粮食危机或引发世界大战？

    全球正面临着一场大规模的粮食危机，世界银行和联合国等国际组织甚至声称，随着全球人口由当前的70亿人增长至2050年的90亿人，地球上的粮食将难以满足全球人口的需求。

    有些研究甚至认为，全球粮食危机可能最早2030年就会爆发，也就是说离现在只有15年。

    造成粮食危机的原因，主要是干旱和洪水等极端气候环境、经济困难、欠发达国家的政治动乱以及农业综合企业的扩张等等。

    有许多专家认为，只要生产更多的食物，就能解决粮食危机问题，但同时也有一些专家认为，问题并非这么简单。

    俄亥俄大学社会学教授史蒂芬•斯坎兰指出：“要解决食品安全问题，我们需要转变我们解决全球贫困和贫富差距问题的方式。食物应该被确定为一项基本人权，得到各国政府的真正支持。”

    但喂饱全世界也是一笔大生意。不少跨国食品公司和零售企业都在积极从事食物生产。像卡夫、康尼格拉）、嘉吉和百事可乐）等公司，已经成为全球粮食分配的主宰者。

    像全球最大的转基因种子生产商孟山都这样的公司，则主要通过推销其高科技产品来提高粮食产量。

    这些公司都见到了效益。根据世界银行的数据，从今年一月到四月，全球食品价格增长了4%，结束了肇始于2012年8月的下跌趋势。

    不过斯坎兰等批评人士指出，虽然这些数据或许能够取悦企业的股东，但它也会导致少数几个地方掌握过大的食品控制权。一名分析师还表示，除了来自企业界的威胁以外，全球食品安全还取决于，某些国家是否会以牺牲他国的人口食品安全为代价来喂饱本国国民。

    比如，西弗吉尼亚大学工商管理学教授乌沙•哈利指出：“中国是全球可耕种土地的最大买家，他们这样做是为了获得资源。因为在他们的产出和消耗之间存在着巨大的差距。”

    粮荒已然发生

    在很多人看来，粮荒已经发生了。联合国粮农组织的报告称，全球有8.42亿人口营养不良，几乎其中的三分之二都集中在亚太地区。在五岁以下儿童中，有四分之一因营养不够而发育不良。

    雪上加霜的是，目前全球人口依赖的农作物种类越来越少，使全球粮食产量越来越多地受到通货膨胀、虫灾、疫病和极端天气的影响，另外，现在人们经常使用粮食制造一些不能吃的产品（如能源），这也使它们无法被送上餐桌。

    致力于解决贫困问题的国际组织“行动援助”的政策与活动主任克里斯汀•桑德尔表示：“我们很担心生物燃料的扩张。”

    他表示：“近年来，糖、玉米和大豆等粮食作物被用来提炼汽油的数量，已经扩张了50%，这一方面从人们那里抢走了农作物，一方面也使粮食变得更贵了。”

    桑德尔补充道，一些私人农业公司在穷国大规模投资购买土地，迫使当地种植者无法再以农为生。威廉与玛丽学院公共健康与营养教授斯科特•伊克斯指出，东非等地的一些拥有土地的农民经常面临这种“浮士德式的交易”。

    “农民必须选择是种植可可、茶和咖啡等专门的经济作物，还是选择种植养家糊口的主食作物。由于生活艰难，他们经常会选择种植经济作物。”伊克斯说。

    助人即自助

    尽管有人认为，全球粮食危机的解决方案在于转基因技术等农业创新（虽然转基因也受到了很多非议与指责），但也有一名分析人士表示，我们还需要一些简单的分配和储存粮食的方法。

    威廉与玛丽学院的伊克斯表示：“许多粮食之所以腐烂，是因为一些穷国的储存设备不好。在这些国家，糟糕的基建设施，导致粮食不能分配到很多穷人手里。”

    特拉华大学农业与自然资源学院院长马克•里格尔认为，解决这个问题的重要一环在于教会那些需要帮助的国家如何进行自助。

    “我们有一个农业项目，让人们可以种植自己的粮食。我刚刚从肯尼亚回来，而且还带回来了一些肯尼亚学生，等他们学成后，我们会让他们回国帮助他们自己的国家。”

    抢夺粮食的战争？

    世界银行的报告指出，要想避免2050年出现粮食短缺，全球社会需要把粮食产量在今天的基础上至少提高50%。

    许多分析人士认为，全球已经开识意识到粮荒问题，比如美国和欧洲各国政府都加大了对发展中国家的援助力度。

    但西弗吉尼亚大学的哈利表示，目前国际社会对如何解决日益显著的粮食紧缺仍缺乏共识。而这甚至可能导致更大的灾难。

    她表示：“粮食短缺问题非常严重，我认为对粮食和水等资源的争夺，有可能引爆下一场世界大战。”（财富中文网）

    译者：朴成奎

    The world has a massive food crisis on its hands. The crisis is so big that organizations like the World Bank and the United Nations say there won’t be enough food to feed the global population when it jumps from the current seven billion people to nine billion by 2050.

    Some research even suggests a food scarcity crunch as early as 2030 – just 15 years from now.

    The reasons? Severe weather events like droughts and floods, economic hardships, and political unrest in underdeveloped countries, as well as agribusiness expansion.

    While many experts say that producing more food will make the crisis go away, others contend it’s not that simple.

    “To address food security, we need a shift in the way we address poverty and inequality in the world,” Stephen Scanlan, a professor of sociology at Ohio University. “There should be a reframing of food as a fundamental human right in a way that governments actually stand by.”

    But feeding the world is big business. Multinational food companies and retailers are heavily involved in food production. Corporations such as Kraft KRFT 0.21% , ConAgra CAG 0.77% , Cargill, and PepsiCo PEP 0.08% dominate global food distribution.

    Companies like Monsanto MON 1.28% , the biggest maker of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) seeds, promote their high tech products as a way to increase food production.

    And those companies are seeing benefits. Global food prices increased by four percent between January and April of this year, according to the World Bank, stopping a decline in food prices starting in August 2012.

    While those figures may please company shareholders, that kind of consolidation and profit puts too much control over food supplies into too few places, according to critics like Scanlan. Beyond the perceived threats from the business world, global food supplies, one analyst argued, are at the mercy of some nations seeking to feed their own populations at the expense of others.

    “China is the largest purchaser of farmable land in the world,” said Usha Haley, a professor of business management at West Virginia University. “They’re doing it to acquire resources as they have a huge gap between what they produce and what they use.”

    Food scarcity now

    For many, food scarcity is already here. The UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) reports that 842 million people in the world remain undernourished. And nearly two thirds of them are living in the Asia-Pacific region. One in four children under the age of five is stunted due to malnutrition.

    Fueling the problem are worldwide diets that rely on an ever smaller group of crops, leaving global food supplies at the mercy of inflation, insects, disease, and bad weather. Also, there’s the increasing creation of inedible products — such as fuel — from crops that normally get put on the kitchen table.

    “What concerns us is biofuel expansion,” said Kristin Sundell, director of policy and campaigns for ActionAid, an international group that focuses on ending poverty.

    “We’ve seen a 50 percent expansion in recent years in using crops like sugar, corn and soy to create fuels for gas tanks, and that’s taking away food crops from people and making what there is more expensive,” Sundell said.

    Sundell added that the large-scale investment by private agriculture businesses to buy up more farm land in poor countries is forcing local growers out of business. Farmers who do have land in areas like East Africa often face a Faustian bargain, said Scott Ickes, a professor of public health and nutrition at the College of William & Mary.

    “Farmers have to choose between growing specialty cash crops like cocoa, tea and coffee — or food staples to make a living,” Ickes said. “They usually pick the cash crops as it’s a challenge for them to make ends meet.”

    Helping those help themselves

    While agricultural innovations like genetic modified organisms (GMOs) — hailed by many and condemned by others – are often offered up as solutions, one analyst said simple ways to distribute and store food are needed.

    “A lot of food rots because of bad storage facilities in poor countries, and bad infrastructure in those areas prevents delivery of food to a lot of the poor,” said College of William & Mary’s Ickes.

    A key element in all this is helping those in need learn how to take care of themselves, said Mark Rieger, dean of the College of Agriculture and Natural Resources at the University of Delaware.

    “We have an agricultural program so people can develop their own food,” Rieger said. “I just got back from Kenya where we bring students here and then send them back home to help their own countries.”

    Wars over food?

    The World Bank reports that to avoid food shortages by 2050, the global community needs to produce at least 50 percent more food than it does today.

    Many analysts say they are hopeful the world is waking up to the food scarcity problem, as more governments like the U.S. and those in Europe, ramp up efforts to provide aid to developing countries.

    But a clear consensus on exactly how to end the growing food shortage remains elusive. And that could lead to even greater disasters, said West Virginia’s Haley.

    “The food scarcity problem is serious. I think the next world wars could be fought over resources like food and water,” she said.