While the number of people suffering from hunger in the world increases
(mostly in India, China, and Africa) farmers in Europe, and in particular those
in France dump their surpluses on the roads to draw attention to the
bankruptcy that awaits them.
At first it seems that their mutual interests are totally in contradiction:
farmers in wealthy countries want to continue to be funded (300 billion
euros per year) to produce and export, while those of the poor countries,
left to themselves, are unable to sell their meager productions and
constitute two thirds of the billion people who suffer from hunger today.
Only the economic crisis unites them (which is lowering the prices and
incomes of all) and the ecological crisis (which reduces everywhere crop
yields).
However, in the long term, their interests are convergent, because they will
have to answer together the great future growth of the global demand for
farm products: the world population increasing by one third by 2050 would
require agricultural production to increase at least as much. And even much
more, because economic growth will lead to the increase more than
proportionately in meat demand and therefore in the production of more
plants to feed the animals (you need 4 vegetable calories to produce 1
calorie from pig and 11 for 1 calorie of ox or sheep). And as we’ll need to
add to this the crop production for fuels agro needs, we’ll have in total,
to more than double the world agricultural production.
To achieve this, we will not be able to extrapolate on the current methods: it
would indeed be necessary to double cultivated surfaces (1,5 billion hectares
today, that is 10% of land surface) and increase by fertilizers, the methods
of production which, in both cases, will have devastating consequences on
soil quality and people’s health.
This will require to survive, to start a reasonable revolution in which
everyone would benefit:
• First in the rich countries, eating differently, reducing calories intake
(4000 to 3000 per day), and in particularly those of animal origin (from
1000 to 500), which would also make it possible to reduce obesity, of which
the poorest are the main victims.
• Then, in the developing countries, to produce differently: better
training of farmers, strengthening their property rights, their cooperative
grouping, a credible resistance in the deforestation and in the
generalization of the usage of the most harmful fertilizers, an incentive to
develop subsistence crops rather than for export and better water management,
genetic improvement and reasonable use of biotechnology the safest ones.
• Lastly, to organize the worldwide markets differently, by giving the
means of stabilizing the prices durably, and allowing farmers to invest
without fearing ruinous evolutions of the stock market prices.
This revolution is necessary. It is within our reach, politically and
financially. If properly conducted, it can make the world a garden which,
since the dawn of time, humanity has been dreaming of.