There are various factors that influence the system of the food production, consumption and distribution, such as those described in orange boxes in Chart 4 below.

Firstly, let’s take a look at the factors that influence grain production.

When we look at cases of food shortages, we see that climate events such as typhoons, floods and droughts give a damage to the crop harvest, and this causes food shortages. Wars and confricts also cause food shortages.

On Page 2-1, I provided a simplified explanation that “amount of grain production = yield per acreage x cultivated acreage.”  Yield depends on the type of seedlings used, richness of the farmland, and agricultural technology such as fertilizers, irrigation, as well as the climate.  To increase the harvest by using the agricultural technology is called as "intensive farming", but even if you increase fertilizers by 100 times, yield will not increase by 100 times.  Intensiveness has limitations.

To say roughly, change in cultivated acreage in the world is leveling off.  In the middle of the 20th century, increase in cultivated acreage stopped.  In some parts of the world, the cultivated acreage has begun decreasing because of industrialization and sterile soil.  Some countries are reducing acreage under cultivation to avoid excess grain production as the agricultural policy.

Water deficit also influences grain production.  Water consumption in cities and industrial areas is increasing greatly, and deforestation is making forests lose the ability to keep water within the soil.  Water deficit has become a social issue in some countries, such as China.

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2010-04/27/content_9777213.htm

 

Population growth is the main factor that influences grain consumption.  The world population is estimated at 6.8 billion.  While intensiveness of farming has limitations and cultivated acreage levels off, the world population continues growing.  If the world population grows continuously, grain production might be unable to catch up with the increase of grain consumption in future. In such a case, Total World Grain will fall short of the amount of grain consumption for (in other word, the amount of grain demanded by) all the world population. Grain price will rise, and suffering from food shortages will spread all over the world.  Such case is generally called as the "food crisis". It's a problem of the balance of the food production and consumption. Anyway, we must prevent this from happening, for the sake of our children. .

Grain is also used for livestock feed and bioenergy sources.  People generally eat more meat when their economic status improves.  You need 11 kg of feed grain a year to produce 1 kg of beef.  For 1 kg of chicken, 4 kg of feed grain a year is needed.  As each country’s economic status improves, and the richer people’s diets become, the more meat they consume.  This causes more grain to be used for livestock feed.  Economic growth in China, whose population is 1.3 billion, is creating a huge impact on world grain consumption.

In addition to this, as former President Bush adopted a policy of increasing production of bioethanol, more corn is used for the raw material.

People in poverty in developing countries are suffering from food shortages.  The direct cause is poverty and low income.  Immature economy and industry, poor infrastructure, and inadequate education are in the background of this issue.  Even in some countries such as India or China, which are achieving incredibly fast economic growth, the disparity in wealth is still large because of, among other reasons, the inadequacy of income redistribution policies through social security and taxation.  The people in poverty seem to be left behind by the economic growth. 

To avoid misunderstandig, please allow me to add two examples:

1) Chinese government has been making various efforts to reduce the poverty in China.
http://www.undp.org.cn/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&catid=10&sid=10

2) Brazil’s government has invested heavily in programs to eliminate poverty and hunger and improve access to services and opportunities in low-income communities. Brazil’s President Lula's "Zero hunger" campaign and "Borsa familia" programme are good example of income redistribution.
http://blogs.worldbank.org/growth/brazil-fights-hunger-illiteracy

Grain prices have a big influence on grain distribution.  As a result of the financial crisis arising from the U. S. sub-prime loan problem in 2008, speculation money poured into the grain market, and this made grain prices skyrocket.  Many people could not buy food, and rioting broke out in various places in the world.