Food crisis in the next couple of years

WORLD FOOD CRISIS

Posted on Dec 26 by John Mason:
According to the Food and Agriculture Organisation in Rome, global wheat production is expected to fall 5.2% in 2012 and yields from many other crops grown to feed animals could be 10% down on last year.
“Populations are growing but production is not keeping up with consumption. Prices for wheat have already risen 25% in 2012, maize 13% and dairy prices rose 7% just last month. Food reserves, held to provide a buffer against rising prices, are at a critical low level. It means that food supplies are tight across the board and there is very little room for unexpected events,” said Abdolreza Abbassian, a senior economist with the FAO. (source: Guardian, October 2012)
(Courtesy of Skeptical Science blog.)

My opinion:

If production continues to fall, within the next two years or so there will very likely be a world-wide food crisis, with some people in the worst areas starving. The price of food will rise astronomically if production falls next year and the year after that at the same rate that it fell this year.

There is a strong probability of this food disaster unless food production can be returned to, at least, last year’s levels. To account for population growth, production needs to increase every year, although population statistics have begun to level off in the last few decades. Nonetheless, we have seven billion people now and we are likely to have ten billion altogether by the time we top off (assuming that the above described crisis DOESN”T happen.)

Clearly, something has to give. Personally, I will resort to the retention of some basic food items in larger amounts. Say, twenty-five pounds of beans and the same of rice. And some corn meal.