It is no surprise that the world is facing a looming shortage of food and edible oils.
Every market has two sides – demand and supply.
On the demand side, increasing population and prosperity, especially in China, Brazil and India, must boost the demand for food.
Normally this would increase food prices thus encouraging more production by farmers.
Unfortunately, the western world is afflicted by an epidemic of anti-food legislation.
Four foolish food policies stand out.
Firstly, we have a massive diversion of cropland from producing food for humans to producing ethanol and biofuels for cars.
Secondly, we have destruction of cropping and grazing land by conversion to carbon credit forests.
Thirdly, there is a gradual suffocation of grazing land by a new politically protected species – woody weeds.
Finally, we have the gradual creation of agricultural and horticultural deserts by the artificial droughts caused by the progressive political squeeze on irrigation water.
We are told that all this anti-food legislation will save the environment and cool the climate by a degree or so over the next century.
The real aim is to harvest green votes.
Starving people will not appreciate this barren harvest.
Viv Forbes, Chairman, The Carbon Sense Coalition, has spent his life working in exploration, mining, farming, infrastructure, financial analysis and political commentary. He has worked for government departments, private companies and now works as a private contractor and farmer.
Viv has also been a guest writer for the Asian Wall Street Journal, Business Queensland and mining newspapers. He was awarded the “Australian Adam Smith Award for Services to the Free Society” in 1988, and has written widely on political, technical and economic subjects.
