Food security and the need for more food production

We often talk about food security and the need for more food production, which is a concern, but I have come across a few facts that may interest people and were mentioned recently by some other farmers.

1000 years ago, it is estimated that only 4m square kilometres, less than 4% of the world’s ice-free and non-barren land were used for farming. If we look at the breakdown today of global land area 10% of the world is covered by glaciers, and 19% is barren land, i.e. desert, dry salt flats, beaches, and sand dunes. This leaves what is known as habitable land, half of which is used for agriculture which leaves 37% for forests, 11% for shrubs and grassland, 1% as freshwater area, and surprisingly only 1% remaining for built -up urban areas which includes cities, towns, villages, roads, etc.

There is also an unequal distribution of land use between livestock and crops for human consumption. If pastures are used for grazing with land to grow crops for animal feed, then livestock accounts for 77% of global farming land but only produces 18% of the world’s calories and 37% of total protein. The expansion of agriculture has been one of the largest impacts on the environment as crop yields have increased significantly in recent decades, which has released a lot of land from agricultural production globally, with 70% less land needed, so to produce the same quantity of crops as in 1961 so we only need 30% of the farmland.

Land use in agriculture by major crop types from 1961 -2014 shows that most of the land is used for cereal production which has grown from 650 -720m ha which equates to an area approximately twice the size of Germany over this period. The total land area used for coarse grains has remained nearly constant over this 50-year period and is the second largest user of arable land. The largest increase in land use is in the production of oil crops where oil crop production has increased almost threefold since 1961 which equates to an area nearly the size of Mexico. All other crop types take up less than 100m ha of global area. At this point, I should mention for interest that the earth’s surface area is covered by 71% of the ocean which holds 96% of all earth’s water.

The land area of the world is 13,003m ha of which 4,889 million ha are classified as agricultural area and amounts to 37.6% of the land area. Just a reminder that agricultural area use is divided into three categories arable land which is 28% of the global agricultural area, permanent crops which are 3%, and permanent meadows and pastures at 69%.

Some of these figures just show how progress has been made in recent years to increase yield and reduce disease while using modern equipment we are in a growing world population but still, there are millions of people starving around the world, and as I said earlier food security is becoming a bigger issue and we need to be doing something about it now before more people die from hunger. As has been said often a hungry man is an angry man and this is what leads to wars as countries fight among themselves for water and food to survive.

Coming back to the usual topics, the rainfall at Lochton near Coldstream for November was 57.2mm, and for the year up to December 1, 611mm or 24 inches have fallen, but yet again there has been a lot more in other parts of the country. We had a light covering of snow and some frost, but this yet again has returned to rain and the fields are waterlogged once more.

Due to the ongoing weather, it is estimated that as much as 15% of UK winter wheat sown last year will not be sown and this compares with French farmers who are now 83% finished but now held up with wet weather and deteriorating crops. US winter wheat drilling is now 95% complete and 48% good to excellent which compares to 32% last year due to drought. The life feed wheat futures have eased back again due to price pressure from the global markets and despite a recovery in the strength of sterling against the euro and even more so the US dollar and this makes US wheat less competitive on global markets.

March 2024 old crop futures have dropped £7.35 per tonne to £189.25 and November 2024 new crop has dropped by £1.50 to £206.80 per tonne. As new crop prices have risen the price carry has widened to £17.55 per tonne which could be an incentive to store any unsold crop from this past harvest and carry it into the new season. Delivered feed wheat into East Anglia recently was quoted at £185.50 per tonne for this month and bread wheat delivered into the Northwest for December was quoted at £269.50 which was a fall of £4.00 per tonne from the previous week which means there is still a strong milling premium over feed.

With lower wheat prices from France, Ukraine Denmark, Poland, and other EU sources this has meant that the UK has been uncompetitive in exporting wheat and will have moved little more than 120,000 tonnes, even with a significant carry over into next season which leaves at least 500,000 tonnes remaining. Something else that will not help the wheat surplus is the fact that UK animal feed consumption is down 8% on the year and due to the wide price gap between barley and wheat this will see more barley being used in the rations.

Another factor not helping wheat usage is the reduced value in ethanol production which could see a reduced wheat tonnage required as well. Ukraine’s grain exports have fallen to around 13.4m tonnes this season to date of which 5.9m tonnes were wheat and 6.5m tonnes of maize and by this time last year, they had exported 18.3m tonnes. Full season UK wheat imports are now estimated at 1.425m tonnes, up 6% or 79,000 tonnes from last year, and to date a total of 404,200 tonnes which is up 13.4% on the year.

EU wheat exports are now at 11.995m tonnes, which is 18% behind last year when 14.677m tonnes were exported in the same period.

Feed barley prices have come under pressure as both exports and the UK domestic markets have been very quiet in recent weeks and again there is a good price carry in the market from January 2024 through to November 2024 and the discount to feed wheat is around £18.00-£25.00 per tonne depending on the area. It looks like there will be an increase in new crop spring barley due to the wet autumn and shortage of sown winter wheat which will make a premium malting barley grade even more important to achieve.

UK oat imports for the full season are estimated at 30,000 tonnes, which would be up 71% and so far, imports stand at 3,300 tonnes, up 18.1% from the same period last season. The poor quality of this season’s UK crop has led to increased hulling losses which increased demand for milling oats and a requirement for more imports.

This week oilseed rape prices have risen by around £15.00 per tonne as crushers in Europe take cover in the absence of Black Sea and Australian tonnage and rapeseed delivered into Erith for this month is up £6.00 to £380.00 per tonne. A voluntary output cut by the eight OPEC countries is expected to reduce production by 2.2 million barrels per day in the new year and a reduction in supply could see oil prices rise.

Due largely to an increase in global soybean production this season, the stock-to-use ratio of major oilseeds which includes rapeseed, sunseed, and soybeans is the highest since 2018-19 at 23.8%. Despite weather issues in Brazil, they are still estimating a record soybean crop of 161.6m tonnes and their end stocks, again at a record level of 39.7m tonnes.

Global fertiliser prices have eased over the past few weeks, but urea prices remain higher than the lows seen earlier during the summer months once demand picks up so will the prices. The closure of four nitrogen plants across Europe adds further pressure to supply and causes issues with regard to the choice of products available.

Natural gas makes up around 60-80% of nitrogen fertiliser production costs in Europe and from the peak recorded in July 2022 for UK-produced 34% ammonium nitrate at £841.00 per tonne prices have eased back significantly to a level last seen in 2021, as imported AN was quoted in October at £361.00 per tonne.