Facing up to the coming resources crunch
Sunday, 30 March 2008
By Ron Leng

The world is faced with a triple crisis: climate change, peak oil and global resource depletion. These are interrelated and interactive problems which makes the subject extremely complex. The certainties are that there will be great changes to contend with in the future in order to produce and deliver food to maintain the present world population, let alone a balanced diet for everyone. At the present time there are roughly one billion people that are underfed and/or on imbalanced diets lacking essential micro nutrients that are provided by animal protein.
 
The primary resource depletion is that of fossil fuel energy since the world has been using more fossil energy than is being discovered and it appears that the reserves of oil that can be cheaply mined are now at peak production (half these resources have been combusted). As oil reserves are depleted it is predictable that, just as with any other commodity, prices will rise with increasing scarcity. World population expansion has been promoted by the availability of inexpensive oil, which has supported increased world food production by providing inexpensive inputs including fertilizers, insecticides, herbicides, traction power( lowering the need for labour and reducing the numbers of people in farming) and in places irrigation water. Inexpensive oil allowed food to be produced cheaply but this will change greatly as oil prices rise creating the potential for major disruptions in food availability.
 
Peak oil represents a massive change and will affect other resource availabilities. Agriculture has received inexpensive fertilizers on which high crop yields have been predicated including

  • nitrogen fertilizers as urea manufactured using natural gas as the major energy source, 
  • phosphates,   the world is now dependent on extracting phosphate fertilizers from low grade rock phosphate at high energy costs and phosphorus availability is in decline 
  • Potassium, which is mined in a number of countries  

The dependency of the industrialized countries on oil to drive agricultural production and the fact that most of these same countries cannot meet their own domestic requirements from local resources has seen a headlong development of alternative fuels including bioethanol produced from sugar cane and maize mainly in Brazil and the USA, respectively; and development of bio diesel from plant oils. The implications for world food stocks and prices are enormous, potentially creating major cereal food /feed grain shortages as land is diverted to fuel production. The expectations are that world cereal grain availability for livestock will be highly restricted and the case is made for the forage-fed ruminant as a major source of animal protein for the future. Herbivores in general are likely to be used more extensively with time, particularly the rabbit with its dual capabilities of high reproduction rates and the capacity to utilize efficiently forage resources produced locally.
 
Biofuels production diverts land from food production to transportation energy and often the land is accessed from clearing of forests with often dramatic effects on biodiversity, erosion and the carbon balance of the land area.
 
Water is the other major resource required for agriculture, which has also been depleted. Fossil ground water (water created as the world cooled many millions of years ago) has been exploited using cheap fuel, but most fossil resources are now too deep to be economically mined for irrigation reducing some of the major areas of crop production (eg:  The U.S. Ogallala aquifer and the aquifer under the North China Plain). Many of the world’s aquifers that were normally replenished by rainfall have also been drawn down with periodic loss of irrigation potential   The advent of Peak Oil with ultimate high cost of fuel will clearly cause a return of vast areas of highly productive irrigated crop land back to rainfed cropping, pasture  or desert  in the future with major loss of food productivity.
 
Soil erosion and fertilizer run off from cropping systems are also major concerns as the present day cereal crops only tap the nutrients in the top few inches of soil and even the prairies of USA which have been only cropped for about 100 years have depleted the top soil reserves with potential to decrease crop yields significantly. 
 
Global warming is now accepted as real and cannot be ignored in any discussion on future agriculture. Increasing sea levels will undoubtedly remove considerable areas of fertile delta and weather patterns will certainly change, leading to at times more intense drought and or flooding rains. Warming also carries with it the risk of decreased crop production as recent research has demonstrated that rice yields decrease by 10 per cent for every oC rise in night time temperatures.
 
Each aspect of this triple global crisis has the potential to lower world crop production by direct or various flow on effects. We must now enter a stage in the world where grain-based animal production will become increasingly expensive as the competition for resources for food, feed and fuel, develops. The animal production industries based on herbivores will need extensive development exploiting a wide range of waste byproducts of agriculture or from land not dedicated to food or biofuels production.
 
Oil depletion, pressure to produce biofuels, soil fertility decline (including salinity and sodicity) the high cost of chemical fertilizers and the loss of arable land to erosion, non agricultural purposes (such as roads and houses), coupled with likely overall decreases in crop production from global warming, all appear to be interacting such that it will be difficult for many nations to feed themselves in the future. The developing countries seen by some as backward in agriculture may be those most capable of supporting themselves through the maintenance of small-scale farmer practices that integrate food and fuel production.


Editor's Note: For permission to reproduce this article please contact ScienceAlert.
Comments (8)
written by Clifford J. Wirth , March 30, 2008
Here is a real science alter on Peak Oil: http://www.peakoilassociates.com/POAnalysis.html
written by Christopher Calder , March 31, 2008
Oil price increases have not shrunk the human food supply, but biofuel production has. The more biofuels we produce, the less food we have to eat, because we grow biofuel crops, even switchgrass, using the same land, water, fertilizer, farm equipment, and labor we use to grow food. Biofuel production accelerates global warming, creates water shortages, and erodes topsoil. A new study says biofuels from cellulose sources, such as switchgrass, wood chips, crop waste, etc., will never be cost effective.

See biofuel facts at - http://home.att.net/~meditation/bio-fuel-hoax.html

written by Upali Magedaragamage , March 31, 2008
I wonder this will help the small farmers. The practice of providing huge subsidies to large farmers in Europe has crushed the small farmer in many Least Developed Countries. EU's agricultural subsidy regime is one of the biggest iniquities facing farmers in Africa and other developing counties. Meanwhile, governments of developing countries come under intense pressure from the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund to scrap their own tariffs and subsidies as part of free trade rules.The Agro-economists in Europe will find a new solution to continue providing subsidies to larger scale agro-monopolies. Perhaps, with their patented seed monopolization.
written by Lou Grinzo , April 01, 2008
My most recent presentation on peak oil, The Oil Crunch, is an introduction to the topic for mainstreamers, i.e. not energy geeks:

http://www.grinzo.com/energy/downloads/theoilcrunch09x20x2007.pdf

written by Mike White , April 01, 2008
Lou,
Nice presentation. You touch upon most of the important points in a clear and effective manner. Two points that I think should be included are:
Non-energy geeks and the media love to blame big oil corporations for high energy prices. The "Big Five" only produce a fraction of the world's petroleum. The majority is produced by state owned companies.

Another point that should be made is the US's vulnerability to the Export Land Model (see westtexas's many posts and comments on the Oil Drum). Historically, countries that have gone through resource production peaks reduced the amount made available for export in order to satisfy internal demand. If this theory proves to be correct, we could see sharp declines in exports from the largest oil producers.
written by Vivienne , April 01, 2008
The biggest problem we are facing is a growing population on a finite planet, with finite resources. We have 6.5 billion now, and it is predicted to be 9 billion by 2050. How we are going to feed them will be the challenge of the century. More people will deplete the land masses and wildlife will become more threatened and extinct. The whole ecosystem will be under threat, and with global warming too, population pressure will damage the planet. Nobody wants to face this problem. Our economy drives growth too! We need to have a zero population policy, world-wide.
written by Riskable , April 02, 2008
Vivienne, I don't think we need to worry about feeding 9 billion people. After the peak oil collapse the world's population will significantly decrease. I'd be more worried about how we're going to support a population of 6.5 billion.

I'm only 29 but I fear that due to lack of food, energy, and the possibility of anarchy/political turmoil (in the US) I may not live past 40. The question remains: Even if I do live past 40 will we still be a capitalistic democracy or will we fall completely into fascism? Will the West wage war for precious resources or will we simply "deal with it" and attempt to peacefully develop healthy and sustainable standard of living based on the resources we *do* have?

-Riskable
http://riskable.com
"The last voice heard before the collapse of the U.S. economy will be from an expert exclaiming, 'There's still hundreds of billions of barrels of oil in the ground!'"
written by James , April 27, 2008
Vivienne
Surely you meant zero-growth (not zero) population policy.
There will be no one left to worry about when there is zero population.
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