We read in Matthew (24:7) that in the last days “there shall be famines, and pestilences, and earthquakes in divers places.” Pestilences we know about. AIDS is a disease which is becoming more and more common and for which there is no cure. We are increasingly hearing of outbreaks of the flesh-eating ebola disease and meningitis — two viruses that kill in a matter of hours after exposure.
We also know about earthquakes. It seems that almost every night on the TV somewhere there has been an earthquake. Since the beginning of 1995 there have been earthquakes in Japan, Taiwan, New Zealand, Greece, China, Albania, Mexico, Java and Cyprus. What about famines? While some famines have been reported, particularly in Africa, they have, for the most part, been rather isolated cases. The intent of this article is to explore the possibility of a famine on a much wider scale.
Inventories at record lows
The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) has recently said the world faces a crisis in basic cereal supply. The Canadian Wheat Board has stated the world is one drought away from disaster. The concern by these organizations is based on world stock-to-use ratios for wheat and coarse grains.
Stocks-to-use ratios are used by world forecasters to judge the relative
The USDA, in its most recent annual “Wheat Situation” yearbook, has estimated the world stocks-to-use ratio for wheat in the 1994-95 crop year to be 20.6%. This is the lowest level on record. They project the stocks-to-use ratio will drop even further in the 1995-96 crop year to 18.2%. The world coarse grain stocks-to-use ratio is 11%. While this is not a record low, it is nearly so.
Invariably grain prices move inversely with stocks-to-use ratios. As a result, in the last year we have already seen the wheat price increase 20%, the corn price 18% and the oats prices doubling.
Why stocks are low
How did the world stocks get so low? There is a combination of factors at play — varying from cash-strapped governments to international grain policy to climatic conditions. The most important factor is that which man has no control over — climatic conditions. In the last couple of years, various parts of the world have been experiencing adverse weather conditions, ranging all the way from drought to floods.
Russia and Eastern Europe are experiencing drought for the third consecutive year. This year the drought has affected a total of 32 Russian regions. The Russian grain harvest is projected at 61 million tons. This is the lowest level since the 1960’s and is 25% lower than last year’s harvest of 81 million tons, which was considered low in itself.
For comparison purposes, in 1990, the Russian grain harvest was 117 million tons. Note in addition to bad weather conditions, the Russian harvest is also suffering from a cash-strapped government which has no money to give to producers to pay for fertilizer, fuel and machinery. Russia is applying less than half the fertilizer to its crops than it did in 1989. There is fear within Russia that it is in danger of losing arable land for good through degradation and exhaustion because of the reduction in fertilizer use. On-farm fuel stocks are between 70-80% lower than last year. The number of combine grain harvesters in Russia has fallen from 620,000 in 1990 to 346,000 in 1994, because producers have no money to repair them, and are expected to fall further this year.
Trouble in other areas
Other major grain-producing countries are faring only a little better. A drought in Australia in 1994 cut its wheat production in half, from 16 million to 9 million tons, and its barley production from 7 million to 3 million tons. This year, although Australian production has recovered, yields are still below normal because of an unusually heavy frost. Argentinian wheat production in 1995-96 is expected to drop from its 11 million ton level in 1994-95 to 8 million this year because of a severe drought.
While North America has not experienced a climatic production catastrophe, U.S. and Canadian yields for corn are turning out to be lower than expected. Wheat production, particularly in Canada, has been reduced over the last couple of seasons as a result of the low prices engendered by the USEU subsidy war. Because of domestic shortages in its internal grain market, however, the European Union has temporarily suspended all its subsidized grain exports as has the U.S.
Reasons for media silence
If the situation is so critical, why hasn’t the public media paid more attention to the present grain dearth? The reason is because world forecasters are expecting grain production to rebound next year. Total grain production will be dependent upon acreage planted and yields obtained.
Because of the exorbitantly high grain prices this year, producers worldwide are expected to plant from fence post to fence post next year to take advantage of these high prices. Further, both the United States and the European Union currently have large tracts of land idled through government programs. These programs consist of paying the producers not to produce, and are called set-asides. The European Union has already announced its intention to cut its set-aside next year down from 15% to 12%, allowing producers to plant more acreage. The United States is expected to have no set-aside at all.
In addition, next year the United States can also start to release land for agricultural use from its Conservation Reserve program, which was designed to protect environmentally-sensitive lands by locking them up from production for ten-year terms.
The weather factor
Yields are dependent on the amount of chemical inputs used and weather conditions. Given the good grain prices this year, producers will most likely increase input use despite the fact that fertilizer prices are also at very high prices. Weather conditions, however, are completely out of the control of the producer and have the greatest affect on yields.
Because weather is considered to be a chance event, world forecasters are basing their production forecasts on the assumption of normal weather patterns. But has the weather been normal lately?
We know God is in exclusive control of climatic conditions and in Biblical times He often used it to shape events according to His plan. For example, God caused the drought that moved Jacob to send his 10 sons to Egypt to buy food, the Egyptian plague of hail, the hail storm during Joshua’s battle with the five kings, the rain storm that mired Sisera’s troops, the drought in Ahab’s time, etc.
The conditions are ripe, if God wills, to cause much distress on nations through food shortages. A continuation of the strange weather patterns which we have seen in the past two years could drastically disrupt world food supplies even though grain plantings will probably increase next year.
(The foregoing information was supplied by a government civil servant dealing with heretofore unpublished statistics and reports.)
The Origin of the Organic World – Part One