A Summary of Lester R. Brown’s “Could Food Shortages Bring Down Civilizations?"

           With the continued growth of world populations, the issue of sustaining food quantities to feed the world is of increasing concern. Issues concerning food have been espoused before, and the themes argued by Brown implicitly evokes a Malthusian way of thinking. The demand for food will grow faster than we are able to supply it, and the yield loss of crops will continue to be exacerbated by environmental issues such as shortages of fresh water, eroding top soils, and climate change.          

            We project the future relying on past trends. The trends culminated from global agriculture, population, environmental and economic factors—Brown argues—coupled with “the political tensions they generate point to the breakdown of governments and societies.” The growing severity of environmental degradation that will lead to food shortages—factors such as falling water tables, eroding soils, and rising temperatures—has led Brown to believe that catastrophic collapse of global civilization is possible. States fail when governments are unable to provide the basic freedoms and necessities that we have known to become the norm in developed countries: access to food, security, education, and healthcare—all things we take for granted today.

Part of this trend includes the increase of world populations, demand for livestock products which contributes to grain yield, and “massive diversion of U.S. grain to ethanol fuel distilleries.” As developing countries become more affluent, an extra demand for grain follows. In first world countries such as the U.S. and Canada, the consumption of grain is consumed “indirectly as meat, milk, and eggs from grain-fed animals”, nearly 90%. A large portion of grain is also diverted for use of fuel in automobiles which is a portion that can feed half a billion people in India alone.

The shortage of water poses the most significant threat to the collapse of the food supply. The challenge is irrigation and, at the moment, we are pumping water out of aquifers faster than rainwater can recharge them. The result is falling water tables, and the subsequent procedure to gather water for irrigation requires drawing water from deeper aquifers which are not replenishable. With the lack in yield of grain from falling water tables, more nation states will have to import their grain elsewhere in order to support the growing population. With the diminishing returns due to shortage of water and loss of topsoil, the inaccessibility of food is sure to arise which will lead to increasing social conflict.

            Crops currently grow at the near or thermal optimum. As climate change has an increasingly profound effect in rises in temperature, it will correspondingly diminish and shrink the harvest of grains and crops. Past technologies that significantly have increased the yield of crops have already reached their limits with no further increases in the production of grain. The political landscapes begin to shift when there are growing concerns in the ability to feed its citizens. Countries acting in their own self-interests are exacerbating the plight of the poorest demographic which leads to a cycle of lawlessness.

            What Brown argues for is Plan B, what he calls “our only option.” Because the circumstances of world food shortage is trend-driven, the environmental trends that lead to the exacerbation of the predicament must be reversed. It requires strict measures and a sharp decline from the way things are handled now. It consists of four components:

-          Cut carbon emission by 80% from 2006 levels by 2020

-          The stabilization of the world population of 8 billion by 2040

-          Eradication of poverty

-          Continued restoration of forests, soils, and aquifers

Measures such as banning global deforestation, issuing a carbon tax, a shift to smaller family sizes, basic education, a focus on family planning, are prudent measures if we are too live in a sustainable world. Restoring natural earth systems and resources is a global effort, one that would take a united front from all nations around the world. Time is the scarcest resource. Brown’s Plan B not only calls for a drastic overall to our current aspects of living, but for the implementation of these practices in order to achieve these goals quickly. It will take a new way of thinking, of challenging the preconceptions of what we find important today.

According to Lester Brown, demand for food is growing faster than the supply. What are the effect of this trend likely to be? How can we prevent the worst effect?

The increasing growth of human population will accelerate the demand for food as world nations desperately try to feed its citizens. If there is exponential growth around the world, communities around the world will have to find new innovative ways to increase the yield of crops in order to provide food security for its population. In a perfect world, food insecurity is non-existent; however, the world is far from perfect, and places where poverty and hunger run rampant, crimes rates skyrocket upwards and governments corrupt. These nation states will serve as a microcosm for the whole global community if we do not finds ways to prevent this from happening. The best thing to do to ensure a better way of living is through education, family planning, and less harmful means of agriculture and a smarter way to manage resources.

Works Cited

Brown, Lester R. “Could Food Shortages Bring Down Civilizations?” Sources: Selections in Environmental Studies. Ed. Thomas Easton. United States, 2014. 139-144.