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Moore decries buying up third world for food security
National Business Review
Rich nations are practising a modern form of colonialism by acquiring farmland in poorer countries, former New Zealand prime minister Mike Moore says.

"It is a new elephant in the room," Mr Moore who became director-general of the World Trade Organisation in the wake of his stint as PM in 1990.

"I think it is the wrong policy because I don't think food security will be guaranteed in the future because you own colonies overseas," he told the Gulf Times. "The English found that out with sugar".

Grain prices soared to record levels last year, causing riots and hoarding in some countries, and sparking a move for import-dependent rich countries to secure farmland in mainly poorer regions to ease food security...
(1 Oct 2009)

How to Feed the World in 2050
FAO
The prospects for agriculture
In the first half of this century, as the world’s population grows to around 9 billion, global demand for food, feed and fibre will nearly double while, increasingly, crops may also be used for bioenergy and other industrial purposes. New and traditional demand for agricultural produce will thus put growing pressure on already scarce agricultural resources. And while agriculture will be forced to compete for land and water with sprawling urban settlements, it will also be required to serve on other major fronts: adapting to and contributing to the mitigation of climate change, helping preserve natural habitats, protecting endangered species and maintaining a high level of biodiversity. As though this were not challenging enough, in most regions fewer people will be living in rural areas and even fewer will be farmers. They will need new technologies to grow more from less land, with fewer hands.

The problems to be resolved

Will we be able to produce enough food at affordable prices or will rising food prices drive more of the world's population into poverty and hunger?

How much spare capacity in terms of land and water do we have to feed the world in 2050?

What are the new technologies that can help us use scarce resources more efficiently, increase and stabilize crop and livestock yields?

Are we investing enough in research and development for breakthroughs to be available in time?

Will new technologies be available to the people who will need them most - the poor?

How much do we need to invest in order to help agriculture adapt to climate change, and how much can agriculture contribute to mitigating extreme weather events?
(12-13 Oct 2009)
There are a raft of supporting documents online already for this Conference. The main report is here, and the other supporting documents can be accessed from this page.

Climate change: Impact on agriculture and costs of adaptation
International Food Policy Research Institute report
The Challenge
The unimpeded growth of greenhouse gas emissions is raising the earth’s temperature. The consequences include melting glaciers, more precipitation, more and more extreme weather events, and shifting seasons. The accelerating pace of climate change, combined with global population and income growth, threatens food security everywhere.

Agriculture is extremely vulnerable to climate change. Higher temperatures eventually reduce yields of desirable crops while encouraging weed and pest proliferation. Changes in precipitation patterns increase the likelihood of short-run crop failures and long-run production declines. Although there will be gains in some crops in some regions of the world, the overall impacts of climate change on agriculture are expected to be negative, threatening global food security.

Populations in the developing world, which are already vulnerable and food insecure, are likely to be the most seriously affected. In 2005, nearly half of the economically active population in developing countries—2.5 billion people—relied on agriculture for its livelihood. Today, 75 percent of the world’s poor live in rural areas...
(Oct 2009)
This report can be accessed here.

Crying Wolf: Climate Change Will Cost Farmers Far More Than a Climate Bill
EWG report
Farm industry leaders and their supporters in Congress are trying to derail climate change legislation by insisting that the House-passed bill, the American Clean Energy and Security Act (ACES), will cause ruinous increases in the costs of production for farmers. They claim this threat is so potentially devastating that climate change legislation should be shelved or loaded up with concessions that send more money to their agricultural constituents.

But a new analysis (pdf) by the Environmental Working Group of US Department of Agriculture cost estimates finds that the projected increased costs of production due to the climate bill will be so small -- $0.45 per acre for soybeans, $0.66 per acre for wheat, and $1.19 per acre for corn, for example -- that they amount to well under one half of one percent of current production costs.

The report, Crying Wolf, concludes that a fertilizer spreader or chemical sprayer that is a bit out of adjustment would cost farmers more. Moreover, the added costs pale compared to the federal government’s taxpayer-funded, multi-billion-dollar commodity subsidies.

Read the report (pdf)

Read the news release (pdf)

Thanks to kalpa again and Tara at the Food Climate Research Network for these. Both sites are intensely information-rich. -KS