This paper gives an overview of the current and projected food situation in the U.S. and the world.Food Security and Poverty,

Senauer, Benjamin

Stevens, Stanley C.

English

Research Papers in Economics

Working Paper WP96-1
January 1996
January 9, 1996
The Current and Future World Food Situation:
Is There an Emerging Food Shortage?
Ben Senauer
and
Stan Stevens
Department of Applied Economics
University of Minnesota
Center for International Food and Agricultural Policy
University of Minnesota
1994 Buford Avenue, 332 C.O.B.
St. Paul, Minnesota 55108-6040  USA
Phone: (612) 625-8713
FAX: (612) 625-6245Copyright (c) 1994 by Ben Senauer and Stan Stevens.  All rights reserved.  Readers may make
verbatim copies of this document for non-commercial purposes by any means, provided that this
copyright notice appears on all such copies.                          
The analyses and views reported in this paper are those of the author(s).  They are not necessarily
endorsed by the Department of Agricultural and Applied Economics or by the University of
Minnesota.
The University of Minnesota is committed to the policy that all persons shall have equal access to
its programs, facilities, and employment without regard to race ,color, creed, religion, national
origin, sex, age, marital status, disability, public assistance status, veteran status, or sexual
orientation.
Information on other titles in this series may be obtained from: Waite Library, University of
Minnesota, Dept. of Agricultural and Applied Economics, 232 Classroom Office Building, 1994
Buford Ave., St. Paul, MN 55108, USA.
Ben Senauer is a Professor and Director of the Center for International Food and Agricultural
Policy and Stan Stevens is an Associate Professor in the Department of Applied Economics at the
University of Minnesota.  They wish to thank Phil Raup and Vern Ruttan for their comments on
this paper.1
The Current and Future World Food Situation:
Is There an Emerging Food Shortage?
There has been an enormous increase in world agricultural production in the past half
century.  World population rose from 2.5 billion in 1950 to 5.3 billion in 1990, a 110 percent
increase.  Population growth in developing countries accounted for most of the increase, from 1.7
to 4.1 billion people.  Food production not only kept up but per capita food availability increased. 
World grain production went from 631 million metric tons in 1950 to 1.78 billion in 1990, a 182
percent increase.  Grain output per person actually rose by 40 percent between 1950 and 1984. 
Chinese grain production rose from 100 million tons in 1950 to 350 million in 1994.  During the
period 1978-1984 of most rapid improvement, Chinese grain production increased by 50 percent
per person.  These gains were achieved by the spread of modern, science-based agriculture around
the world, generally referred to as "the green revolution."  However, global agricultural growth
slowed from 3.0%/year in the 1960s, to 2.3%/year in the 1970s, to 2.0%/year from 1980 to 1992.
Current Tight Stocks
Current world supplies are tight for the major grains and prices have risen substantially
over the last year.  The FAO puts global reserves at only 14 percent of annual consumption, while
17 percent is considered a minimum desirable reserve.  USDA predicts that the world stocks-to-
use ratio in 1995/96 will fall to 10.7 percent for the coarse grains (primarily corn).  This is the
lowest level in USDA's data base starting in 1960/61.  U.S. corn production is down 27 percent in
1995 to 7.4 billion bushels from 10.1 billion last year.  China has moved from exporting to
importing corn.2
The world stocks-to-use ratio is predicted to fall to 17.6 percent for wheat, the lowest
level since 1973/74.  Russia had the worst harvest in 30 years at 66 million tons versus 80 million
last year and a peak of over 120 million in 1978.  Both the European Union and the U.S. have
stopped the use of export subsidies, with Europe actually taxing exports.  And for rice, USDA
predicts a world stocks-to-use ratio of 11.7 percent, the lowest since 1972/73.
Table 1 shows world production and stocks for the last six years.  Wheat production
peaked in 1990/91 and stocks are predicted to fall below 100 million tons in 1995/96.  Coarse
grain stocks will be substantially lower in 1995/96 and rice stocks somewhat lower.  Oilseed
production and stocks are up over the last two years, though.  Figure 1 also shows that world
wheat production peaked in 1990/91.  Carryover stocks reached a high point in 1985/86.
Corn, wheat and soybean prices have risen sharply in 1995 as shown in Table 2.  Figure 2
shows that corn prices are nearing the levels last reached in 1988 during a major drought in the
American Midwest.  In 1988 prices raced to levels that five years earlier in 1983, were needed to
ration the very short crop.  The problem in 1983 was that a massive idling of land by the
government was followed immediately by a severe drought.  However, the large carryin of stocks
available in 1988 were, in fact, quite adequate to buffer the situation, and by fall the market had
quickly settled back from the overbought emotional price levels of the late spring and summer. 
Against this frame of reference, currently we are testing these twin 1980s market peaks.
Figure 3 shows the production drops and stock situations for corn in the U.S. in 1983 and
1988.  Essentially, the drought of 1988 brought stocks down from extremely burdensome levels
and set the stage for a more balanced period of production and use.  After 1988, land set asides
ranging from 0 to 10 percent, an emerging ethanol industry, the loss of the market to the former3
Soviet Union, and a brief period of Chinese competition for exports blended together to strike the
right chord against a rebuilding of excessive corn stocks.
Global Outlook
Lester Brown of the Worldwatch Institute in Washington, D.C., claims that the world
faces an impending food crisis.  He foresees an era of food shortage in which prices will soar. 
Brown believes that the limits of agricultural land, water, and current technology are being
reached.  The old formula for increasing yields will no longer work, in particular the response to
more fertilizer.  The world grain harvest has fallen since 1990 while 440 million people have been
added to the world's population.
Brown predicts enormous grain imports by China in the future, reaching 369 million tons
by 2030, which is nearly twice the world's total current grain trade.  His prediction is based on
China's very rapid economic growth and continued population growth of one percent per year. 
The Chinese have been spending much of their increased income on improving their diet.  Meat
consumption increased from 8 kilograms/capita in 1977 to 32 kg/capita in 1994.
Chinese yield increases have slowed.  Rice yields which rose 4%/year in the 1970s
increased by only 1.6%/year in the 1980s.  Based on the pattern of other high population density
countries that industrialized such as Japan, Korea, and Taiwan, Brown sees a large loss of
agricultural land to urbanization and industrialization.  With substantial foreign exchange earnings,
for example, a $30 billion trade surplus with the U.S. in 1994, China will be able to buy grain and
have an enormous impact on the world market.
The projections of Nikos Alexandratos of the FAO in Rome differ substantially from those4
of Lester Brown.  The FAO forecasts are based on demand and supply analysis disaggregated by
country and by commodity.  The demand projections are based on population and income growth. 
For the supply forecasts, experts were consulted concerning feasible levels of agricultural growth.
Alexandratos believes the slowdown in production growth has primarily been a response
by the major grain exporters to low prices and to agricultural and trade policy reform.  The
production of the major grain exporters fell from an average of 621 million tons annually in 1984-
86 to an average 602 million in 1990-92.  However, the average annual production for the same
years increased from 1,040 million to 1,135 million tons of grain for the rest of the world.  He
predicts a slowdown in agricultural growth to 1.8%/year for 1990-2010, but this still exceeds the
projected 1.5%/year population increase.  Alexandratos concludes that the world can increase
agricultural production faster than population and in line with the growth of effective demand,
probably at non-increasing real prices.
In terms of particular regions, the former Soviet Union will probably not be an important
importer or exporter in the near future.  They do not have the foreign exchange to buy imports
and production is unlikely to improve soon because the privatization of farming is going slowly. 
Meat consumption, which was formerly heavily subsidized, has already decreased sharply and
reduced the demand for feed.  There is also substantial opportunity to improve the grain-to-meat
ratio in livestock production and to reduce large post-harvest losses.  In the long-run the region
clearly has the potential to be an agricultural exporter, which it was historically.  On the other
hand, the European Union is likely to have a declining role as an exporter in the future due to
production limits and agricultural and trade policy reform.
Sub-Saharan Africa poses the most serious food problem.  Population growth has5
exceeded the increase in agricultural production.  Agricultural production increased by 3.1%/year
between 1980-1990, a very respectable rate, but population grew by 3.6%/year.  The very high
rate of population growth suggests its reduction must be part of the solution.  There has been a 50
percent growth in hungry people since 1970 to 175 million and their number is expected to reach
300 million by 2000.
More on China
Chinese population growth will be about 1%/year to 2020.  The rate of increase in food
consumption and meat consumption in particular, will slow even if economic growth remains
high, in accordance with Engel's law.  In recent years the Chinese have given less attention to
agriculture and reduced their support of agricultural research.  Real investment in agricultural
research was stagnant from 1983-1990.  There should be a strong response to a growing food
deficit by the Chinese government and by the market, if it is allowed to freely operate to use
prices to stimulate production and curtail consumption.  The vulnerability of being dependent on
other nations for food can be expected to be a strong incentive for China.  There is still an
opportunity to raise yields substantially, and thus production, in China.  Some experts believe the
current production area is undercounted, and hence yields are overestimated.
Jikun Huang, Scott Rozelle, and Mark Rosegrant of the International Food Policy
Research Institute (IFPRI) in Washington, D.C., forecast that Chinese grain imports will be about
40 million tons/year between 2000-2020.  This would be a considerable level, but only a fraction
of Lester Brown's projection.  The imports would be mostly wheat.  They point out that China
simply does not have the logistics systems, in terms of port facilities and transportation network,6
to handle huge imports.  They do project a grain deficit of over 200 million tons/year by 2020 if
Chinese agricultural research investment falls by 1%/year rather than increasing by 3%/year as
assumed in their baseline forecast.
Justin Yifu Lin, a well-known agricultural economist and director of the China Center for
Economic Research at Peking University, predicts future Chinese grain imports of 25-50 million
tons, which agrees with the IFPRI forecast.  Lin believes China can remain basically self-sufficient
if administrative controls are removed allowing the market to function and the necessary
investment in agricultural research is made.  He points out that the Chinese agricultural sector as a
whole grew at an impressive 5.4 percent annual rate during the period 1984-94.  Foodgrain
production stagnated due to the government's traditional low-price procurement and rationing
policy.
The accelerating Chinese demand for feedgrain is apparent in Figure 4, a history of
Chinese corn production, use and trade.  The underlying growth in demand for corn seems to be
about 7 or 8 million metric tons per year.  The Chinese trade events of 1995, a fall in exports from
10.3 million metric tons (mmt) in 1994, coupled with imports of 4.3 mmt, overstate the
underlying growth rate of demand considerably.  From 1990 through 1993 China was briefly a
major competitor of the U.S. for the world corn trade.
Although Chinese corn yields have steadily increased, they are still only about 60 percent
of the U.S. level as shown in Figure 5.  This suggests that there is plenty of capacity for China to
expand production simply by adopting existing technology more intensively, in terms of genetics,
fertilizer, chemical weed control, etc.  Improved feed efficiency and better transport from grain
production to grain use regions will likely be part of the solution as well.7
Final Comments
Most of the longer term increase in worldwide agricultural production will have to come
from raising yields, as has been the case for a long time.  However, there is additional land which
can be brought into production.  In the United States, there are millions of acres in the set-aside
and conservation reserve programs, although the environmental impacts need to be considered. 
Argentina has a substantial "unused or underused production potential," as even Lester Brown
indicates.  He feels Argentina could double its grain exports from the current 10-12 million tons if
the incentives were right.
Of even greater importance, the long anticipated impact of biotechnology on crop yields
may now be near.  Caution does suggest we wait to see actual results in farmers' fields.  Corn
borer resistant varieties of corn produced by genetic engineering will be commercially available in
the U.S. in 1996.  Scientists at the University of California at Davis recently created rice plants
resistant to bacterial leaf blight, a major disease problem, by manipulating genes.
We do not, of course, have a crystal ball.  Like everyone else, we can not foresee the
future and are quite ready to admit it.  The next couple of years will be interesting as the supply
side response comes into view.  If there is no major exogenous shock, such as a 1988 level
drought in the U.S. Midwest, we suspect stocks should rebuild to comfortable levels over the next
few years as the current higher prices ration demand and stimulate increased production.  Overall,
the next several years would be a more favorable period for agriculture, with a somewhat higher
price plateau, than the years before 1995.
On the other hand, the Pacific Ocean appears to be entering the La Nina phase of its8
temperature cycle, a pattern which preceded the droughts of 1983 and 1988 in the U.S. Midwest. 
A major U.S. drought in 1996 will literally explode the market by dollars per bushel. 
Expectations would be raised to unrealistic levels, including a land market boom like the mid-
1970s, and eventually probably a bust similar to the early and mid-1980s.9
Table 1
World Production and Ending Stocks
(million metric tons)
90/91 91/92 92/93 93/94 94/95 95/96
Wheat
Production 588.0 542.1 561.8 559.4 523.0 533.5
Stocks 145.4 132.8 144.9 140.7 113.2 97.1
Coarse grains
Production 821.5 805.0 865.3 790.1 864.8 786.9
Stocks 134.5 134.6 162.8 122.3 130.4 89.1
Rice, milled
Production 350.5 349.5 352.3 352.4 360.5 359.5
Stocks 58.8 56.7 54.3 49.8 49.3 42.8
Oilseeds
Production 215.7 224.4 227.5 227.4 260.1 255.9
Stocks 23.4 21.8 23.5 20.1 27.1 24.5
Sources: USDA, Agricultural Outlook, October 1995; and USDA, Grain:  
World Market and Trade, December 1995.10
Table 2
Prices (per bushel)
U.S. Futures Contracts*
Lifetime low Lifetime high
Corn (CBT) Dec. 95 $2.48 $3.39
Wheat (CBT) Dec. 95  3.42  5.12
Soybeans (CBT) Jan. 96  5.82  7.50
*As of January 7, 1996.

THE CURRENT AND FUTURE WORLD FOOD SITUATION: IS THERE AN EMERGING FOOD SHORTAGE?

Abstract

Similar works

Full text

Available Versions

Research Papers in Economics