Prolonged droughts in southern and eastern Europe, coupled with natural disasters in the US and Russia, have raised global concerns over food security and pushed grain prices higher.

Experts are urging the European Union to rethink its resistance to science-based agricultural policy as the confederation prepares to review the effect of the extreme weather on its agricultural output and farmers' incomes.

Recently, Strategie Grains cut its forecast for EU corn output by 7.1 million tons to 58.1 million tons, a 13 percent drop from 2011. Strategie Grains also lowered its global forecast for corn production in 2012-13 by nearly 70 million tons to 829.1 million tons.

"Corn development has been severely affected by the hot, dry weather in central and southern Europe," the France-based analytical service told Reuters. "The damage is irreversible, although an improvement in the weather would provide better conditions."

The European agricultural loss goes along with warning reports from the UN Food and Agricultural Organization that said food prices rose 6 percent overall in July, with corn soaring 23 percent and wheat up 19 percent. The higher prices are being blamed mainly on a devastating drought in the US farm belt and lower-than-expected wheat yields in Russia.

As global food prices return to dangerously high levels, the London-based Crop Protection Association is warning that the EU must rethink its stance on modern, science-based agriculture or risk a food shortage with potentially devastating socio-economic and humanitarian consequences.

CPA chairman Stephen Henning said in an interview on Thursday: "As one of the world's major food producing economies, the EU has significant capacity to influence global food prices and availability, but we are at risk of sleep-walking into a food crisis unless current policies that impede or restrict production-boosting technologies are reversed."

Henning said this latest spike in global food prices highlights the fragility of the world's food-supply base, and sends a clear message to policy-makers of the need to embrace developments in agricultural science and innovation to ensure that production can keep pace with burgeoning demand.

"Doing nothing is not an option," Henning said.

During World Water Week, a forum that will take place Sunday through Aug 31 in Stockholm, the agenda will focus on water and food security. How to mitigate extreme weather, expand anti-drought crops and ensure global food supply will be widely discussed.

Dacian Ciolos, European commissioner for agriculture and rural development, said the EU is by far the largest importer of agri-food products from developing countries - more than Australia, Canada, Japan, New Zealand and the US combined. And he also said the EU is well on its way toward a more sustainable agriculture industry but isn't there yet.

The EU is losing 275 hectares of soil every day because of soil sealing and associate land intake, and this means that more than 100,000 hectares per year are lost for farming. Soil biodiversity is threatened by soil acidification, which is modifying the soil ecosystem and reducing crop yields. Intensive use of irrigation - beyond related problems of water scarcity - accelerates the salinization of the soils, thereby again affecting soil productivity.

"These are real threats for food security," Ciolos said.

The drought has not only brought lower harvests of agricultural produces but also increased fire risks. European Forest Fire Information System warned of an extreme or high risk of fires across much of southern Europe and as far north as Hungary and western Slovakia after a mix of bad weather and prolonged dry spells has contributed to damaging forest fires in Portugal, Spain, southern France and Greece, as well as in the Balkans and Turkey, according to local media reports.

The European Drought Observatory reported drought conditions in parts of France, Germany, Spain and Italy as well as the North Atlantic's Faroe Islands, a self-governed region of Denmark.

fujing@chinadaily.com.cn

(China Daily 08/24/2012 page12)