Grain Harvest to Fall Short of World Demand

<font color="0000ff">Source: Associated Press

Grain harvest predicted to fall short of world demand

Wednesday, May 05, 2004
By John Heilprin, Associated Press

WASHINGTON — This year's world grain harvest will increase to a record level but will still fall nearly 60 million tons short of what 6.4 billion people and more than 1 billion livestock will consume, an environmental group predicted Tuesday.

The group and a University of Missouri agricultural economist who agreed the estimate was "in the ballpark" cited usual problems with weather, crop diseases, and insects; new worries from falling water tables, especially in the United States and China; and rising temperatures worldwide.

The 2004 harvest is estimated at 1.89 billion tons, the most ever, but consumption is projected at 1.95 billion tons, said Lester Brown, president of Earth Policy Institute, an environmental research group.

"This is good news for farmers and bad news for consumers," Brown said. "As grain prices go up, farmers benefit but consumers suffer. Those for whom it will be especially difficult are the 3 billion people who live on $2 or less a day."

It also would mark a fifth straight year of grain harvest shortfalls and draw down world stocks to below 300 million tons, Brown said. Such a supply, the lowest level ever, probably would last less than 56 days, he said.

In 2003, the 1.83 billion tons of world grain production fell short of the 1.94 billion tons consumed, according to the Agriculture Department's latest statistics, in April. That meant about 59 days world supply. The lowest ever was 56 days in 1972, when wheat and rice prices doubled because of scarcity after poor grain harvests, according to Brown.

Restoring world grain stocks to about 70 days worth, a minimal level for global food security, would require boosting 2004 production by at least another 55 million tons after making up the shortfall, Brown said.

Jordan Dey, a spokesman for the United Nations World Food Program, said lower production may not mean more people go hungry. "We're looking at 840 million people who go to bed hungry every night. There's enough food to feed those people; the problem is they don't have the money to purchase the food," he said.

Brown said U.S. consumers already coping with stagnating wages and rising gasoline prices could be squeezed further by higher food prices. "We are looking at substantial rises in grain and food prices as early as this fall," he said.

In each of the last two years, record or near-record heat waves have taken the edge off the world grain harvest, Brown said. In 2003, Europe bore the brunt of the rising temperatures as an August heat wave shrunk grain harvests from France eastward through the Ukraine. In 2002, intense heat reduced the harvests in India and the United States.

"The environmental trends are beginning to kick in, and that includes soil erosion and desertification," Brown said. "Both of them make it much more difficult for farmers to continue expanding production at a rapid pace."

Pat Westhoff, who helps direct the university-sponsored Food and Agricultural Policy Research Institute in Columbia, Missouri, which is mostly funded by Congress through USDA, said he generally agreed with Brown's estimates and overall assessment.

"They are in the ballpark of what's plausible," he said. "But there are several layers of uncertainty here.... If we had above-average yields, we could have enough production to actually build stocks this year. On the other hand, if we do have below-average yields, things could get tight."

Westhoff said, "A lot of the reduction in stocks is tied to China." In 2003, the grain harvest in China was 322 million tons, down from 342 million tons in 2002, according to USDA statistics.</font>

[bohner]

Originally Posted by sweetness

<font color="0000ff">Source: Associated Press

"This is good news for farmers and bad news for consumers," Brown said. "As grain prices go up, farmers benefit but consumers suffer. Those for whom it will be especially difficult are the 3 billion people who live on $2 or less a day."

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HAHA thats funny farmers benefitting, what everyone doesn't know is that that will not make the farmer anymore money, but actually the middleman more money. the price of grains such as wheat, barley, rye...ETC is lower now than it was in the fifties, more grain being consumed but yet farmers getting less money HUH how does that work. but i bet if hip and the older growers remember the price for a pound of grain back in the day was cheaper than now, well there is your middleman sticking his hand into your wallet. this is how it works the farmer brings his crop into an elevator for them to purchase it, they buy it then send it to a inland terminal(big elevator by the ocean) but here's the kicker the company doesn't pay for the shipping to the inland terminal the farmer does so even less money in the farmers pocket, and then it gets distributed world wide. sorry for the rant but its just that urban people do not realize what happens to the farmers that work hard to feed the world. just my opinion and thanks for reading

[roc]

so much for an increase in ethanol production.

[mook]

with taxes, the price of land and the low price of the farmers product. the farmer hasnt got a chance. soon when enough farmers sell out because they cant support their families anymore we will see food control just like fuel control. we are just sheep in the mans world!

[aumbrellaforainydays]

i say start planting the corn and rye and bird seeds we use for inoculation to prepare for the apocalpyse, 2012. of course that doesnt mean we cant have a little mushroom patch either.

[apokalypse]

someone say my name?

[Hippie3]

if it weren't for those 'evil middlemen'
those farmers crops would end up rotting.
someone has to pay to ship, store all that grain
and the farmer cannot run a farm at the same time
as he runs a global distribution network.
it's called 'division of labor', and without it
we'd all be reduced to doing everything our selves.