The Research Lead with Agri-Food Economic Systems warns the increased use of biofuels to augment fossil fuel supplies in response to the conflict in the Middle East could end up being highly disruptive to feedstuff and feed grain markets. Agri-Food Economic Systems has released an Independent Agri-Food Policy Note which examines the impact of the conflict in the Middle East on energy and food and the resulting adjustments that will need to occur.Agri-Food Economic Systems Research Lead and the author of the Agri-Food Policy Note Dr. Al Mussell observes the war in the Middle East is generating a cascading disruption in both energy and food.
Quote-Dr. Al Mussell-Agri-Food Economic Systems:
Fundamentally agriculture and food are affected by conflict differently than any other segment of the economy and we needed to understand that. Fuel is quite a bit more expensive in short order and, when you affect the prices of your energy complex, you affect the petrochemical complex which is manifest in particularly your nitrogen fertilizers, it's going to get into pesticides and that's above and beyond transportation costs of all of the various inputs and outputs that farmers and consumers are involved with so there's all of that.
But what I think you could easily miss is that, when you're talking about hydrocarbons, the fossil fuel complex, and in agriculture we deal with carbohydrates. If they sound like similar words, they are. They're both calories. We transform one into the other on a regular basis, all the time in fact, so you can't have a crisis in hydrocarbons and not have a crisis in carbohydrates. It could be a little delayed but this will come around and that's the worry that we have now.
Dr. Mussell suggests, as biofuels are be called upon to augment fossil fuel supplies, we will need to figure out how to facilitate investment and growth into declining a fossil fuel market. He says this could end up being highly disruptive in feedstuff and feed grain markets and could spill over into long term adjustments.
The Independent Agri-Food Policy Note can be accessed at agrifoodecon.ca. For more visit Farmscape.Ca.
Source : Farmscape.ca