Once again, a prediction is panning out(PDF):
The world is consistently failing to produce as much grain as it uses.
Every six years, we’re adding to the world the equivalent of a North American population. We’re trying to feed those extra people, feed a growing livestock herd, and now, feed our cars, all from a static farmland base. No one should be surprised that food production can’t keep up.
The USDA projects global grain supplies will drop to their lowest levels on record. Further, it is likely that, outside of wartime, global grain supplies have not been this low in a century, perhaps longer …
(Another hat tip to KO.)
On the other hand, if the damn treehuggers would just stop their whining and let the venture capitalists plow under the remaining rainforest carbon sinks in South East Asia, South America, and Africa, we could plant an awful lot of sugarcane and soybeans.
The commonly held but erroneous idea that crop-based agrofuels are a harmless transition to better agrofuels needs to stop being parroted by well-meaning environmentalists. There is this small problem called leakage. Not to mention, it is far cheaper to plow under the Cerrado and to drain and burn peat bogs than it is to build futuristic and economically nonviable cellulose ethanol plants. Cellulosic cannot come close to competing with sugarcane and nothing comes close to palm oil. Graphics from Mongabay:
