rediff.com: Climatic change: Food prices to shoot up worldwide

A change in global climatic pattern witnessed in recent years in a manner adversely effecting the agricultural outputs will raise food prices worldwide, well known agricultural expert and president of the Earth Policy Institute Lester Brown has said.

Presenting a bleak scenario, Brown points out that Indian agriculture also suffered from high temperatures, including a heat wave with temperatures reaching 45 degrees Celsius in May, late and weak monsoon and depleting water table.

"Scanty rainfall has lowered India's estimated rice harvest from 90 million to 80 million (9-8 crore) tons.

Looking at the global picture, Brown, quoting an Aug 12 study by the US Department of Agriculture said the grim situation brought down the updated estimate of the world grain harvest for 2002, reducing it to 1,821 million (182 crore) tons from July's estimate of 1,878 million (188 crore) tons.

"With world grain consumption this year projected at 1,904 million (190 crore) tons, this lower harvest leaves a shortfall of 83 million (8.3 crore) tons," he says.

The precipitous drop in the month-to-month estimated harvest triggered an accelerated rise in prices of wheat and corn in world markets, he said adding it also had an indirect impact on the prices of the products derived from grain, such as bread, cereals, pasta, and livestock products, including meat, milk, and eggs.

This is the third consecutive year in which world grain production has fallen short of consumption and this year's production was lowest in three decades, he said.

Listing the three key factors, which contributed to the reduced harvest this year, Brown said it was low grain prices at planting time, crop-withering temperatures and falling water tables.

"Several years of low grain prices have discouraged farmers from investing in land improvement and other production-enhancing investments. They have also forced farmers to stop planting crops on marginal land," the expert says.

The average global temperatures for September and November 2001 were the highest ever recorded for those two months in 134 years of record keeping. Then December, January, February, April, and May posted their second highest temperatures on record. And July 2002 was the fourth hottest ever.

"High temperatures combined with low rainfall in many countries to create drought conditions" Brown said adding reports of heat-stressed crops have been common in the top three food producers -- the United States, India and China.

Meanwhile, water tables are falling, as farmers pump more water to meet the growing world demand for food. Water tables are now dropping at an alarming rate in key farming areas of China, India and the United States.

In China, 70 per cent of the grain comes from irrigated land. In India, the figure is 50 per cent and in the United States it is almost 20 per cent.




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