“Reduced consumption,” is a polite statistician’s phrase for more hunger ahead in the world, even to the point of starvation. The full sentence in which this euphemism is used is in the most recent monthly report World Agriculture Supply and Demand Estimates, Oct. 12) from the U.S. Department of Agriculture. It stated, “The global wheat outlook for 2022-2023 is for reduced supplies, consumption, trade, and stocks.” The forecast for rice is exactly the same. Wheat and rice are the world’s chief food grains, and in a world already beset by underdevelopment of food, the USDA report should be a call for conferring on emergency action, not a passive commentary. (https://www.usda.gov/oce/commodity/wasde/wasde1022.pdf )
The USDA estimates that for 2022-2023 the volume of total grains production worldwide will fall from 2.799 billion metric tons, down to 2.747 billion metric tons, a drop of 52 million tons. The volume of grains in world trade is on course to fall at least by at least 22 mmt (from 509 mmt in 2021-2022, down to 487 mmt).
Put this lack of grain production and exports in perspective by considering that dozens of nations are dependent on grain imports for their daily staff of life. Some examples: Egypt, the world’s biggest importer in recent times, averages 12 mmt tons of wheat imports a year. Afghanistan needs 2 mmt of wheat yearly to barely survive. Other countries are in between, and still more are more dependent on rice imports.
So far, the food won’t be there, if left to inaction, and the current lack of coordinated agriculture mobilization.
David Beasley, Director of the UN World Food Program, sounded the alarm about the worsening food supply crisis on World Food Day, Oct.16, which marks the 1945 founding of the UN Food and Agriculture Organization. He said the danger is that we will see threats to “sabotage food production in the months ahead. The world must open its eyes to this unprecedented global food crisis and act now to stop it spinning out of control.”
Beasley, whose job and expertise is to deliver food and other humanitarian aid around the world, misidentified the cause of the agriculture crisis, when he added to his World Food Day warning that he foresees, “a food availability crisis as the fallout from conflict and climate change.” But his demand for more production is morally on target.
