Guest post by David Archibald
In May, WUWT kindly hosted a post with slides from a presentation I gave to the Institute of World Politics in Washington. Following are some further slides from a presentation I gave during the week to the triennial Nuffield Conference in Perth, Australia.
Figure 1: US Wheat and Corn prices 1916 – 2011 in 2011 constant dollars
Grain prices fell 70% in constant dollar terms from the Korean War to the end of the 20th century. In 2008, energy-related inputs relative to total operating expenses were about 60% for both wheat and corn. A $200 per barrel oil price will raise operating costs by 60% from the 2008 level. A similar price response was experienced during the First Oil Shock of 1973. This time the price increase will be permanent.
Figure 2: Tunisian Wheat Consumption 1960 – 2010
The Arab Spring began with a vegetable vendor, but what they mainly eat is wheat. Figure 2 shows Tunisian wheat consumption per capita from 1960. A 2,500 calorie per day diet is 267 kg per annum of wheat and that is shown as the red line in the graph. The population of Tunisia is 10.4 million growing at 1% per annum. On that basis, Tunisian wheat demand is ratcheting up at 28,000 tonnes per annum.
Figure 3: Yemeni Grain Consumption 1968 – 2010
Yemeni agricultural production falls well short of what is required to feed them. While the average per capita consumption of wheat is half that of Tunisia, the median age is also about half that of Tunisia at 18 years. Tunisia’s is 30 years. Similarly, 43% of Yemenis are under 14 years old while the figure for Tunisia is 23%. Therefore Yemen’s biggest wheat-eating years are ahead of it. Note the big jump in grain imports in 1988.
Figure 4: Yemen Oil Production 1982 – 2015
The big jump in grain imports in 1988 is explained by the fact that 1988 was the year that Yemeni oil exports took off. Production peaked a decade ago and is now in steep decline. With or without a civil war, by the end of the decade there will be very little oil production to pay for wheat imports. The population of Yemen is 24 million growing at 2.6% per annum. Population is currently increasing at 630,000 per annum. If we assume that they all make it to adulthood and eat 267 kg of wheat per annum for a 2,500 calorie per day diet, wheat imports are ratcheting up at 170,000 tonnes per annum.
Figure 5: Afghanistan Wheat Consumption 1960 – 2010
As unpleasant as Yemen is, there is a place that is yet more execrable. To paraphrase Mark Steyn, Afghanistan is a pestilential nation of pederasts, the chief exports of which are terrorism and heroin. As Figure 5 shows, the modern history of that country is written in its wheat consumption. Wheat imports started in the mid-1970s when Afghanistan was no longer able to feed itself from its own efforts. Imports keep rising during the early years of the Russian invasion and then collapsed along with domestic production. Population growth didn’t fall below 2% per annum during this period of restricted supply. Wheat imports rose dramatically after the US started its turn at running the country. Afghanistan is very similar to Yemen in having a median age of 18 years and population growth rate of 2.4% per annum. At that rate, the current population of 29.8 million is growing by 715,000 per annum. Thus wheat demand is ratcheting up at about 190,000 tonnes per annum.
Figure 6: Population of Afghanistan from 1960 with a projection to 2025
Heroin is 25% of Afghanistan’s GDP. One day the world may stop paying for that heroin and the Danegeld for its terrorism. So where will the wheat come from then? Another alternative is that there may be a will to send Afghanistan some grain but there will be a physical lack of grain due to a climatic event. Figure 6 shows a possible future for Afghanistan’s population in the event of a sudden cessation of grain imports. Population can be expected to collapse below the natural carrying capacity of the country of about 12 million.
Figure 7: Pakistan Wheat Production 1960 – 2011
Wheat imports into Afghanistan would have to come through Pakistan which would have first call on them. Figure 7 shows that Pakistan’s wheat production profile is quite impressive with a five-fold increase from 1960 to nearly 25 million tonnes per annum.
Figure 8: Pakistan Wheat Production per Capita 1960 – 2032
Figure 8 shows that Pakistan’s per capita wheat production from 1980 has been static in the range of 120 to 140 kg per annum. If population keeps growing at its established trend rate, by 2030 Pakistan will be needing another 8 million tonnes of wheat per annum.
Figure 9: Wheat yields in developing countries 1950 – 2005
The biggest driver of higher wheat yields over the last 60 years has been the development of dwarf strains, pioneered by Norman Borlaug. In a sense, that put off the problem for a generation and made it twice as bad. Wheat yields have plateaued from 1996.
Figure 10: Egyptian wheat and corn consumption by source
Two hundred years ago, Egypt’s population is estimated to have been about 4 million. It is now 82 million and growing at 2% per annum – another 1.6 million Egyptian souls are created each year. As adults, their temporal bodies will want to consume an extra 440,000 tonnes of grain per annum. Figure 10 shows that on established trends, Egypt will be needing to import two thirds of its grain consumption. The projected import requirement matches the current level of US wheat exports.
Figure 11: Egyptian oil production and consumption 1965 – 2020
Food and fuel are subsidised in Egypt. What has helped fund that is Egypt’s oil production. That peaked in the 90s and Egypt’s oil consumption is now higher than its production. Oil and grain imports are now rising in tandem. Whoever controls Egypt from here, either the Muslim Brotherhood or the Army, will have a hard time balancing the budget.
Figure 12: US production of major grains and soybeans 1960 – 2010
The biggest increases in agricultural production in recent years have been from the US and Brazil. The mandated ethanol requirement has increased US corn production by 100 million tonnes per annum. That quantum could feed some 300 million people. In fact total US grain and soybean production could feed some 1,500 million people on a vegetarian diet, with the soybeans offsetting corn’s deficiency in lysine and tryptophan.
Figure 13: Mexican major food imports 1960 – 2010
South of the border, the situation isn’t as rosy. As Figure 13 shows, Mexico imports about half of its food requirement. With a population of 113 million growing at 1.1% per annum, there are another 1.2 million Mexicans created each year who, as adults, will need another 370,000 tonnes of imported grain to feed them.
Figure 14: Mexican oil production and consumption 1965 – 2021
Mexican oil production has peaked and is now falling rapidly towards the level of domestic Mexican consumption. That line will be reached in 2016, beyond which Mexico will have to pay for oil imports as well as increasing food imports, or do without something.
Figure 15: Brazilian sugar and soybean exports 1960 – 2010
Demand pull from China, importing 50 million tonnes of soybeans per annum, has created a supply response in other places. Figure 15, showing a dramatic increase in Brazilian soybean and sugar exports starting in the mid-1990s, begs the question of how much more land in Brazil could be put to the plough. With protein content of 38%, Brazil’s soybean exports equate to 100 million tonnes per annum of wheat in terms of protein content.
Figure 16: Russian wheat production and consumption 1987 – 2010
In accordance with good economic theory, Russian wheat production rose as a consequence of the end of communism in 1990, though it was a very lagged response. The drought in 2010 reduced production by 20 million tonnes and the Russian Government banned exports as a consequence.
Figure 17: World production of major grains in 2009
The World produces about equal quantities of wheat, rice and corn for a total of 2,200 million tonnes. This equates to 311 kg per capita for the seven billion people on the planet. The recent increase of US corn production by 100 million tonnes per annum in response to the price signal from the mandated ethanol requirement suggests that production of grains in the US could increase as the price signal increases. On that basis, there may be the ability to return more land to cropping in the US and increase production by a further 100 million tonnes per annum.
It has been estimated that Brazil has 190 million hectares of currently uncropped land that could be brought into production. Assuming 2 tonnes per hectare, Brazil’s production could rise by a further 380 million tonnes per annum. Similarly, Russia has 40 million hectares of cleared land that could be used for agriculture but currently isn’t. That might provide a further 80 million tonnes of grain per annum. The total is 670 million tonnes per annum of potential further production from the US, Brazil and Russia, which might feed 1,675 million people at 400 kg per capita.
Figure 18: World population growth rates 1950 – 2050
Figure 18 shows the World’s population growth rate from 1950 with a projection in blue to 2050. China’s Great Leap Forward shows up clearly in the chart. 30 million Chinese died as a result of a Government requirement to meet grain quotas while not allowing the peasants to retain enough to live on. This was 5% of China’s population at the time. Assuming that the World could produce a further 670 mtpa of grain and that would feed a further 1,675 million humans, that limit would be reached about two decades from now. There are likely to be some bumps along the way. At one stage in 1816, blocks of river ice from the Mississippi River were encountered by ships 100 kilometres out in the Gulf of Mexico. This was due to the Tambora eruption the year before. As the current de Vries cycle event progresses, the chance that a major volcanic eruption will have an agricultural impact continues to rise.
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Global warming should generally stabilize weather and improve crop production. However, if there is a 60 year ocean cycle that brings cold water to the surface ~ every 30 years, extreme weather could be worse as the difference between the ocean and atmosphere temperature would be greater than it otherwise would be during cold phases (at least initially). Increased windshear would mean more storm risk and higher humidity from increased winds would mean low temps and high humidity leading to increased communicable disease and crop blight and other diseases.
This would be for part of cold phases, the rest of the time things would be better.
On my land in Canada, I could double of triple production with the appropriate price signals. If wheat reaches the equivalent price that it did in the early 1970’s, that would motivate me to break up forage land and add to grain production.
At the end of the day, production will increase if prices increase provided that the transportation and market systems are in place to move those goods to market.
Good place for this post. All those oil projections are as good as climate projections.
Like all single and multiple celled living organisms our population expands and contracts in direct correlation with the food supply. Our ingenuity has allowed the carrying capacity of Earth, regarding humans, to increase dramatically. This ingenuity has been built on the availability of cheap energy. When the current food supply is curtailed by a natural disaster or anything else the severity of the famine will be a direct measure of governance. Those nations that are well governed will be a great deal better off than those badly led.
Those calling for capitalism to be smashed, calling for us to stop using ubiquitous energy, stop crop research and GM , are all unable to see how evolution rather than revolution got us this far. We baby boomers have a lot to answer for if these children are the products of our world vision. We brought them up to question everything but it seems we didn’t require them to understand anything and just to see confrontation with the “establishment” as an end in itself.
Fortunately humans are innately conservative and change comes slowly but it always comes. Let’s just hope that the big volcanic eruption or meteor strike doesn’t arrive while our defenses are down.
David Archibald,
Thanks for an interesting article.
It all seems to me to boil down to the need for increases in energy for production of desalinated water for increased agriculture in arid regions. The food to feed 10 billion can be produced, but it will require more water in arid regions. In the very long term, only nuclear power can provide the energy humanity needs. Those who try to block it’s expanded use are acting both irrationality and immorally.
While peak oil production and dramatic price increases may be further away than currently anticipated by many people, in some regions (as you point out) the peak in oil production is long past, and the future economic ability of many countries (with rapidly growing populations) to feed themselves looks problematic. If the UN wants to do something useful, they can stop worrying so much about climate change and start worrying about how to avoid this impending humanitarian catastrophe. Increased efforts to encourage population growth rate reduction in parallel with programs to increase economic and agricultural growth are clearly needed in these countries.
Oil = Food
What these graphs do not show is the “why” not enough wheat is produced in the various countries.
I know that Greece up into the 70s was self sufficient in wheat, i.e. it produced enough wheat for its population’s demands and imported only in order to improve the quality ( hard soft etc). The fields are there, and they can produce bumper crops. An uncle of mine in the 70s planted wheat as a hobby and we still have some wheat from that time. Every village had a mill for making flour out of the domestic wheat, etc.
Why did this stop? Globalization and EU entry where directives were given for changes in cultivation, subsidies made people lazy and a great push for university education of sorts sent the young to civil service jobs that were created by the politicians in order to accommodate the demand. In addition prices for the farmer are very low and do not cover the expenses. And Greece finds itself importing onions and garlic from China and asparagus from Peru. The global economy is an enormous cazino and it affects not only banks but also who cultivates what.
If there is a global shock people will go back to the land and fortunately it was not possible to destroy it.
My point is that these plots divorced from the global cazino where countries are forced to be exporters and importers so that other countries can be exporters and importers may not make much sense for future projections.
I believe that, in spite of our politicians, the U.S. has risen in domestic oil production (in recent years) to the number 3 spot world wide. We import half of our oil currently. 40% of our oil comes from Canada and Mexico. The rest comes from other sources. This is an improvement from 20 years ago when we imported 2/3 of our oil. Add to this the tremendous reserves in PA. (gas shale), NE (Bakkan reserves) and Canada. Not to mention the ANWR and you have a totally different picture. And this is just on land. If you add in the sea drilling too…
The post does not seem to take into account some basic facts:
1. Food security is not about producing your food in your own country (or in your own province, district, village or backyard), but about global availability and about economic access to food by people. “Food security exists when all people at all times have physical and economic access to sufficient nutritious and healthy food according to their needs and food preferences” (definition coined by FAO and adopted by almost all countries in successive World Food Summits since 1996). The Summits’ documents stress the importance of trade to ensure physical access, and the importance of economic development and higher incomes to ensure economic access. Global availability already exists, and is expected to be attained without particular strain once world population peaks at about 9 billion by the mid 21st century.
2. Food production no longer depends on additional land. “Figure 15, showing a dramatic increase in Brazilian soybean and sugar exports starting in the mid-1990s, begs the question of how much more land in Brazil could be put to the plough”, says the author, probably ignoring the fact that agricultural land in Brazil stopped expanding about 20 years ago, and agricultural employment is decreasing in Brazil since the 1980s, so that all the recent (1990-2011) spectacular growth in agricultural production (crops and livestock) and most of the not less spectacular growth in the preceding decades is due to increased productivity, not to increased use of land and labour. The same is true for the world as a whole, even in Africa.
3. Different foods have different income elasticities, and thus human cereal consumption tends to pan out and even decrease when higher incomes are reached. Use of cereals for fodder (e.g. maize fed to pigs or poultry) does increase at higher incomes, but overall cereal human consumption tends to grow more slowly as incomes go up, while other foodstuffs (meat, dairy, vegetables, fruit) keep increasing. Detailed studies of this matter, including projections to 2050-2100 under conservative income growth hypotheses, suggest world food availability will be enough, and access to food much better than now, even if world population does not peak by mid century but continues to grow to be 15 billion by 2100, and even if the tendency to overeating and obesity as income grows keeps regrettably going on.
There are many references on this matter, both about current situation and future prospects. The main basic studies applying integrated assessment methods (combining economic and climatic models, agroecological zoning and crop technology) have come from the Laxenburg (Austria) IIASA (International Institute of Advanced Systems Analysis), in collaboration with FAO and involving a lot of scholars from different countries (main coordinator is Dr Günther Fischer). FAO has also conducted their own simulations such as those contained in the recent publication on ‘How To Feed The World in 2050’ and in ‘World Agriculture Towards 2015/2030’ which is now being updated to 2050 (current main coordinator is Dr Jelle Bruinsma, with former and now retired coordinator Dr Nikos Alexandratos acting as a consultant).
Of course, some countries may face a more difficult situation, such as some in the Middle East that are accustomed to heavily subsidized food consumption funded by oil revenues; the scheme may face problems if oil exports diminish (and the reduction is not made up by rising oil prices) and populations keep growing without modernizing their food habits, but these changes are part of the general transformation those countries would surely undertake (and are already undertaking in the form of economic reform, social change and political upheaval). How this particular situation turns out remains to be seen, but no food catastrophe is expected. Population growth is slowing down in Arab countries, out-migration is increasing, the economies are indeed diversifying, the price of oil is expected to rise if it becomes scarcer, and the social-political-economic system is under rapid transformation.
It may perhaps be opportune to mention that I have recently published a book on the matter of food and climate change (co-authored by my son Emiliano), ‘Climate change, agriculture and food security in Latin America’ (available at Amazon.com). The book’s focus is on Latin America but includes abundant material for the whole world.
Very interesting. Never know what to expect from WUWT.
I remember many years ago (30-40) stock piling grain was important to avert shortages due to possible crop failures and now we burn it as fast as we can grow it. This is change I can’t believe in.
The mindset of the masses today need to look ahead past tomorrow and do a little planning for at least somewhat into the future. Energy, food, security, etc. resources take years to materialize. How did the masses ever get diverted into chasing after CO2 as a real threat? Again, I just can’t believe these changes.
Is this horse ready to leave the gate?
“And I beheld, and lo a black horse; and he that sat on him had a pair of balances in his hand. And I heard a voice in the midst of the four beasts say, A measure of wheat for a penny, and three measures of barley for a penny; and see that thou hurt not the oil and the wine.”
Grains in short supply, but plenty of olive oil and wine to go around.
“Wheat imports into Afghanistan would have to come through Pakistan which would have first call on them”, says the author of this post, probably ignoring that a lot of imported wheat reaches Afghanistan from the North (originating mainly in Kazakhstan). Other import flows pass through Iran, and not only through Pakistan. As a landlocked country, of course, Afghanistan faces increased freight costs for bulky commodities such as cereals, but that does not mean that countries located along the way would have “first call” on shipments destined to Afghanistan.
Kitler says:
October 8, 2011 at 12:55 am
So this is why our leaders have been building all them secret well stocked bunkers to hide themselves away during the great population collapse.
On a more serious note what will be the effect of all the new shale oil, tar sands and shale gas on the ability of the world to maintain crop yields? Another thing to consider is the rapid depletion of the Ogallala out West in the USA it is not being replenished and once it’s gone a lot of Prairie out West will revert to desert or be only good for cattle ranching.
———–
It has to do with flow rates. Peak oil is not about what’s in the ground, it’s about how fast you can extract it. Those sources will not be able to keep up with depletion from all other sources. So over all world wide, oil production is going to fall, if it hasn’t started already. The one’s affected by this will be the major importers of oil, as exporters keep more of their dwindling oil for themselves.
For those that take issue with the peak oil concept, PLEASE go watch the video that Fit_Nick posted. The math is very basic, and inarguable. Unless some basic factors change in very unpleasant ways, peak oil is real and imminent, or has already happened.
This is not all bad. As oil supplies collapse, there will be less CO2 emitted (can’t have fossil fuel CO2 without fossil fuel), so that particular red herring will go away. The energy need of the world are not going to significantly decrease, because most energy doesn’t go into SUVs or evil lightbulbs, it goes into feeding the ever expanding population, so nuclear energy is going to be the only answer – a few more years of windmills will destroy that particular idea very effectively.
“Greens” will become more and more obviously either brain damaged, or clearly interested only in reducing the world population by encouraging starvation, war and disease.
Frumious Bandersnatch says:
October 8, 2011 at 8:03 am
I believe that, in spite of our politicians, the U.S. has risen in domestic oil production (in recent years) to the number 3 spot world wide. We import half of our oil currently. 40% of our oil comes from Canada and Mexico. The rest comes from other sources. This is an improvement from 20 years ago when we imported 2/3 of our oil. Add to this the tremendous reserves in PA. (gas shale), NE (Bakkan reserves) and Canada. Not to mention the ANWR and you have a totally different picture. And this is just on land. If you add in the sea drilling too…
————-
Within a few short years Mexico will no longer be able to export as Cantarell dies. Again, it’s not about what’s in the ground, it’s about how fast it can be extracted. The debt crisis will mask the effects of deminishing oil production as demand is killed off as currencies collapse, credit evaporates, starting in Europe.
theBuckWheat says:
October 8, 2011 at 6:29 am
“Peak Oil” is a lie that is used in an attempt to stampede policymakers and the public into choices that cannot be productive in the long run, and certainly ones will raise costs and destroy liberty in the process.
———–
Peak oil is a physical fact. Don’t confuse geological peak, which we are no where near, and flow rate peak. The latter is what peak oil refers to, always has. Flow rates peaked in 2005.
Burning food in vehicles – biofuels food crisis –
Patrick Dixon, for Red Prairie, audience of logistics and supply chain executives. …
http://youtu.be/vBW821-t2CU
Biofuels scandal + food prices. Biofuel crisis, biofuel oil, biofuel production, cars, algae, systems and basics
Why biofuel industry is dead — biofuel by converting food into oil is stupid and immoral. Biodiesel, biomass, biowaste and …Patrick Dixon
http://youtu.be/yTBSJl9gabA
charles nelson says:
October 8, 2011 at 1:39 am
Could Kilter explain by what mechanism change the aquifer is not being replenished please?
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From Wikipedia, the Ogallala Aquifer:
It was only after World War II that affordable technology became available to substantially extract water. This transformed the High Plains into one of the most agriculturally productive regions in the world. During the early years, this source of water was thought to be inexhaustible, and its hydrology a mystery. But, because the rate of extraction exceeds the rate of recharge, water level elevations are decreasing. At some places, the water table was measured to drop more than five feet (1.5 m) per year at the time of maximum extraction. In extreme cases, the deepening of wells was required to reach the steadily falling water table. The water table has been drained (dewatered) in some places, such as Northern Texas.
——-
Charles, it seems as though much of the area overlying the aquifer is semi-arid (little to no rain). In other areas where it does rain a non-porous “caliche” has formed at surface so that evaporation takes much of the rain away. Add to that the areas that do allow penetration of surface water into the aquifer (the playa lakes) are being destroyed by farmers, reducing the incoming flow. The USGS estimates the aquifer has declined by 9% since widespread irrigation began in the 1930s.
Our increased use of fossil fuels makes it easier for us to do things efficiently on a larger scale – like slowly drain a 7 state aquifer. We will run into these problems head on before we start running out of oil.
Buckwheat, I don’t mean to get into a semantics argument, but it’s more than costs. For sustainable energy production, energy out must be much greater than energy in.
Your statement that hydrocarbon fuels assembled “atom by atom” is a little bit melodramatic. A significant amount of fuel from crude is simply fractionally distilled, which is a physical process. It’s true that chemically, more effort today is expended for hydrotreating to remove nitrogen and sulfur species and to reduce aromatics, but it would be more technically correct to says that crude oil refining involves separating and transforming molecular species.
Now the Fischer-Tropsch process is more akin to your atom by atom assembly.
Nobody includes wastage in the food production numbers. China & India have numbers that are probably inflated to begin with, and, then you have the problem of how much of their production goes to waste before it can be consumed as something other than fertilizer or fuel. What do those numbers look like when you include wastage, and, does it change the complexion of food production?
Hector M. says:
October 8, 2011 at 8:17 am
=================================================
Hector, I think you downplay the relationship between oil production (and therefore revenue) and food imports. While it is nice to think that as countries lose oil revenue they will replace it with some other form of revenue to pay for their food imports – the argument is missing on the “how?”.
What seems to be happening in the world is that the countries with growing oil production are getting richer and countries with declining oil production are getting poorer. Take Brazil. Oil production up about 50% since 2000 and their economy has been growing rapidly.
I would be concerned about countries that are highly reliant on food imports and domestic oil production, where oil production is declining.
David, that was almost interesting and it would have been if you hadn’t taken huge leaps of logic in unfounded assumptions.
Is it surprising that areas rife and abundant with turmoil has drops in oil and food production? Further, you don’t address the potential increase in crop production of land already in use. For instance, do you believe the farmers in most Africa have all of the tools and techniques 1st world nations have at their disposal? The yields in 2nd and 3rd world nations have the potential to have exponential increases. And, it is likely that they will as soon as the technologies disseminate to those nations.
It has been established OPEC throttles oil production. It is also established that there are huge reservoirs of oil that remain untapped. Oil production is limited to desire at this moment. You do rightfully point out the asinine stupidity of pouring our food down our fuel tanks, but again, that’s rectified by simple desire.
Pakistan, Afghanistan and Yemen? Are you kidding me? You think you can draw trend lines and conclusions from those countries?
Now, if you want to draw a trend line, quantify the advancements in technology in both food production and oil production and explain why you think this will halt. Or are you of this mindset?……… Everything that can be invented has been invented.”
Charles H. Duell, Commissioner, U.S. patent office, 1899 (attributed)
For over 60 years I have heard this same OLD song. It’s ending always turns out WRONG.
Humans, left alone, will always produce more wealth then they consume. Only government interference and disruption cause collapse in production. Bureaucratic regulation and taxation is the cause of that collapse in production. At 40% taxation production slows, regulation adds to that burden. When bureaucracy runs wild, civilization collapse follows, ALWAYS. When the population will no longer pay enough in taxes, slavery follows with starvation and revolution and then civil society ends.
Only very cheap and abundant food has permitted our present overburden of taxation and regulation to reach its present level in the developed world. THE END IS NEAR. Let us hope the reset is carried out by wise people or devastation will follow. In the underdeveloped world they are kept in servitude and poverty by their governments bureaucrats, creating only a surplus of population. “The government that governs best, governs least” pg
Steve from Rockwood,
declining export revenue is trouble for any country facing it, not only declining OIL exports, and not only for countries funding food imports with oil exports. Countries depending on copper or diamond exports to finance food and other imports (as is the case for several countries in Africa) may be also in trouble. But these things do not happen all of a sudden, and all other things do not remain equal while something so momentous is happening.
For one thing, natural population growth (fertility and mortality) is slowing down, while international migration is rapidly increasing. Economic structures are diversifying, and even a modest degree of economic progress along coming decades would undoubtedly reinforce that diversification. In some oil exporting countries (especially the major ones in the Gulf) most of the working population is foreign, and will go out (home or somewhere else) as their labour is gradually no longer needed, thus leaving a smaller population to feed in the oil exporting country. Growth in non oil industries, including some with export capacity, is also happening, and would accelerate as the social and political structure modernizes.
I have not studied the case of the Middle East countries in detail, but existing projections for that area of the world do not support a catastrophic prospect in terms of access to food, even in the (most unlikely) worst scenarios of slower growth, fragmented world and high demographic growth (such as IPCC’s A2 scenario).
The Future = I’ll believe it, when I see it. Go Exxon!