#BTColumn – Long-term food security plan

Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed by the author(s) do not represent the official position of Barbados TODAY.

by Peter Webster

“The best way to predict the future is to create it.” – Abraham Lincoln

“Tomorrow belongs to those who prepare for it today.” – Malcolm X

“My interest is in the future because I am going to spend the rest of my life there.”
– Anon

The world’s population of about 7.9 billion is increasing by 81 million every year and its food consumption is increasing by 1.1 per cent per annum.

Concurrently, the world’s food supply is beginning to have difficulty in meeting demand as cultivable land the world over is being changed in use for “development” and there is little left to be exploited.

In the meantime, extreme weather events and natural disasters have been affecting
food production across our planet.

Concurrently, the global pandemic and its accompanying economic lockdowns have disrupted global food supply chains to the point that some food reserves are at alarmingly low levels, while average food prices have climbed to 30 per cent above normal.

As a consequence, the UN is warning that the world could be facing a serious hunger crisis among the poor and conditions are likely to get even worse in 2022.

Already nearly 20 per cent of the world’s population or about 1.5 billion people are experiencing hunger.

Those with an understanding of the situation have been expressing their concern about the global trends that indicate we are heading toward more widespread global hunger.These include the Government of the Peoples’ Republic of China.A recent article published by Nikkei Asia revealed that the Chinese government was hoarding food on an unprecedented scale.

All over the country, government officials were issuing stockpiling orders for grains and other food supplies and the amount of food that they were stockpiling was massive – a policy that has helped to drive world food prices even higher.

New data released by the US Department of Agriculture revealed that China was about to have 69 percent of the globe’s maize reserves by the end of the first half of the crop year 2022, as well as 60 percent of its rice reserves, and 51 per cent of its wheat reserves. If things spiral out of control in 2022 or beyond, the Chinese government will still have enough food supplies in their reserves to feed its people – for a while.

Unfortunately, the key to long-term food security is not in food stocks/reserves which have a limited shelf life anyway and can be costly, but in the ability to produce or obtain enough new supplies in a dwindling supply environment.

The actions of the Chinese Government, which created the pandemic in the first place, if only accidentally, should have been a wakeup call for those countries, like Barbados, who cannot feed themselves, but have been complacently ridding themselves of the vestiges of the past while failing to plan properly for the future, especially in its increasing commitments with such a
selfish country.

The world average cultivable land per capita is about 0.22 hectares (0.5 acres) which implies that it takes an average of about 0.22 hectares of cultivable land to feed each person on a regular annual basis.

China cannot feed itself with an average of 0.09 hectares of cultivable land per capita and must import a significant portion of its food, hence its new aggressive and selfish approach to global diplomacy. Nor can India feed itself with an average of 0.14 hectares of cultivable land per capita.
That is why Kashmir – India’s breadbasket – is so important to them.

The USA still has an average of 0.51 hectares of cultivable land per capita and is producing enough food surpluses to continuously feed itself twice over.At the same time, it is stupidly allowing the loss of about 800 hectares (2,000 acres) of good cultivable land every day in “development”.

The USA, which is already earning billions of dollars in food exports annually, will earn even more from the increased prices of its food surpluses in any coming food shortage and is in a position to ramp up production even further to meet some of the world’s increasing food consumption demand – yet their press and urban hordes treat their rural farmers and food producers with scant respect.

No wonder those farmers and food producers voted “en bloc” for Trump – like those in the UK had voted “en bloc” for BREXIT – while the great press has failed to recognise why.A Barbados Town and Country Planning Department Report, circa 2006, put Barbados cultivable land i.e. agricultural land for which change of use had not been granted, at about 16,000 hectares (40,000 acres) although it admitted that some seven plantations had been subdivided into small farms which had become little more than upmarket housing schemes.

The latest estimates for Barbados put our remaining cultivable land at less than 8,000 hectares (20,000 acres) which suggests that Barbados’ cultivable land per capita is less than 0.03 hectares (0.075 acres) or 14 per cent of the world average of 0.22 hectares.

In other words, Barbados cannot feed itself and must import most of its food while it is “growing” solar farms on its agricultural land instead of its parking lots and rooftops.

One of the crucial questions which the Barbadian electorate needs to put to the politicians who are begging for their vote in the coming election is “What are you planning to do about the long-term food security situation of Barbados and why this has not yet been done?” There is a long-term solution, but no one seems interested.

Not a single politician currently campaigning has yet to mention long- term food security and their response, or lack of one, to that question, should be most revealing. The tourists can go home – we are there already.

Like the water in a sinkhole vortex, round and round we go….!

Peter Webster is a retired Portfolio Manager of the Caribbean Development Bank and a former Senior Agricultural Officer in the Ministry of Agriculture.