There Are No Food Shortages

Kent WA

Description

These days, it is almost impossible to avoid news stories about how we are on the brink of a devastating food crisis, how we only have a few weeks’ worth of wheat left, and how getting out some 20 million tons of grain stuck in Ukraine could determine the fate of the world’s hungry. These stories are eye-catching and bound to induce hoarding, panic buying, and beggar-thy-neighbor behavior. They are also inaccurate. There are three main problems with these headlines. They conflate access and affordability with availability We have enough food to feed everyone. Sure, there are concerns over impacts from erratic weather and fallout from this tragic war in Ukraine, but we still have sufficient supplies. This year’s forecast for cereal production–which includes the staples wheat, maize, and rice–stands at 2,784.5 million tons, a drop from last year’s 2,800 million tons but still higher than the 2018-2020 average of 2,711.4 million tons, according to the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). We are producing more meat and milk this year too. The issue is access and/or affordability–the main causes of hunger and starvation in today’s world. In many instances, they are a result of political decisions. “As of today, the world has no global shortage of food, but food is quite expensive and people’s wages have not adjusted yet,” said David Laborde, a senior research fellow at the Washington D.C.-based think tank International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), who has been tracking stock levels. “The main issue is that we have problems moving this food around, either due to the war or export restrictions. Of course, bad weather and lack of fertilizers could lead to an availability problem next year. But we are not there yet,” he added. The export figures only tell 24.7% of the story What is traded internationally is a fraction of total production. Most of the food we produce around the world is consumed locally.