Acres are finite; at least the best ones for growing food are.
There are darned few remaining areas with under-tapped, potentially sustainable farmland.
Converting additional food-land to fuel-land is a troubling concept at times when there appears to not be enough food for the planet’s people.
Food versus fuel debates last became a talked-about issue during the financial crash and commodity boom in 2006-07. But it has been almost a decade since the food supply situation looked as tenuous as it does today.
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Last week, not including Ukraine, Russia and Kazakhstan, the reported carry-out for major exporters was slightly more than 20 million tonnes. Including these countries, the wheat carryout might be north of 55 million tonnes, but either way, this is dangerous territory when it comes to global food sufficiency.
Hard red spring wheat supplies are about 80 days, white wheat is just 60 and durum has about an 85-day supply. These are about half of more average 2018-19 numbers. Overall, wheat stocks have been falling steadily from about 190 days in 2018 to about 110 today, taking into account hard and soft red winters.
Moving forward, global biodiesel production is expected to grow by up to 70 percent during the next half-decade. Part of that will come from the expanding canola crushing capacity in Western Canada.
At the same time, American soybean crushing will grow by 575 million bushels. In that country, more than 20 new renewable diesel and sustainable aviation fuel plants are or soon will be in operation. Already about 40 percent of the United States’ soybean crush is destined for fuel. This is in addition to the corn distillers already purchasing 36 percent of America’s domestically consumed crop for ethanol.
Globally, the demand for so-called greener fuels are displacing food crops. But, any move away from this purchase pattern would likely result in oversupplies of food crops or, at the very least, much lower commodity prices for producers.
The United Nation’s secretary-general has been warning of severe food shortages in the developing world, and in the developed world, consumer-affected inflation stories are major issues.
One area where there was some contraction in the market for biofuels was in palm oil. There were a variety of factors involved, but current discounts on that crop will likely lead to its renewed growth as a renewable fuel stock.
Germany may be leading other parts of the world in its approach to food or fuel acres. It has already banned the use of palm oil for fuel. That country is considering dropping crop-based biofuels as a method of cutting its greenhouse gas emissions. Germany’s influence over the region’s public policy shouldn’t be under-estimated as it led the European Union’s environmentally and morally questionable Food to Fork program’s development. It would be bad news for Canadian exports of canola and canola oil to the region.
Global food affordability and economics might lead other countries to follow suit to reduce food commodity prices, raising fossil fuel demand until additional power can be found from uranium, wind and solar sources.
Acres used for fuel only became an easier sell because these were considered to be saving the environment. When it comes to saving money or lives with cheaper, more available food, fuel acres might become tainted. Time will tell.
Karen Briere, Bruce Dyck, Barb Glen and Mike Raine collaborate in the writing of Western Producer editorials.
