PEAK OIL

Food sector uncertainties
If nothing else, existentially important goods include food. Although countries such as
Germany are almost self-sufficient when it comes to the basic supply of foodstuffs, peak oil
could well have serious consequences in some areas of agriculture. Potential supply
bottlenecks would above all jeopardise countries with high food import quotas since the cost
of importing food is bound to become very high. 136 After peak oil, there would be significant
differences from past food shortages or crises in this context:
- The crisis would concern all food traded over long distances, not just single regions or
products. Regions that are structurally already at risk today would however be
particularly affected (see figure 5).
- Crop yields also depend on oil. The abdication of machines or oil-based fertilizers and
other chemicals to increase crop yield would therefore have a negative effect on
crops. 137
- The increase in food prices would be long-term and would not be the result of a oneoff
crop failure or a similar situation.
- Competition between the use of farmland for food production on the one hand and for
the use of producing biofuels on the other hand could worsen food shortages and
crises. 138
136 For a detailed classification of countries with regard to their food security, cf. Bingxin Yu, Liangzhi You and Shenggen Fan, A Typology of Food Security in Developing
Countries under High Food Prices, Working Paper (Beijing, August 2009), http://ageconsearch.umn.edu/bitstream/51043/2/IAAE%20food%20security%20typology.pdf,
(accessed on 14 October 2010).
137 After the Korean War, the USSR helped North Korea to develop a modern and productive agriculture. When the USSR collapsed, the inflow of cheap oil suddenly dried
up. Between 1989 and 1998, the crop yields dropped by more than half. Cf. Markus Noland, Famine and Reform in North Korea, Institute for International Economics
Working Paper 3-5, July 2003, 5, http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.145.4829&rep=rep1&type=pdf (accessed on 14 October 2010).
138 On the effects of biofuels on food security, see also Chapter 3.1.2.; cf. also Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, The State of Food and Agriculture.
Biofuels: Prospects, Risks and Opportunities (Rome, 2008), 72ff.
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