Telling Porkies: The Big Fat Lie About Doubling Food Production

In the UK and globally the future direction of food and farming is
being driven almost entirely by two frequently quoted statistics.
Experts such as the UN Secretary General, the UK Government’s Chief
Scientist, the current Secretary of State for the Environment, Hilary
Benn MP, the Conservative Party, the National Farmers’ Union and
Monsanto, are all saying that we need to increase food production 50% by
2030 or that it needs to double by 2050.

A new
investigation from the Soil Association reveals that the widely used
statistics are based on a ‘big fat lie’.

‘Telling porkies: The
big fat lie about doubling food production’, reveals that all
those claiming we need to double global food production by 2050, or 50%
by 2030, are wrong about the figures, are wrong about what the figures
apply to, and are wrong to claim that achieving these figures will mean
we will feed the hungry or end starvation.

Research into the
doubling figure shows it doesn’t actually exist in the stated source
-and that it is based on a number of incorrect assumptions. The
scientific basis for the claims are based on a report which on close
inspection actually says production would need to increase by around
70%, not 100%. As the Government states this is a significant
difference. The closest the report comes to the doubling claim is
projecting that meat consumption in developing countries, except China,
could double. The scientific paper that the 50% by 2030 claim is based
on appears to have been withdrawn by the authors.

These apparently
scientific statistics are leading to an assumption that we need vast
increases in agricultural production to feed the projected population of
9 billion by 2050. Many commentators are using this inflated claim to
justify the need for more intensive agricultural practices and, in
particular, the need for further expansion of GM crops.

Peter
Melchett, Soil Association policy director, said:

The ‘big fat lie’ of needing to double global food production by 2050
has dominated policy and media discussions of food and farming, making
it increasingly difficult for advocates of sustainable farming methods,
such as organic, to convince people we can actually feed the world
without more damage to the environment and animal welfare.

“Many
of those misusing the statistics in the FAO paper to argue for massive
increases in food production in both UK and globally, appear to be
unaware that they are in effect condemning many in developing countries
to ill-health and early deaths, because they assume the spread of our
unhealthy, Western diet to developing countries. In addition, these
projections assume an increase of over a billion cattle, which would
lead to massive increases in emissions of global warming gases.”

Those
using these dodgy figures have continued to do so, even after the
Government expressed some concern about them in September last year.

Independent
sources quoted in the report say that with fairer diets and better
distribution of food, organic farming could feed the world in 2050, with
healthy diets.

Notes:

[1]
Download the report here: ‘Telling
porkies: The big fat lie about doubling food production’ [PDF,
902KB]

[2] The Soil Association is the UK’s leading environmental charity
campaigning for sustainable, organic farming and championing human
health. http://www.soilassociation.org

Link to original source

UN Based Policy of Doubling Food Production on
‘Flawed Data’

20th April 2010 – Juliette Jowit, The Guardain

A declaration that global food production needs to double to feed the
world by the middle of this century provoked shock when it was announced
by the UN food chief. It has since become a founding pillar of food
policy, cited by leading British politicians and government scientists, farming leaders and some of the world’s
biggest agricultural companies.

But the source of the now infamous
statistic did not actually say that, claims a new report by the Soil
Association, the UK’s leading organic group.

The study, entitled
“The big fat lie about doubling food production”, traced the original
source of the doubling claim back to a report
published by the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation in 2006.

However,
using the FAO’s own figures, the Soil Association says the forecast
increase needed in production would be closer to 70% by 2050.

The
FAO itself also warns that the figures are distorted by using food
prices: because meat and dairy products are worth more per weight, a
small increase in volume appears as a significantly bigger increase in
“production” measured in US dollars.

The differences between the
report and the claims has arisen because politicians and others have
used calculations from 2000, which are now a decade out of date, and
then rounded them up, said the Soil Association, which is worried that
the doubling figure is being used to push unsustainable industrial-scale
farming.