water problems.
Tapping this groundwater source for agricultural production is clearly
not a sustainable option at today’s usage rates. Cattle and corn crops
account for the majority of water usage in the US, and the High Plains
Aquifer supplies 30 percent of US irrigated groundwater.
It is this extensive underground aquifer that allowed farmers to grow
crops in what was previously known as ‘the Great American Desert.’ It
was also in this area where the rush to clear out the area’s natural
grasslands and replace them with plowed soil lead to one of the greatest man-made ecological disasters of all time.
Following a decades-long drought in the 1930s, farmers began to use
groundwater pumping and sprinkler irrigation to grow corn and wheat in
what is now more commonly known as the US ‘dust bowl,’ using the vast
aquifer freely. Now, however, the draw has proved to be too intense and this once
seemingly inexhaustible source of groundwater is quickly being depleted.
It’s not only the Plains states that are in danger of running
aquifers dry and depleting available water sources. The average American
uses 150 gallons of water every day, yet those in developing countries
can scarcely find five gallons, and just don’t have access to safe, clean drinking water.
The High Plains aquifer system is an example of a "fossil aquifer" that is thousands or even millions of years old. Fossil water is, by definition, a non-renewable resource. Aquifer drawdown or overdrafting and the pumping of fossil water increases the total amount of water in the hydrosphere, and may be responsible for up to one quarter of the Earth's total sea level rise since the beginning of the 20th century.
Though it took hundreds of thousands of years to create the The High Plains aquifer system, just about 50 years of overdrafting has caused many wells to fail. As
the water table receded, some wells were repeatedly extended deeper to keep
the pumping, but many are running dry. Water is heavy and the cost of fuel
to operate the pumps began to approximate the worth of wheat and corn
that could be produced by irrigation. Ever rising fuel costs and ever
deeper wells is causing a crisis.
At a depth of almost 1,000 feet, many
small farmers were forced out of business. They were bought out by
large companies, and the large got larger quickly and also gained
political clout and very big government subsidies.These giant agribusinesses
are not just involved in local farming, but also in the distribution,
processing, storage and retail of farm products nationwide. They are
integrated with multinational corporations that control very large
shares of the international markets for grains, fertilizers, pesticides
and seeds, farm equipment manufacturers, and hedge funds and other
investment firms which are rapidly creating a global market for
agricultural land, bringing other powerful actors into the food
system. These companies shape government food policy. They squeeze
out small farmers, promote energy-hungry industrial agriculture and
create an unsustainable system of production and distribution.
Small farm income has dropped while production expenses rose. “According to the Census of Agriculture,” a United States Department
of Agriculture report revealed, “the number of U.S. farms fell sharply
until the early 1970s after peaking at 6.8 million in 1935…By 2002,
about 2.1 million farms remained.... The American Farmland Trust estimates an acre of U.S. farmland goes into development every two minutes...."
From around the post-war period onwards, a new phenomenon developed in
the relationship between humankind and animals: The arrival of
industrial capitalism in the agricultural world and the distortion of
methods of cultivation, food processing and raising livestock. Living
beings of use to humans have returned to being considered things, and
there has been no limit to their exploitation. This was the beginning of the "factory food" era.
In
a stunning new report, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the
United Nations is warning that poor people around the world are already
feeling the pain of high food prices. The price of important crops such
as rice, which is a key staple in many poor countries, spiked more than
400 percent last year. Food riots broke out in many third world
countries last year when people could suddenly not feed their families. -
See more at:
http://disasterandemergencysurvival.com/archives/food-crisis#sthash.Ngih1jWo.dpuf
Global warming affects evapotranspiration—the
movement of water into the atmosphere from land and water surfaces and
plants due to evaporation and transpiration— which is expected to lead
to:
- Increased drought in dry areas. In drier regions,
evapotranspiration may produce periods of drought—defined as
below-normal levels of rivers, lakes, and groundwater, and lack of
enough soil moisture in agricultural areas. Precipitation has declined
in the tropics and subtropics since 1970. Southern Africa, the Sahel
region of Africa, southern Asia, the Mediterranean, and the U.S.
Southwest, for example, are getting drier. Even areas that remain
relatively wet can experience long, dry conditions between extreme
precipitation events.
- Expansion of dry areas. Scientists expect the
amount of land affected by drought to grow by mid-century—and water
resources in affected areas to decline as much as 30 percent. These
changes occur partly because of an expanding atmospheric circulation
pattern known as the Hadley Cell—in
which warm air in the tropics rises, loses moisture to tropical
thunderstorms, and descends in the subtropics as dry air. As jet streams
continue to shift to higher latitudes, and storm patterns shift along
with them, semi-arid and desert areas are expected to expand.
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"An unprecedented combination of high temperatures and scarce rainfall has scientists predicting an extension of the severe drought
that's now crippling the western half of America. Texas, which is
withering under its worst drought since record-keeping began over 100
years ago, is expected to see no relief in the foreseeable future. The
idea that desert cities like Las Vegas, Tucson and Phoenix may become uninhabitable
is no longer a far-fetched vision from a science-fiction novel. Even
places like England that are normally cool and rainy are suffering under
a drought that's affecting their crop yields, says Neena Rai in the Wall Street Journal.
Scientists, politicians and business leaders worldwide are faced with
drought and a severe shortage of fresh drinking water, as well as water
that's essential for industry, transportation and agriculture...An estimated one billion people -- that's one out of every seven people
-- don't have daily access to safe drinking water, according to One Drop,
an international water-rights advocacy group. An additional 2.5 billion
people lack basic sanitation, and increased industrialization in
developing countries like China, India, Brazil and in sub-Saharan Africa
has resulted in severe pollution of once-viable sources of fresh
drinking water.
It's causing serious problems on every inhabited continent, in rural
areas and major cities alike. China has been forced to develop a plan
that call for diverting six trillion gallons of water each year to stem the southerly march of the Gobi desert, according to Edward Wong of The New York Times.
The nations of Iraq, Syria, Turkey and Lebanon -- the area once known
as the "Fertile Cresent" -- are reeling under the forced migration of
hundred of thousands of water refugees. Bolivia, which once produced nearly all of its own food, now has to import much of its food supply because of a combination of drought, floods and government policies.
"...if some predictions are realized. A 2011 report from Oxfam
estimates that the average cost of food staples will rise as much as
180% by the year 2030, due in large part to water shortages. The
potential for an international food crisis has caused the G20 nations to examine measures that will prevent famine, food riots and other catastrophes."
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The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations
is warning that poor people around the world are already feeling the
pain of high food prices. The price of important crops such as rice,
which is a key staple in many poor countries, spiked to such an extent
that food riots broke out in many third world countries when people
could suddenly not feed their families. We could very well be on the
verge of the worst outbreak of starvation and hunger in the history of
humanity.
In
a stunning new report, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the
United Nations is warning that poor people around the world are already
feeling the pain of high food prices. The price of important crops such
as rice, which is a key staple in many poor countries, spiked more than
400 percent last year. Food riots broke out in many third world
countries last year when people could suddenly not feed their families. -
See more at:
http://disasterandemergencysurvival.com/archives/food-crisis#sthash.Ngih1jWo.dpuf
In
a stunning new report, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the
United Nations is warning that poor people around the world are already
feeling the pain of high food prices. The price of important crops such
as rice, which is a key staple in many poor countries, spiked more than
400 percent last year. Food riots broke out in many third world
countries last year when people could suddenly not feed their families. -
See more at:
http://disasterandemergencysurvival.com/archives/food-crisis#sthash.Ngih1jWo.dpuf
The reality is that the world is running out of food and people are hungry right now.
- 1 billion people in the world go to bed hungry every single night.
- Every 3.6 seconds someone starves to death and 3/4 are children under the age of 5.
- More than 2.8 billion people, close to half the world's population, live on less than the equivalent of $2 a day.
- More than 1.2 billion people, or about 20 per cent of the world population, live on less than the equivalent of $1 a day.
- About one-third of all children in the world under the age of five suffer from malnutrition.
- The
top fifth (20 per cent) of the world's people who live in the highest
income countries have access to 86 per cent of world gross domestic
product. The bottom fifth, in the poorest countries, have about one per
cent.
- The assets of the world's three richest men exceed the combined gross domestic products of the world's 48 poorest countries.
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