The Big Three of the 21st Century--Food, Energy and Water

Here at the beginning of the 21st century, the challenges are clear: the growing population is stressing the Earth's resources to the breaking point. The "big three" are Food, Energy and Water--whose initials ominously spell FEW. Looming shortages make human misery more likely as time passes without finding solutions. Will the 21st Century be known as the Century of Scarcity? Or will we find new technical, political and economic approaches to free humanity from want and discontent?

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Monday, June 11, 2012

The African land grab

An earlier post, "Worse than scarcity," suggested that the Chinese investment in African land leases might create tensions if there were local food shortages. I just came across this excellent graphic, which shows how many wealthy nations are engaging in the African land grab:


But this also proves the point about the tension between land leases and local hardship. Compare this map with the FEWS NET map of food crises in the previous post. At the very least, the foreign investments in Ethiopia, the Sudan and Mali coincide exactly with the food crises happening NOW. So the question is: are any of these leases being used to MITIGATE the food crises? Or is food actually being EXPORTED from the same countries listed as food-insecure?
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