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 Limitations of biotechnology Why Malthus is still relevant today Malthus’s An Essay on the Principle of Population (1798) claimed that population growth would eventually reduce the world’s ability to feed itself. He based his conclusion on the theory that populations tend to increase more quickly than can food production.1 His predictions did not come to pass because he failed to predict the agricultural and industrial revolutions that would substantially increase yields and enable larger amounts of people to be fed. However, today, issues such as continuing population growth, rising per capita consumption, depletion of natural resources and climate change suggest that Malthus might have been on the right track after all. Over the intervening centuries, technological advances in agriculture such as the development of genetically modified (GM) seeds have been praised as the solutions to eradicating poverty and incidences of famine as they would increase food production levels and reduce herbicide and pesticide use. However, a report supported by Friends of the Earth International, the Center for Food Safety (US), Confédération Paysanne and the Gaia foundation (2011) suggests that GM crops have failed to improve quality of life, especially in developing countries: yields don’t pay back the investment in GM seeds, pushing poor farmers even more into debt and forcing some of them to renounce on GM crops completely. The emergence of superweeds and superbugs has also made it more difficult and more expensive to combat elements which can cause significant crop damage and, subsequently, food insecurity. The benefits promised by the biotech companies were also reported by the International Journal of Biotechnology (2008) as having completely disappeared in China.2 Additionally, the speed of crop yield growth is slowing, especially for wheat. This is critical in the face of an expanding population because scientists are starting to cast doubt on the ability of food production to indefinitely keep up with demand.3 Why Malthus is still relevant today | 1 Environment & climate change Intensive agricultural methods are also harmful to the environment. Agriculture is said to be responsible for about one third of climate change, with a quarter of carbon dioxide emissions being produced by the use of fossil fuel-­‐based fertilizers, the burning of biomass and deforestation. Climate change will have devastating consequences on agricultural conditions, food security and even food supply.4 Agriculture’s contribution to climate change is important because, while food is being produced, changes in climatic conditions as a result of greenhouse gas emissions are threatening agriculture’s ability to cater to the needs of an ever-­‐
growing global population. Climate change increases the intensity and frequency of multiple disasters such as droughts, floods and storms, which can cause crop failure, the destruction of critical infrastructure and key community assets5 and a reduction in the amount of available land for agriculture. In addition, climate change-­‐
induced variations in temperature and rainfall are expected to interact with weeds, fertilizers, insects, plant pathogens, atmospheric gases and the organic matter of soil to produce unanticipated responses. For instance, if the temperature increases beyond a certain threshold, a crop’s productive summer growing season could reduce, causing a decrease in yields.6 The European Commission has stated that climatic changes in the E.U (changes in rainfall patterns, heatwaves, droughts, storms, floods, etc.) will mostly have a negative effect on agriculture, especially in the southern and south-­‐eastern regions.7 Reductions in water availability and precipitation, as well as extreme heat events in these regions, are expected to hamper crop productivity. Variations in yearly crop yields are also expected because of pests, diseases and Why Malthus is still relevant today | 2 extreme weather events. For instance, it is probable that Western and south-­‐eastern Europe will see reductions in crop yields because of hot and dry summers, without the option of shifting crop production into winter as in parts of the Mediterranean area.8 It is also predicted that changes in temperature and rainfall patterns could lead to a 3 – 84 per cent surge in food prices.9 If this were to occur, the implications for poorer and larger households would be disastrous. Projected water scarcity In the last hundred years, water use has been growing more than twice as fast as the rate of population increase, and water scarcity affects every continent: 1.2 billion people live in regions of physical scarcity, 500 million people are close to reaching that situation, and another 1.6 billion are faced with economic water shortage because some countries do not have the necessary infrastructure to extract water from rivers and aquifers. Currently, water scarcity is both a natural and an anthropogenic phenomenon and there is still enough for seven billion people. However, it is unevenly distributed and a large proportion of it is polluted, wasted and unsustainably managed. If the situation does not change, nearly half of the global population could be living in areas of high water stress by 2030.10 Water scarcity also has severe implications for food production. According to the International Food Policy Research Institute, the biggest limitation to food production by 2025 will be water. Not only is this resource already scarce, but it is facing considerable and unsustainable demand from multiple users, and farmers are increasingly competing for water with industries and urban residents. Under the current water policies and the global model of supply and demand for food and water, farmers will find it more and more difficult to meet the world’s food needs. Further disregard for investments and policies related to water will engender a severe water crisis, which will in turn cause a food crisis.11 The agricultural sector consumes approximately 70 per cent of the earth’s accessible freshwater, and food-­‐producing countries such as the US, Australia, Spain, India, Pakistan and China have already reached, or are close to reaching, their renewable water resource limits. The main reasons for unsustainable and wasteful water use are: cultivation of thirsty crops that are not suited to the environment, wasteful application methods and leaky irrigation systems. The problem is further exacerbated by weak environmental legislation, low political and public awareness of the crisis and misdirected subsidies.12 Why Malthus is still relevant today | 3 The impact of El Niño Conclusion El Niño is a weather pattern where warm waters of the central Pacific expand eastward towards North and South America. The current El Niño cycle has contributed to 2015 being the warmest year in history, and the phenomenon is so powerful that aid agencies are expecting an increase in the threat of hunger and disease for millions in 2016. More incidences of drought and flooding are anticipated, with the worst impacts likely to be in Africa where food shortages are forecasted to peak in February 2016. Central America, South America and the Caribbean will also be affected in the next six months. However, El Niño is not only significant for developing countries. They will be more directly affected by natural disasters, but the developed world will be faced with a growth in food prices, especially for coffee, rice, cocoa and sugar.13 The argument that new food production technologies mean indefinite food security is not as evident as it may have been in the past. While biotechnology has helped feed the world’s growing population in recent decades, water scarcity and climate change related weather pattern disruptions are drastically threatening crop yields. Low crop production will lead to a surge in food prices, affecting the most vulnerable and increasing the number of people who are undernourished. Malthus is therefore relevant today because the risk of famine is still present. As the global population continues to grow and food supply is increasingly threatened, the idea that global population will, one day, outstrip the world’s ability to feed itself does not seem that far-­‐fetched. 1
http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/historic_figures/m
althus_thomas.shtml 2
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2011
/oct/19/gm-­‐crops-­‐insecurity-­‐superweeds-­‐
pesticides 3
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014
/mar/31/climate-­‐change-­‐food-­‐supply-­‐un 4
http://www.climate.org/topics/agriculture.html 5
http://www.wfp.org/climate-­‐change/climate-­‐
impacts 6
http://ciesin.org/docs/004-­‐138/004-­‐138.html 7
http://ec.europa.eu/agriculture/climate-­‐
change/factsheet_en.pdf 8
http://www.eea.europa.eu/signals/signals-­‐
2015/articles/agriculture-­‐and-­‐climate-­‐change 9
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014
/mar/31/climate-­‐change-­‐food-­‐supply-­‐un 10
https://www.un.org/waterforlifedecade/scarcity
.shtml 11
http://www.sidnlps.org.pk/available_online/wat
er2025-­‐tanveer.pdf 12
http://wwf.panda.org/what_we_do/footprint/a
griculture/impacts/water_use/ 13
http://www.bbc.com/news/science-­‐
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