WASHINGTON — This year's world grain harvest will increase to a record level but will still fall nearly 60 million tons short of what 6.4 billion people and more than 1 billion livestock will consume, an environmental group predicted Tuesday.
The group and a University of Missouri agricultural economist who agreed the estimate was "in the ballpark" cited usual problems with weather, crop diseases, and insects; new worries from falling water tables, especially in the United States and China; and rising temperatures worldwide. The 2004 harvest is estimated at 1.89 billion tons, the most ever, but consumption is projected at 1.95 billion tons, said Lester Brown, president of Earth Policy Institute, an environmental research group.
"This is good news for farmers and bad news for consumers," Brown said. "As grain prices go up, farmers benefit but consumers suffer. Those for whom it will be especially difficult are the 3 billion people who live on $2 or less a day." It also would mark a fifth straight year of grain harvest shortfalls and draw down world stocks to below 300 million tons, Brown said. Such a supply, the lowest level ever, probably would last less than 56 days, he said.
In 2003, the 1.83 billion tons of world grain production fell short of the 1.94 billion tons consumed, according to the Agriculture Department's latest statistics, in April. That meant about 59 days world supply. The lowest ever was 56 days in 1972, when wheat and rice prices doubled because of scarcity after poor grain harvests, according to Brown."
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