Vancouver, Canada (GLOBE-Net) - In what many have been calling a perfect storm, food prices are being driven up around the world resulting in violent protests in developing nations.  Several causes have contributed to this storm, such as oil prices and China’s economic growth, but what is rarely mentioned is the developed word’s unsustainable agricultural practices.

Since 2002 food prices have risen 65% and there is no sign of a reprieve and the World Bank predicts that food prices will remain high until 2015.  From early 2006 to early this year, global prices for wheat rose by at least 180 per cent, the World Bank said in a recent report.

In 2007 alone, according to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization’s world food index, dairy prices rose nearly 80 percent and grain 42 percent.

The rise in food prices has had a profound impact on developing countries where a disproportionate percentage of income, up to 50%, is spent on food.  There have been reports of starvation and protests, many of which have turned to violence and riots.

"This perfect storm has hit with a speed and intensity that very few predicted," said Michael Usnick, of the World Food Programme.

Unsustainable Agriculture

A significant contribution to the problem is the agricultural practices and demands of the developed world.  The demand for more meat and bio-fuels is leading to inadequate use of agricultural resources.

From 2000 to 2002, consumers in the United States ate on average approximately 38.5 million tons of meat per year, second only to China, according to the FAO analysis. In those same years, the United Kingdom consumed nearly 5 million tons of meat each year.

Unfortunately each pound of beef takes about seven pounds of grain to produce.  Similarly a pound of wheat can be grown with 60 pounds of water, whereas a pound of meat requires 2,500 to 6,000 pounds.  There are currently 20 billion head of livestock taking up space on the Earth, more than triple the number of people.  Most of this livestock is used to feed the developed nations.

In an effort to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and the need for oil, developed nations are also now producing large amounts of biofuels from crops.  As food prices climb and droughts persist, many believe using food and agricultural land as an energy source is adding to the problem.  The United States is expected to double its biofuel use by 2020 and the European Union’s climate plan calls for 20% of vehicle fuels to come from biofuels by 2020.

"Turning food into fuel for cars is a major mistake on many fronts." said Janet Larsen, director of research at the Earth Policy Institute, an environmental group based in Washington. "One, we’re already seeing higher food prices in the American supermarket. Two, perhaps more serious from a global perspective, we’re seeing higher food prices in developing countries where it’s escalated as far as people rioting in the streets."

According to a recent paper, The Multilateral Trade and Investment Context for Biofuels: Issues and Challenges, current biofuel feedstocks are energy-intensive and involve largely industrial-scale monocultural production (the use of one crop, with genetic uniformity).  In parts of the world, biofuel feedstock production is taking a heavy environmental toll on water, soil and ecological biodiversity.  The paper was published by the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy (IATP) and the London-based International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED).

Similar to growing livestock for meat, producing biofuel from crops is a net energy loss.

Although monocultures produce large yields they have very little resilience are more prone to catastrophic failure than crops used in rotation.   A change in weather patterns or a single pathogen is enough to destroy entire fields.

"This [bio-fuel] industry has developed so quickly that governments at all levels, but particularly at the global level, have been slow to set rules on how to manage its growth," said Sophia Murphy, IATP Senior Advisor and author of the paper.  "Such guidelines could carve out space for policies that are dictated by human rights and environmental norms, and could help to reshape trade and investment obligations to be more supportive of sustainable development."

Developing Sustainably

The current situation demonstrates how a variety of environmental and socio-economic factors are coming together to threaten a basic necessity of life, food.

More importantly it draws attention to the issue that in a new age of ‘sustainable development’, much of the developed world is living unsustainably and the developing world is once again paying the price.

Energy consumption, land use, water consumption and agricultural practices of developed nations are all contributing in large part to rise in food commodity prices.  "If you look at the world as a whole, there is enough food produced to feed each person, each day," said John Lupien, Director of FAO’s Food and Nutrition Division. "But it isn’t happening."

Through market forces, government action and public awareness and some small sacrifices, the developed world has begun to shift to sustainable energy and many developed nations have been able to utilize this new technology.  The very same forces may be the key helping secure a sustainable food source for the future.

"The recent rise in global food commodity prices is more than just a short-term blip," British think tank Chatham House said in January. "Society will have to decide the value to be placed on food and how … market forces can be reconciled with domestic policy objectives."