theres enough food for just seven more meals

Forget climate change, who will feed the world?

By Kath Sullivan

Tuesday, 22/07/2008

When asked how he was interpreting the government's plans for a carbon pollution reduction scheme (CPRS) all South Gippsland Agricultural Consultant, Geoff Kirton could think about was eating - on a global scale.

Mr Kirton says that new figures released by the UN last week say that if every person in the world were to adapt a western style diet, there's enough food for just seven more meals per person.

He says "the real fundamental that isn't addressed in any of this work in climate change is the fact that the world's population will increase by 50 per cent by 2050. All this work shows that there's going to be a reduction in productivity in agriculture through climate change. No one has actually overlayed how we're going to feed people or what affect it's going to have on the cost of food to the consumer."

Mr Kirton says "the world is running out of food.... we need to be looking at what we can do, including climate change, to keep the world's population fed. Wars are going to be faught over food. We're already seeing this unrest in quite a number in countries. We're seeing also that Japan has run out of butter recently. And the Japanese Government has been to Australia and New Zealand recently and now they're in Europe looking to buy 5,000 tonnes of butter to sure up the supply of butter. There is literally no butter on the shelves in Japan".

For farmers in Gippsland he says "we've got a real opportunity, climate change is going to be less here than in other parts of Australia. It means that the area that has been the food bowl of Australia will most likely move down here.... It means the potential is with us".

http://www.abc.net.au/rural/vic/content/2006/s2310856.htm