Balance needed to relieve world food crisis

… Considering the current way that we do business in the world, shrinking resources is a given. The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) in its 2007 Spotlight on Agriculture says that about sixty per cent of our ecosystem services are being degraded or used unsustainably. Bio-diversity is being destroyed, making it more difficult for our life support systems to function properly, and climate change will impact both bio-diversity and the ability to grow food.

What we are seeing in Mexico and in central Africa and other parts of the world is that millions are undernourished and have little hope of improving their lives in the face of rising demands for resources that are being depleted. This is a precursor of what much of the world will look like in the future if radical changes are not made in the way that we organize our society and economic models.


Expanding our agricultural activity over more area has become counterproductive, and producing the energy that our societies require to maintain themselves in the present fashion is making things worse. Not only is energy production fouling the atmosphere and changing the climate, switching to food resources for energy production could starve millions. Climate changes may reduce our capacity to produce food and bio-fuels, and bringing the climate change problem under control without other measures may reduce us all to a near primitive lifestyle.

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