From The Guardian UK: http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/jul/24/world-food-crisis-closer
Unless we move quickly to adopt new population, energy, and water policies, the goal of eradicating hunger will remain just that
Lester R. Brown
guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 24 July 2012
guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 24 July 2012
In
the early spring this year, US farmers were on their way to planting
some 96m acres in corn, the most in 75 years. A warm early spring got
the crop off to a great start. Analysts were predicting the largest corn harvest on record.
The United States
is the leading producer and exporter of corn, the world's feedgrain. At
home, corn accounts for four-fifths of the US grain harvest.
Internationally, the US corn crop exceeds China's rice and wheat
harvests combined. Among the big three grains – corn, wheat, and rice –
corn is now the leader, with production well above that of wheat and
nearly double that of rice.
The corn plant is as sensitive as it
is productive. Thirsty and fast-growing, it is vulnerable to both
extreme heat and drought. At elevated temperatures, the corn plant,
which is normally so productive, goes into thermal shock.
As
spring turned into summer, the thermometer began to rise across the corn
belt. In St Louis, Missouri, in the southern corn belt, the temperature
in late June and early July climbed to 100F or higher 10 days in a row.
For the past several weeks, the corn belt has been blanketed with dehydrating heat.
Weekly drought maps published by the University of Nebraska
show the drought-stricken area spreading across more and more of the
country until, by mid-July, it engulfed virtually the entire corn belt.
Soil moisture readings in the corn belt are now among the lowest ever
recorded.
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