“Food unrest” spreads as food becomes the new oil, and land, the new gold

Originally on Yahoo’s The Daily Ticker, via Cryptogon:

“The term ‘food unrest’ will become part of our daily vocabulary,” Brown tells The Daily Ticker.

It reflects the imbalance between the supply of food and demand for food globally.

On the demand side, says Brown, is a growing global population — 80 million more people born each year — and more people moving up the food chain, which means as many as 3 billion people are consuming more “grain intensive products” like meat, milk and eggs. “Rising affluence may have eclipsed population growth” as a major demand factor for food prices, says Brown.

Humankind facing a vegetarian future?

From John Vidal, in The Guardian, via Cryptogon:

Edited screenshot from Cryptogon. Click to go there.

“Leading water scientists have issued one of the sternest warnings yet about global food supplies, saying that the world’s population may have to switch almost completely to a vegetarian diet over the next 40 years to avoid catastrophic shortages.

Humans derive about 20% of their protein from animal-based products now, but this may need to drop to just 5% to feed the extra 2 billion people expected to be alive by 2050, according to research by some of the world’s leading water scientists.

Virtual grocery shopping in South Korea

Thanks to Cryptogon for the heads up: