'Epidemic of food riots' could trigger society collapse by 2040, warn scientists

via RT

With the global demand for food on the rise, our society could collapse as soon as in 2040 due to fatal food shortages and "unprecedented epidemic of food riots," if counter measures are not taken, researchers have warned.

Food security experts and analysts in the field of the economics of sustainable development were asked to develop the worse-case scenario illustrating a "plausible, relatively-severe production shock affecting multiple agricultural commodities and regions."

According to a report from Lloyds of London prepared with the help of Anglia Ruskin University’s Global Sustainability Institute, "the global food system is under chronic pressure to meet an ever-rising demand, and its vulnerability to acute disruptions is compounded by factors such as climate change, water stress, ongoing globalization and heightening political instability."

Researchers say that the food system is becoming “increasingly vulnerable to acute shocks,” driven by the world’s population growth and shifts in consumption patterns as countries develop. The UN's Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) projects that global agricultural production will need to more than double by 2050 to close the gap between food supply and demand, the report, supported by UK's Foreign Office says.

"A shock to the global food supply could trigger significant claims across multiple classes of insurance, including (but not limited to) terrorism and political violence, political risk, business interruption, marine and aviation, agriculture, environmental liability, and product liability and recall," the report warns, adding that these losses could be aggravated by the potential for a food system shock to last for years to come.

The Director of the Global Sustainability Institute, Dr. Aled Jones, told Insurge Intelligence that "based on plausible climate trends, and a total failure to change course, the global food supply system would face catastrophic losses, and an unprecedented epidemic of food riots."

"We ran the model forward to the year 2040, along a business-as-usual trajectory based on ‘do-nothing’ trends — that is, without any feedback loops that would change the underlying trend," he said.

"In this scenario, global society essentially collapses as food production falls permanently short of consumption," Jones added.