Era Of Cheap World Food Ending 1/3/2007 9:54:00 AM
OXFORD (Dow Jones)--The era of cheap global food supplies is drawing to an close, according to Peter Kendall, president of the National Farmers Union for England and Wales.
Addressing the Oxford Farming Conference Wednesday, Kendall said agriculture will be more greatly valued due to world population growth, biofuel demand driven by energy security concerns and climate change.
“We will need to double our world agricultural production by 2050,“ Kendall said.
He said the world’s population is expected to increase about 3 billion people by 2050. In addition, expanding economies of Asia will meaning changing dietary habits.
David Miliband, U.K. Secretary of State for Environmental, Food and Rural Affairs also told the conference that demand for global meat and milk production will more than double to 465 million tons and 1,043 million tons, respectively.
Kendall added that because of awareness of energy security, more of the world’s agricultural giants such as the U.S. and Brazil are using foodstuffs to produce biofuel.
In the U.S. “from July 2005 to November 2006 ground was broken on a new ethanol plant every nine days,“ said Kendall. Those plants will consume 39 million metric tons of grain, most corn, on top of the 41 million tons already used for biofuel, he added.
Miliband added, “Over the next two decades the market in biofuels will grow substantially.“
