from Plan B 3.0: Mobilizing to Save Civilization, by Lester R. Brown …

from Plan B 3.0: Mobilizing to Save Civilization, by Lester R. Brown

© 2008 Earth Policy Institute




                                  9
    Feeding Eight Billion Well




In April 2005, the World Food Programme and the Chinese gov-
ernment jointly announced that food aid shipments to China
would stop at the end of the year. For a country where a gener-
ation ago hundreds of millions of people were chronically hun-
gry, this was a landmark achievement. Not only has China
ended its dependence on food aid, but almost overnight it has
become the world's third largest food aid donor.1
    The key to China's success was the economic reforms in 1978
that dismantled its system of agricultural collectives, known as
production teams, and replaced them with family farms. In each
village, the land was allocated among families, giving them
long-term leases on their piece of land. The move harnessed the
energy and ingenuity of China's rural population, raising the
grain harvest by half from 1977 to 1986. With its fast-expanding
economy raising incomes, with population growth slowing, and
with the grain harvest climbing, China eradicated most of its
hunger in less than a decade--in fact, it eradicated more hunger
in a shorter period of time than any country in history.2
    While hunger has been disappearing in China, it has been
spreading in sub-Saharan Africa and parts of the Indian sub-
176                                                    PLAN B 3.0     Feeding Eight Billion Well                                     177
continent. As a result, the number of people in developing coun-          This calls for fresh thinking on how to raise cropland produc-
tries who are hungry has increased from a recent historical low       tivity One way is to breed crops that are more tolerant of drought
                                                                            .
of 800 million in 1996 to 830 million in 2003. In the absence of      and cold. U.S. corn breeders have developed corn varieties that are
strong leadership, the record or near-record grain prices in late     more drought-tolerant, enabling corn production to move west-
2007 will likely raise the number of hungry people even further,      ward into Kansas, Nebraska, and South Dakota. Kansas, the
with children suffering the most.3                                    leading U.S. wheat-producing state, has used a combination of
    One key to the threefold expansion in the world grain har-        drought-resistant varieties in some areas and irrigation in others
vest since 1950 was the rapid adoption in developing countries        to expand corn planting to where the state now produces more
of high-yielding wheats and rices originally developed in Japan       corn than wheat. Similarly, corn production is expanding in more
and hybrid corn from the United States. The spread of these           northern states such as North Dakota and Minnesota.8
highly productive seeds, combined with a tripling of irrigated            Another way of raising land productivity, where soil mois-
area and an 11-fold increase in world fertilizer use, tripled the     ture permits, is to increase the area of multicropped land that
world grain harvest. Growth in irrigation and fertilizer use          produces more than one crop per year. Indeed, the tripling in the
essentially removed soil moisture and nutrient constraints on         world grain harvest since 1950 is due in part to impressive
much of the world's cropland.4                                        increases in multiple cropping in Asia. Some of the more com-
    Now the outlook is changing. Farmers are faced with shrink-       mon combinations are wheat and corn in northern China,
ing supplies of irrigation water, a diminishing response to addi-     wheat and rice in northern India, and the double or triple crop-
tional fertilizer use, rising temperatures, the loss of cropland to   ping of rice in southern China, southern India, and rice-grow-
nonfarm uses, rising fuel costs, and a dwindling backlog of           ing countries in Southeast Asia.9
yield-raising technologies.                                               The spread in double cropping of winter wheat and corn on the
    At the same time, they also face a fast-growing demand for        North China Plain helped boost China's grain production to where
farm products from the annual addition of some 70 million peo-        it rivaled that of the United States. Winter wheat grown there
ple a year, the desire of some 5 billion people to consume more       yields close to 4 tons per hectare. Corn averages 5 tons. Together
livestock products, and the millions of motorists turning to          these two crops, grown in rotation, can yield 9 tons per hectare
crop-based fuels to supplement tightening supplies of gasoline        per year. China's double cropped rice yields 8 tons per hectare.10
and diesel fuel.5                                                         Forty years ago, North India produced only wheat, but with
    This helps explain why world grain production has fallen          the advent of the earlier maturing high-yielding wheats and
short of consumption in seven of the last eight years, dropping       rices, wheat could be harvested in time to plant rice. This
world grain stocks to the lowest level since 1974. Farmers and        wheat/rice combination is now widely used throughout the Pun-
agronomists are now being thoroughly challenged.6                     jab, Haryana, and parts of Uttar Pradesh. The wheat yield of 3
                                                                      tons and rice yield of 2 tons combine for 5 tons of grain per
Rethinking Land Productivity                                          hectare, helping to feed India's 1.2 billion people.11
The shrinking backlog of unused agricultural technology and               In North America and Western Europe, which in the past
the associated loss of momentum in raising cropland produc-           have restricted cropped area to control surpluses, there is some
tivity is found worldwide. Between 1950 and 1990, world grain         potential for double cropping that has not been fully exploited.
yield per hectare climbed by 2.1 percent a year, ensuring rapid       In the United States, the lifting of planting area restrictions in
growth in the world grain harvest. From 1990 to 2007, however,        1996 opened new opportunities for multiple cropping. The most
it rose only 1.2 percent annually. This is partly because the yield   common U.S. double cropping combination is winter wheat
response to the additional application of fertilizer is diminish-     with soybeans as a summer crop. Since soybeans fix nitrogen,
ing and partly because irrigation water supplies are limited.7        this reduces the need to apply fertilizer to wheat.12
178                                                   PLAN B 3.0     Feeding Eight Billion Well                                     179
    A concerted U.S. effort to both breed earlier maturing vari-     invest in and improve their land. A Rural Development Institute
eties and develop cultural practices that would facilitate multi-    survey in China revealed that farmers with documentation of
ple cropping could substantially boost crop output. If China's       land rights were twice as likely to make long-term investments
farmers can extensively double crop wheat and corn, then U.S.        in their land, such as adding greenhouses, orchards, or fish-
farmers--at a similar latitude and with similar climate pat-         ponds.16
terns--could do the same if agricultural research and farm pol-         Despite local advances, the overall loss of momentum in
icy were reoriented to support it.                                   expanding food production is unmistakable. It will force us to
    Western Europe, with its mild winters and high-yielding          think more seriously about stabilizing population, moving
winter wheat, might also be able to double crop more with a          down the food chain, and using the existing harvest more pro-
summer grain, such as corn, or with a winter oilseed crop. Else-     ductively. Achieving an acceptable worldwide balance between
where, Brazil and Argentina have an extended frost-free grow-        food and people may now depend on stabilizing population as
ing season that supports extensive multicropping, often wheat        soon as possible, reducing the unhealthily high consumption of
or corn with soybeans.13                                             animal products among the affluent, and restricting the conver-
    In many countries, including the United States, most of          sion of food crops to automotive fuels.
those in Western Europe, and Japan, fertilizer use has reached a
level where using more has little effect on crop yields. There are   Raising Water Productivity
still some places, however, such as most of Africa, where addi-      With water shortages emerging as a constraint on food produc-
tional fertilizer would help boost yields. Unfortunately, sub-       tion growth, the world needs an effort to raise water productiv-
Saharan Africa lacks the infrastructure to transport fertilizer      ity similar to the one that nearly tripled land productivity
economically to the villages where it is needed. As a result of      during the last half of the twentieth century. Land productivity
nutrient depletion, grain yields in much of sub-Saharan Africa       is typically measured in tons of grain per hectare or bushels per
are stagnating.14                                                    acre. A comparable indicator for irrigation water is kilograms
    One encouraging response to this situation in Africa is the      of grain produced per ton of water. Worldwide, that average is
simultaneous planting of grain and leguminous trees. At first        now roughly 1 kilogram of grain per ton of water used.17
the trees grow slowly, permitting the grain crop to mature and           Since it takes 1,000 tons of water to produce 1 ton of grain,
be harvested; then the saplings grow quickly to several feet in      it is not surprising that 70 percent of world water use is devot-
height, dropping leaves that provide nitrogen and organic mat-       ed to irrigation. Thus, raising irrigation efficiency is central to
ter, both sorely needed in African soils. The wood is then cut       raising water productivity overall. Using more water-efficient
and used for fuel. This simple, locally adapted technology,          irrigation technologies and shifting to crops that use less water
developed by scientists at the International Centre for Research     permit the expansion of irrigated area even with a fixed water
in Agroforestry in Nairobi, has enabled farmers to double their      supply. Eliminating water and energy subsidies that encourage
grain yields within a matter of years as soil fertility builds.15    wasteful water use allows water prices to rise to market levels.
    Another often overlooked issue is the effect of land tenure on   Higher water prices encourage all water users to use water more
productivity. In China, this issue was addressed in March 2007       efficiently. Institutionally, local rural water users associations
when the National People's Congress passed legislation protect-      that directly involve those using the water in its management
ing property rights. Farmers who had previously occupied their       have raised water productivity in many countries.18
land under 30-year leases would gain additional protection               Data on water irrigation efficiency for surface water proj-
from land confiscation by local officials who, over a number of      ects--that is, dams that deliver water to farmers through a net-
years, had seized land from some 40 million farmers, often for       work of canals--show that crop usage of irrigation water never
development. Secure land ownership encourages farmers to             reaches 100 percent simply because some irrigation water evap-
180                                                    PLAN B 3.0     Feeding Eight Billion Well                                      181
orates, some percolates downward, and some runs off. Water            water. Large-scale drip systems using plastic lines that can be
policy analysts Sandra Postel and Amy Vickers found that "sur-        moved easily are also becoming popular. These simple systems
face water irrigation efficiency ranges between 25 and 40 per-        can pay for themselves in one year. By simultaneously reducing
cent in India, Mexico, Pakistan, the Philippines, and Thailand;       water costs and raising yields, they can dramatically raise
between 40 and 45 percent in Malaysia and Morocco; and                incomes of smallholders.24
between 50 and 60 percent in Israel, Japan, and Taiwan." Irri-           Sandra Postel estimates that the combination of these drip
gation water efficiency is affected not only by the type and con-     technologies at various scales has the potential to profitably irri-
dition of irrigation systems but also by soil type, temperature,      gate 10 million hectares of India's cropland, or nearly one tenth
and humidity. In hot arid regions, the evaporation of irrigation      of the total. She sees a similar potential for China, which is now
water is far higher than in cooler humid regions.19                   also expanding its drip irrigated area to save scarce water.25
    In a May 2004 meeting, China's Minister of Water Resources           In the Punjab, with its extensive double cropping of wheat
Wang Shucheng outlined for me in some detail the plans to raise       and rice, fast-falling water tables led the state farmers' commis-
China's irrigation efficiency from 43 percent in 2000 to 51 per-      sion in 2007 to recommend a delay in transplanting rice from
cent in 2010 and then to 55 percent in 2030. The steps he             May to late June or early July. This would reduce irrigation water
described included raising the price of water, providing incentives   use by roughly one third since transplanting would coincide with
for adopting more irrigation-efficient technologies, and develop-     the arrival of the monsoon. This reduction in groundwater use
ing the local institutions to manage this process. Reaching these     would help stabilize the water table, which has fallen from 5
goals, he felt, would assure China's future food security.20          meters below the surface to 30 meters in parts of the state.26
    Raising irrigation water efficiency typically means shifting         Institutional shifts--specifically, moving the responsibility
from the less efficient flood or furrow system to overhead sprin-     for managing irrigation systems from government agencies to
klers or drip irrigation, the gold standard of irrigation efficien-   local water users associations--can facilitate the more efficient
cy. Switching from flood or furrow to low-pressure sprinkler          use of water. In many countries farmers are organizing locally
systems reduces water use by an estimated 30 percent, while           so they can assume this responsibility, and since they have an
switching to drip irrigation typically cuts water use in half.21      economic stake in good water management, they tend to do a
    As an alternative to furrow irrigation, a drip system also        better job than a distant government agency.27
raises yields because it provides a steady supply of water with          Mexico is a leader in developing water users associations. As
minimal losses to evaporation. Since drip systems are both            of 2002, farmers associations managed more than 80 percent of
labor-intensive and water-efficient, they are well suited to coun-    Mexico's publicly irrigated land. One advantage of this shift for
tries with a surplus of labor and a shortage of water.22              the government is that the cost of maintaining the irrigation
    A few small countries--Cyprus, Israel, and Jordan--rely           system is assumed locally, reducing the drain on the treasury.
heavily on drip irrigation. Among the big three agricultural pro-     This means that associations often need to charge more for irri-
ducers, this more-efficient technology is used on 1­3 percent of      gation water, but for farmers the production gains from man-
irrigated land in India and China and on roughly 4 percent in         aging their water supply themselves more than outweigh this
the United States.23                                                  additional outlay.28
    In recent years, small-scale drip-irrigation systems--virtual-       In Tunisia, where water users associations manage both irri-
ly a bucket with flexible plastic tubing to distribute the water--    gation and residential water, the number of associations
have been developed to irrigate small vegetable gardens with          increased from 340 in 1987 to 2,575 in 1999, covering much of
roughly 100 plants (covering 25 square meters). Somewhat larg-        the country. Many other countries now have such bodies man-
er drum systems irrigate 125 square meters. In both cases, the        aging their water resources. Although the early groups were
containers are elevated slightly, so that gravity distributes the     organized to deal with large publicly developed irrigation sys-
182                                                   PLAN B 3.0     Feeding Eight Billion Well                                     183
tems, some recent ones have been formed to manage local              Producing Protein More Efficiently
groundwater irrigation as well. Their goal is to stabilize the       Another way to raise both land and water productivity is to pro-
water table to avoid aquifer depletion and the economic disrup-      duce animal protein more efficiently. With some 37 percent
tion that it brings to the community.29                              (about 740 million tons) of the world grain harvest used to pro-
    Low water productivity is often the result of low water          duce animal protein, even a modest gain in efficiency can save a
prices. In many countries, subsidies lead to irrationally low        large quantity of grain.33
water prices, creating the impression that water is abundant             World meat consumption increased from 44 million tons in
when in fact it is scarce. As water becomes scarce, it needs to be   1950 to 240 million tons in 2005, more than doubling consump-
priced accordingly. Provincial governments in northern China         tion per person from 17 kilograms to 39 kilograms (86 pounds).
are raising water prices in small increments to discourage waste.    Consumption of milk and eggs has also risen. In every society
A higher water price affects all water users, encouraging invest-    where incomes have risen, meat consumption has too, perhaps
ment in more water-efficient irrigation technologies, industrial     reflecting a taste that evolved over 4 million years of hunting
processes, and household appliances.30                               and gathering.34
    What is needed now is a new mindset, a new way of think-             As both the oceanic fish catch and the production of beef on
ing about water use. For example, shifting to more water-effi-       rangelands have leveled off, the world has shifted to grain-based
cient crops wherever possible boosts water productivity. Rice        production of animal protein to expand output. And as the
production is being phased out around Beijing because rice is        demand for meat climbs, consumers are shifting from beef and
such a thirsty crop. Similarly, Egypt restricts rice production in   pork to poultry and fish, sources that convert grain into protein
favor of wheat.31                                                    most efficiently. Health concerns among industrial-country
    Any measures that raise crop yields on irrigated land also       consumers are reinforcing this shift.
raise the productivity of irrigation water. Similarly, any meas-         The efficiency with which various animals convert grain into
ures that convert grain into animal protein more efficiently in      protein varies widely. With cattle in feedlots, it takes roughly
effect increase water productivity.                                  7 kilograms of grain to produce a 1-kilogram gain in live
    For people consuming unhealthy amounts of livestock prod-        weight. For pork, the figure is over 3 kilograms of grain per kilo-
ucts, moving down the food chain reduces water use. In the           gram of weight gain, for poultry it is just over 2, and for her-
United States, where annual consumption of grain as food and         bivorous species of farmed fish (such as carp, tilapia, and
feed averages some 800 kilograms (four fifths of a ton) per per-     catfish), it is less than 2. As the market shifts production to the
son, a modest reduction in the consumption of meat, milk, and        more grain-efficient products, it raises the productivity of both
eggs could easily cut grain use per person by 100 kilograms. For     land and water.35
300 million Americans, such a reduction would cut grain use by           Global beef production, most of which comes from range-
30 million tons and irrigation water use by 30 billion tons.32       lands, grew less than 1 percent a year from 1990 to 2006.
    Reducing water use to the sustainable yield of aquifers and      Growth in the number of cattle feedlots was minimal. Pork
rivers worldwide involves a wide range of measures not only in       production grew by 2.6 percent annually, and poultry by nearly
agriculture but throughout the economy. The more obvious             5 percent. The rapid growth in poultry production, going from
steps, in addition to more water-efficient irrigation practices      41 million tons in 1990 to 83 million tons in 2006 enabled poul-
and more water-efficient crops, include adopting more water-         try to eclipse beef in 1996, moving it into second place behind
efficient industrial processes and using more water-efficient        pork. World pork production, half of it now in China, overtook
household appliances. Recycling urban water supplies is anoth-       beef production in 1979 and has continued to widen the lead
er obvious step to consider in countries facing acute water          since then.36
shortages.                                                               Fast-growing, highly grain-efficient fish farm output may
184                                                    PLAN B 3.0     Feeding Eight Billion Well                                     185
also overtake beef production within the next decade or so. In        enal growth of aquaculture. Today aquacultural output in
fact, aquaculture has been the fastest-growing source of animal       China--at 30 million tons--is double that of poultry, making it
protein since 1990, largely because herbivorous fish convert feed     the first major country where fish farming has eclipsed poultry
into protein so efficiently. Aquacultural output expanded from        farming.41
13 million tons in 1990 to 48 million tons in 2005, growing by            China's aquaculture is often integrated with agriculture,
more than 9 percent a year.37                                         enabling farmers to use agricultural wastes, such as pig or duck
    Public attention has focused on aquacultural operations that      manure, to fertilize ponds, thus stimulating the growth of
are environmentally inefficient or disruptive, such as the farm-      plankton on which the fish feed. Fish polyculture, which com-
ing of salmon, a carnivorous species, and shrimp. These opera-        monly boosts pond productivity over that of monocultures by
tions account for 4.7 million tons of output, less than 10 percent    at least half, is widely practiced in both China and India.42
of the global farmed fish total, but they are growing fast.               With incomes now rising in densely populated Asia, other
Salmon are inefficient in that they are fed other fish, usually as    countries are following China's aquacultural lead. Among them
fishmeal, which comes either from fish processing wastes or           are Thailand and Viet Nam. Viet Nam, for example, devised a
from low-value fish caught specifically for this purpose. Shrimp      plan in 2001 of developing 700,000 hectares of land in the
farming often involves the destruction of coastal mangrove            Mekong Delta for aquaculture, which now produces more than
forests to create areas for the shrimp.38                             1 million tons of fish and shrimp.43
    Worldwide, aquaculture is dominated by herbivorous                    In the United States, catfish, which require less than 2 kilo-
species--mainly carp in China and India, but also catfish in the      grams of feed per kilogram of live weight, is the leading aqua-
United States and tilapia in several countries--and shellfish.        cultural product. U.S. annual catfish production of 600 million
This is where the great growth potential for efficient animal         pounds (about two pounds per person) is concentrated in the
protein production lies.                                              South. Mississippi, with easily 60 percent of U.S. output, is the
    China, the world's leading producer, accounts for an              catfish capital of the world.44
astounding two thirds of global fish farm output. Aquacultural            When we think of soybeans in our daily diet, it is typically as
production in China is dominated by finfish (mostly carp),            tofu, veggie burgers, or other meat substitutes. But most of the
which are produced inland in freshwater ponds, lakes, reser-          world's fast-growing soybean harvest is consumed indirectly in
voirs, and rice paddies, and by shellfish (mostly oysters, clams,     the beef, pork, poultry, milk, eggs, and farmed fish that we eat.
and mussels), which are produced mostly in coastal regions.39         Although not a visible part of our diets, the incorporation of
    Over time, China has also developed a fish polyculture using      soybean meal into feed rations has revolutionized the world feed
four types of carp that feed at different levels of the food chain,   industry, greatly increasing the efficiency with which grain is
in effect emulating natural aquatic ecosystems. Silver carp and       converted into animal protein.45
bighead carp are filter feeders, eating phytoplankton and zoo-            In 2007, the world's farmers produced 222 million tons of
plankton respectively. The grass carp, as its name implies, feeds     soybeans--1 ton for every 9 tons of grain produced. Of this,
largely on vegetation, while the common carp is a bottom feed-        some 20 million tons were consumed directly as tofu or meat
er, living on detritus. These four species thus form a small          substitutes. The bulk of the remaining 202 million tons, after
ecosystem, with each filling a particular niche. This multi-          some was saved for seed, was crushed in order to extract 37 mil-
species system, which converts feed into high-quality protein         lion tons of soybean oil, separating it from the highly valued,
with remarkable efficiency, allowed China to produce some 14          high-protein meal.46
million tons of carp in 2005.40                                           The 160 million or so tons of protein-rich soybean meal that
    While poultry production has grown rapidly in China, as in        remain after the oil is extracted is fed to cattle, pigs, chicken,
other developing countries, it has been dwarfed by the phenom-        and fish. Combining soybean meal with grain in roughly one
186                                                   PLAN B 3.0    Feeding Eight Billion Well                                   187
part meal to four parts grain dramatically boosts the efficiency    on ruminants and roughage, has evolved in four provinces in
with which grain is converted into animal protein, sometimes        eastern China--Hebei, Shangdong, Henan, and Anhui--where
nearly doubling it.47                                               double cropping of winter wheat and corn is common.
    The world's three largest meat producers--China, the Unit-      Although wheat straw and cornstalks are often used as fuel for
ed States, and Brazil--now all rely heavily on soybean meal as a    cooking, villagers are shifting to other sources of energy for
protein supplement in feed rations.48                               this, which lets them feed the straw and cornstalks to cattle.
    The use of soybean meal in livestock feed, poultry, and fish    Supplementing this roughage with small amounts of nitrogen in
both replaces some grain in feed and increases the efficiency       the form of urea allows the microflora in the complex four-
with which the remaining grain is converted into livestock prod-    stomach digestive system of cattle to convert roughage into ani-
ucts. This helps explain why the share of the world grain har-      mal protein more efficiently.54
vest used for feed has not increased over the last 20 years even        These four crop-producing provinces in China, dubbed the
though production of meat, milk, eggs, and farmed fish has          Beef Belt by officials, use crop residues to produce much more
climbed. It also explains why world soybean production has          beef than the vast grazing provinces in the northwest do. The
increased nearly 14-fold since 1950.49                              use of crop residues to produce milk in India and beef in China
    Mounting pressures on land and water resources have led to      lets farmers reap a second harvest from the original grain crop,
the evolution of some promising new animal protein production       thus boosting both land and water productivity.55
systems that are based on roughage rather than grain, such as           Although these new protein models have evolved in India
milk production in India. Since 1970, India's milk production       and China, both densely populated countries, similar systems
has increased more than fourfold, jumping from 21 million to 96     can be adopted in other countries as population pressures inten-
million tons. In 1997 India overtook the United States to become    sify, as demand for meat and milk increases, and as farmers seek
the world's leading producer of milk and other dairy products.50    new ways to convert plant products into animal protein.
    The spark for this explosive growth came in 1965 when an            The world desperately needs more new protein production
enterprising young Indian, Dr. Verghese Kurien, organized the       techniques such as these. Meat consumption is growing twice as
National Dairy Development Board, an umbrella organization          fast as population, egg consumption is growing nearly three times
of dairy cooperatives. The dairy coop's principal purpose was       as fast, and growth in the demand for fish--both from the oceans
to market the milk from tiny herds that typically averaged two      and from fish farms--is also outpacing that of population.56
to three cows each, providing the link between the growing mar-         While the world has had many years of experience in feeding
ket for dairy products and the millions of village families who     an additional 70 million people each year, it has no experience
had only a small marketable surplus.51                              with some 5 billion people striving to move up the food chain at
    Creating the market for milk spurred the fourfold growth in     the same time. For a sense of what this translates into, consider
output. In a country where protein shortages stunt the growth       what has happened in China, where record economic growth
of so many children, expanding the milk supply from less than       has in effect telescoped history, showing how diets change when
half a cup per person a day 30 years ago to one cup today rep-      incomes rise rapidly. As recently as 1978, meat consumption in
resents a major advance.52                                          China consisted mostly of modest amounts of pork. Since then,
    What is so remarkable is that India has built the world's       consumption of meat--pork, beef, poultry, and mutton--has
largest dairy industry almost entirely on roughage--wheat           climbed severalfold, pushing China's total meat consumption
straw, rice straw, corn stalks, and grass gathered from the road-   far above that of the United States.57
side. Even so, the value of the milk produced each year now             While diversifying diets has dramatically improved nutrition
exceeds that of the rice harvest.53                                 in China, in most of the developing world nutritional disorders
    A second new protein production model, one that also relies     remain. For example, half the women in the developing world
188                                                     PLAN B 3.0     Feeding Eight Billion Well                                      189
suffer from anemia, the world's most common nutritional defi-              Of the three countries just cited, life expectancy is highest in
ciency. Diets high in starchy food and low in iron-rich foods,         Italy even though U.S. medical expenditures per person are
such as leafy green vegetables, shellfish, nuts, and red meat, lead    much higher. People who live very low or very high on the food
to insufficient iron in the diet, which in turn leads to low birth-    chain do not live as long as those in an intermediate position.
weights and high infant and maternal mortality.58                      Those consuming a Mediterranean type diet that includes meat,
    Encouragingly, a decade of research by the Canadian-based          cheese, and seafood, but all in moderation, are healthier and live
Micronutrient Initiative has succeeded in fortifying salt with         longer. People living high on the food chain, such as Americans
iodine and iron together. Just as iodine fortification of salt elim-   or Canadians, can improve their health by moving down the
inated iodine deficiency diseases, so, too, can the addition of        food chain. For those who live in low-income countries like
iron eliminate iron deficiency diseases. This double-fortified salt    India, where a starchy staple such as rice can supply 60 percent
is being introduced initially in India, Kenya, and Nigeria. The        or more of total caloric intake, eating more protein-rich foods
prospect of eliminating iron deficiency disorders at an annual         can improve health and raise life expectancy.62
cost of 20¢ per person is one of the most exciting new options             In agriculture we often look at how climate affects the food
for improving the human condition in this new century.59               supply but not at how what we eat affects climate. While we
                                                                       understand rather well the link between climate change and the
Moving Down the Food Chain                                             fuel efficiency of the cars we buy, we do not have a comparable
One of the questions I am most often asked is, "How many peo-          understanding of the climate effect of various dietary options.
ple can the earth support?" I answer with another question: "At        Gidon Eshel and Pamela A. Martin of the University of Chica-
what level of food consumption?" Using round numbers, at the           go have addressed this issue. They begin by noting that the ener-
U.S. level of 800 kilograms of grain per person annually for food      gy used in the food economy to provide the typical American
and feed, the 2-billion-ton annual world harvest of grain would        diet and that used for personal transportation are roughly the
support 2.5 billion people. At the Italian level of consumption of     same. In fact, the range between the more and less carbon-
close to 400 kilograms, the current harvest would support 5 bil-       intensive transportation options and dietary options is each
lion people. At the 200 kilograms of grain consumed by the aver-       about 4 to 1. With cars, the Toyota Prius, a gas-electric hybrid,
age Indian, it would support a population of 10 billion.60             uses scarcely one fourth as much fuel as a Chevrolet Suburban
    In every society where incomes rise, people move up the food       SUV Similarly with diets, a plant-based diet requires roughly
                                                                            .
chain, eating more animal protein as beef, pork, poultry, milk,        one fourth as much energy as a diet rich in red meat. Shifting
eggs, and seafood. The mix of animal products varies with              from a diet rich in red meat to a plant-based diet cuts green-
geography and culture, but the shift to more livestock products        house gas emissions as much as shifting from a Suburban SUV
as purchasing power increases appears to be universal.                 to a Prius. 63
    As consumption of livestock products, poultry, and farmed              The inclusion of soybean meal in feed rations to convert
fish rises, grain use per person also rises. Of the roughly 800        grain into animal protein more efficiently, the shift by con-
kilograms of grain consumed per person each year in the Unit-          sumers to more grain-efficient forms of animal protein, and the
ed States, about 100 kilograms is eaten directly as bread, pasta,      movement of consumers down the food chain all can help
and breakfast cereals, while the bulk of the grain is consumed         reduce the demand for land, water, and fertilizer. This reduces
indirectly in the form of livestock and poultry products. By con-      carbon emissions and thus helps to stabilize climate as well.
trast, in India, where people consume just under 200 kilograms
of grain per year, or roughly a pound per day, nearly all grain is     Action on Many Fronts
eaten directly to satisfy basic food energy needs. Little is avail-    At this writing in early October 2007, the food prospect does
able for conversion into livestock products.61                         not look particularly promising. Grain prices in recent days
190                                                     PLAN B 3.0     Feeding Eight Billion Well                                    191
have reached historic highs. Wheat has gone over $9 a bushel for       efficiency of water use. With water, as with energy, the principal
the first time in history--more than double the figure a year ear-     opportunities now are on the demand side in increasing water-
lier. International food aid flows are being slashed as rising         use efficiency, not on expanding the supply.
grain prices collide with fixed budgets.64                                 In a world where cropland is scarce and becoming more so,
    If we continue with business as usual, the number of hungry        decisions made in the Ministry of Transportation on whether to
people will soar. More and more, those on the lower rungs of           develop auto-centered systems or more-diversified transport
the global economic ladder are losing their tenuous grip and are       systems that are less land-intensive, including light rail, buses,
beginning to fall off. Cheap food may now be history.                  and bicycles, will directly affect world food security. Trans-
    Historically, the responsibility for food security rested large-   portation policies that diversify transport systems and reduce
ly with the Ministry of Agriculture. During the last half of the       fossil fuel use will also help stabilize climate.
last century, ensuring adequate supplies of grain in the world             Decisions made by governments on the production of crop-
market at a time of surplus production capacity was a relative-        based automotive fuels are already affecting grain supplies and
ly simple matter. Whenever the world grain harvest fell short          prices. Given the turmoil in world grain markets in late 2007, it
and prices started to rise, the U.S. Department of Agriculture         is time for the U.S. government to place a moratorium on the
would return to production the cropland that had been idled            licensing of any more grain-based ethanol distilleries.
under commodity-supply management programs, thus boosting                  And finally, we have a role to play as individuals. Whether we
output and stabilizing prices. This era ended in 1996 when             bike or drive to work will affect carbon emissions, climate
the United States discontinued its annual cropland set-aside           change, and food security. The size of the car we drive to the
program.65                                                             supermarket may affect the size of the bill at the supermarket
    Now in our overpopulated, climate-changing, water-scarce           checkout counter. If we are living high on the food chain, we can
world, food security is a matter for the entire society and for all    move down, improving our health while helping to stabilize
government ministries. Since hunger is almost always the result        climate. Food security is something in which we all have a
of poverty, eradicating hunger depends on eradicating poverty.         stake--and a responsibility.
And where populations are outrunning their land and water
resources, eradicating hunger also depends on stabilizing popu-
lation. Our Plan B goal is to stabilize world population by 2040
at the 8-billion level. This will not be easy, but the alternative
may be a halt in population growth because of rising mortality.
    The new reality is that the Ministry of Energy may have a
greater influence on future food security than the Ministry of
Agriculture. The principal threat to food security today is cli-
mate change from the burning of fossil fuels. It is the Ministry
of Energy's responsibility to minimize crop-withering heat
waves, to prevent the melting of the glaciers that feed Asia's
major rivers during the dry season, and to prevent the ice sheet
melting that would inundate the river deltas and floodplains
that produce much of the Asian rice harvest.
    And where water is often a more serious constraint on
expanding food production than land, it will be up to the Min-
istry of Water Resources to do everything possible to raise the