Malthus and mopani worm burger

THOMAS Robert Malthus (1766-1834) qualifies for gold medals on many counts. He supplied vigorous commentary on the political economy, made popular the theory of rent, and must be the most kicked about and vilified of economists.

He was the wicked Anglican priest who declaimed the inability of the planet to provide endless subsistence for man. Put another way, Malthusian doctrine declares that at some point there will be more of us alive than earth can support. It is a doctrine economists have gone to great lengths to demolish.

And they’ve done a good job of it, so good that it makes me wonder why, if Malthus is so much rubbish, he keeps being dragged out of his tomb and kicked about all over again. It is almost as though the great and good who know so much better keep looking over their shoulders, just in case the priest might have a point.

Well, does he have a point? The data seems to be indicating that Malthus (RIP) got some things right. Current world food production is about 5-billion tons a year. There are 7-billion of us. In 40 years we expect there will be more than 9-billion of us and annual food production will need to have doubled. According to a recent report by the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation, food production will have to rise by 70%. Can this be done? Maybe. Probably. But it won’t necessarily be the food we’re accustomed to at present.

It is thought that meat prices could double in the next five years, making it a genuine luxury. Efforts will have to be made to come up with other foods that are cheaper, such as insects. According to the BBC, researchers at Wageningen University in the Netherlands reckon they are a fantastic source of protein, cost less to raise, consume less water and leave hardly any carbon footprint. What’s more, there are 1,400 species edible by human animals.

A food futurologist, Morgaine Gaye, says insects, which she calls mini-livestock, will become staples. Crickets and grasshoppers can be ground down for use in hamburgers. None of this should surprise us. Caterpillars and locusts are popular on this continent, crickets are eaten in Thailand (we could export Parktown Prawns as delicacies), wasps are good stuff in Japan and mopani worms (the larval stage of the emperor moth) are considered nectar in central Africa. Algae farming could become big business; seaweed is the fastest growing plant and food scientists will shove it into what we eat without us knowing about it.

I shall be dead, thank heavens.

Up to the 2008 financial collapse, food prices had risen dramatically, along with many other commodities. The crisis halted that, but rising food prices will pretty soon be back with us again. To kick it off is the huge drought across the US’s famous Midwest, its grain basket. And, while food prices rise, what will happen to agricultural land? Low value, premium farmland will become gold.

That must explain what looks suspiciously like a Malthusian food farms fund. Called Futuregrowth Asset Management, a unit of Old Mutual, it is buying farms in Africa to take advantage of surging food prices. Bloomberg reports that since 2010 it has bought nine fruit and vegetable farms for about R450m and is now looking at properties in Botswana, Ethiopia, Burkina Faso, Morocco and Senegal.

There’s nothing new in this, apparently. What Futuregrowth is doing is following in the footsteps of China, India, Malaysia and Indonesia, countries that are really worried about their food security. A World Bank report says 45-million hectares were leased in the two years to end2009 and nearly three quarters of the deals were in Africa.

This story is inexhaustible, so let me finish with this: Sean McKenzie of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health says farming became steadily better organised between 1600 and 1960, when it was industrialised. Yields grew, irrigation became pervasive, fertilisers, pesticides and mechanisation are now commonplace.

But, water is being consumed at unsustainable rates (two thirds is used in farming), chemical pesticides and fertilisers pollute soil, water and air, soil erosion is increasing faster than it can be replaced, and the use of growth hormones is creating untold problems. Perhaps, in the end, Malthus will win the Nobel economics prize (posthumously).

E-mail: david@gleason.co.za Twitter: @TheTorqueColumn