Extraordinary events are taking place in the global food market. The price of wheat, soya, maize and milk products has more than doubled in the last few years as demand has outstripped supply for the first time since the second world war. Why? The world's population is growing, but not at an accelerating pace. Yet millions of poor people, especially in China, can now afford to buy meat, and the production of animal protein requires a much larger input per kilo than that of vegetables. The average Chinese citizen eats 30 per cent more meat now than five years ago. Second, there have been a series of poor harvests across the world. And third, many western countries are subsidising farmers to switch from food to renewable energy crops.
Over 200 years ago, Thomas Malthus argued that population would outrun food supply, and that without stern limits on reproduction the world was heading for disaster. So far, he has proved utterly mistaken; the world's population has increased tenfold and there is less starvation than in his day. But the global population will probably rise from 6.5bn to 9bn by 2050, which will require the world's farmers to produce more food in the next 40 years than in the past 200. The Malthusian predictions were wrong for 200 years, but might prove right in the next 50.
In 1800, Britain, like most countries, gave farmers extensive levels of protection in order to keep food prices high and the ruling landlords happy. The price of wheat was higher in 1815 than in 1960.
But as migration from the countryside to the towns quickened in the 1830s, the high cost and limited availability of food created political tensions and many uprisings across Europe. In 1846, the Tory prime minister, Robert Peel, repealed the corn laws, making it possible to import cheap food from other parts of the world. The effects were dramatic. The restless urban poor were mollified, and the Tories were split for over 20 years. The coinciding development of railways, fast ships and agricultural machinery opened up the plains of North America for the supply of cheap food to Europe.
1846 was a watershed for British agriculture and British politics. Victorian England adopted free-trade policies which suited the masses, if not the farmers. The latter, however, also substantially increased their productivity with the development of artificial fertilisers and the horse-drawn reaper and binder.
This problem has been exacerbated by the impact of scientific and technological innovation on agricultural productivity over the past 60 years. Outputs—per hectare, per milking cow, per breeding pig—have trebled. Developments in herbicides, pesticides and antibiotics have brought most animal and plant diseases and predators under control. Remarkable new techniques have, through breeding, improved the output of plants and animals. Chemical applications have shortened and stiffened stems of plants, enabling them to absorb more fertiliser and to cope with inclement weather. Had the storms of this summer occurred 30 years ago, 90 per cent of the country's cereal crops would have been flattened. As it was, less than 5 per cent collapsed, thanks to "straw stiffeners."
The technological revolution has been even more dramatic. After the war, horsepower was still the main source of European farm energy. Today it is the tractor and the combine harvester.
These developments have transformed farm output. High-speed machines result in shorter, quicker harvests, with less food lost to the weather. More land has been brought into cultivation. At the same time, fewer people are needed to handle these huge increases in output. Sixty years ago a 900-acre arable farm might have employed 40 people. Today, my son manages such a farm with one other person.
As a result of all this, although the world's population has trebled during my lifetime, the world is better fed than it ever was. When shortages occur, as they still do in Africa, famine arises because of logistical and political failure. The food is available but in the wrong place.
As for British farmers, they have been the victims of their own success. They often complain that the country is vulnerable to food shortages. In fact, Britain is about 70 per cent self-sufficient in indigenous food compared with 40 per cent in 1940. Back then, all our bread was made from North American wheat; now, most of it comes from British farms.
However, all this scientific and technological development has come at a price. European surpluses are dumped on world markets, destroying the livelihoods of farmers in poor countries. The reckless use of chemicals endangers wildlife and plant species. To accommodate larger machines, hedges have been removed and landscapes have been damaged. Farming has become a major source of pollution and greenhouse gas emissions. And there are indications that overintensive breeding and production is causing health breakdown in animals.
As a result, environmental pressure groups have grown in size and influence, absorbing the energy of people who, a generation before, would have been worrying about the British poor. The organic farming movement, which forbids the use of most but not all agrichemicals in food production, has become a powerful political influence—while only around 2 per cent of the food produced here is organic, the figure is growing steadily.
Moreover, the postwar aspiration to keep people on the land has failed as the numbers of people engaged in farming has reduced fivefold. Indeed, in affluent Britain, much of the farming industry would be in crisis without the hundreds of thousands of migrant workers.
But now, almost overnight, everything seems to have changed. Global demand for food is, as Malthus predicted, running ahead of supply, for the reasons I mentioned at the beginning. Two years ago, I was selling wheat for £65 per tonne. Today I can get £175. Milk product prices are also escalating, and although farmers producing meat are suffering now, in time they too will get their own rewards. In China, the rise in inflation—currently at 6.5 per cent and still moving upwards—is all down to food prices. Pork has risen by 50 per cent this year.
Are these trends likely to continue, and if so, what are the implications? Will 2007 be an agricultural watershed to compare with 1846 and 1947?
Global population will continue to rise. The poorer countries' economies will also prosper, which will result in more well-fed, meat-eating people. Demand for food will increase by between 50 and 100 per cent, depending on the scale of the switch from vegetarian to meat consumption. Climate change will distort weather patterns to the disadvantage of most farmers, although those in the affluent, temperate north may benefit. And finally, many governments remain committed to a big increase in renewable energy from crops.
For the past 200 years, it has been possible to meet increasing food demands by bringing more land into production. But today the estimate is that there is no more than 5 per cent spare land for that purpose. Food production absorbs 70 per cent of the rainwater that falls on land. Because of climate change, rain supply will become more volatile, with more floods and droughts, both of which make life difficult for farmers.
If the world's farmers are unable to meet demand for food, the economic and political consequences will be serious. Food inflation could endanger economic growth, and food shortage could create political instability in the developing world. Global trade liberalisation, which has been a key factor in reducing international political tensions, could be reversed if countries decide to protect their domestic supplies of food. The poorer countries could become too reliant on food from the more affluent north European and American temperate zones, which in turn will exacerbate problems of labour shortages in these areas, resulting in further controversial migrations.
In order to avoid such a Malthusian catastrophe, three things must happen. As before, scientific and technological innovation will be key, but this time the task is not to cultivate more land, but to substantially improve the output of existing cultivated land. Yet in the west, the environmental groups are resisting such innovation, notably, but not exclusively, with regard to genetic modification (see "The real GM food scandal" by Dick Taverne, Prospect November 2007).
The case against the irresponsible use of science and technology cannot easily be dismissed, but in the past few years regulations have tightened up and scientists have responded to public concern. Environmentalists must recognise this and be ready to compromise. The quickest way to deliver Malthus's dire prediction would be for the world to go organic.
Science and technology can confound Malthus in two ways. First, if farmers in poorer countries become more prosperous, they will be able to afford the science and technology which has transformed productivity in Europe, North America and Australasia. That will substantially increase global food production.
In addition, genetic modification could develop plants which are more resistant to weather extremes, especially drought and plant and animal diseases. The technique could also reduce the reliance on agrichemicals, to the benefit of the environment. Both conventional and organic farmers are responsible for large amounts of CO2 emissions from their tractors, and ploughing is the biggest use of tractor power. Genetic modification could significantly reduce the quantity of ploughing in the world.
We should review policies that promote the growth of renewable energy crops, such as wheat and oilseed rape, in order to reduce dependence on oil. Are these crops creating the environmental benefit their proponents claim? Can the world risk a substantial switch away from food production?
If Malthus is to be proved wrong, we, as individuals, must stop using energy at the rate we do, and wasting food to the extent that we do. At present we waste nearly half of the food we produce, throwing perfectly good food away in our kitchens, restaurants and shops. The most virtuous and responsible step of all would be to become vegetarian. About three quarters of the world's wheat, maize and soya is fed to animals who then convert this, very inefficiently, into meat for us to eat. Something else to bear in mind is that our consumption of milk products maintains demand for millions of cows, each of which, through its burping and farting, does more environmental damage than the average family car.
Farming has reached a watershed, and if people continue to behave selfishly or irrationally, the Malthusian chickens will come home to roost. After 2050, world population is forecast to stabilise or even decline. In the meantime, we must rely on human ingenuity and common sense to see us through.
