By Gwynne Dyer

We are still living off the proceeds of the Green Revolution, but that hit diminishing returns twenty years ago. Now we live in a finely balanced situation where world food supply just about meets demand, with no reserve to cover further population growth. But the population will grow anyway, and the world's existing grain supply for human consumption is being eroded by three different factors: meat, heat and biofuels.

By Kevin Morrison in London

Published: October 12 2006 18:48 | Last updated: October 12 2006 18:48

The world’s stockpiles of wheat are at their lowest level in more than a quarter century, according to the US Department of Agriculture, which on Thursday slashed its forecasts for global wheat and corn production.

The lower forecasts were largely attributable to the severe drought in Australia, where the forecast for this year’s wheat crop was cut by 8.5m tons to 11m. That is less than half of the 24m produced last year, of which about 17m went to exports.

VIEWPOINT
Peter Kendall

British farmers can meet the nation's demand for both food and fuel crops, argues Peter Kendall, president of the National Farmers' Union. In this week's Green Room, he says UK agriculture already has enough capacity to fill fuel tanks and dining tables.

Farmers in the UK see the opportunity to provide the feedstock to biofuel producers as a way to deliver secure, low-carbon fuel to the nation's motorists.

Jeremy Cato, Globe & Mail
The truth is, it is not as environmentally friendly as its most ardent supporters say and vehicle performance is compromised.
----
At first glance, you would think ethanol is not only the cure for global warming, but also a way to reduce our dependence on costly oil imported from trouble spots in the Middle East and elsewhere.

It's not. But that hasn't stopped governments, auto makers and various industry lobby groups from pushing ahead enthusiastically on the ethanol front.

Jim Scharplaz, Prairie Writers Circle via Working For change
How oil and policy emptied American farmland, and how farmer and city dweller alike should anticipate oil’s decline
----
...Thanks to cheap fossil fuels, farmers today can treat every acre pretty much the same. Diesel powered machinery can till any soil type. Fertilizer produced using natural gas compensates for variations in natural fertility. Pesticides manufactured from petroleum kill weeds and insects for the whole growing season.

By Jessica Jaganathan Wed Aug 16, 9:08 PM ET

SINGAPORE (Reuters) - Singaporean Kom Mam Sun ran his Nissan truck on biodiesel fuel for two years to test his business idea of turning used cooking oil from restaurants into fuel for vehicles.

The experiment was such a success that the 32-year-old entrepreneur opened his first biodiesel plant in June and has already made S$50,000 ($31,600) in profits.

Lester Brown, Fortune
The growing myth that corn is a cure-all for our energy woes is leading us toward a potentially dangerous global fight for food. While crop-based ethanol -the latest craze in alternative energy - promises a guilt-free way to keep our gas tanks full, the reality is that overuse of our agricultural resources could have consequences even more drastic than, say, being deprived of our SUVs. It could leave much of the world hungry.

Bloomberg
The world may soon pay more than ever for its most abundant food: rice.

A record crop this year in a market anticipating rising production costs will do little to slow the rally for the staple of 3 billion people. As China, the No. 1 consumer, and Vietnam, among the biggest exporters, continue to plow under their paddies, rice will double within two years to almost $20 per 100 pounds from $9.90 now, according to Stephan Wrobel, chief executive officer at Diapason Commodities Management SA in Lausanne, Switzerland, which oversees $5.5 billion...

Charles Abbott and Lisa Haarlander (Reuters), Planet Ark
US ethanol manufacturers, foodmakers and livestock feeders are consuming so much corn (maize) that stockpiles could be depleted by 2008, unless plantings expand sharply, analysts said on Friday.

In its first forecast of the fall harvest, the USDepartment of Agriculture estimated on Friday the corn crop at 10.976 billion bushels (278.8 million tonnes), the third-largest crop ever.

by Kurt Cobb

Civilization, that is, the congregation of people in large settlements we call cities, is thought to owe its origins in part to the invention of agriculture. By growing surpluses of food crops farmers enabled the creation of an urban non-farming class who engaged in all manner of cultural, governmental, and commercial activities. These activities now preoccupy the vast majority of people in advanced economies.