Paper presented at the Forum Food and energy security perspectives in the Brics countries, St. Petersburg State Economic University).
Food and energy security is a basic requirement in all countries, and particularly in the Brics, emerging economies that include some of the most powerful in the world.
Both factors are linked. Large-scale agriculture inexorably requires energy for agricultural machinery, irrigation systems and transport of products, as well as the application of fertilizers and insecticides derived from hydrocarbons. The food security of countries that do not have abundant and stable fossil energy is at risk; The energy security of countries that depend on imports to feed their population is at risk.
Let us examine the interrelationship of these variables in the Brics countries. We can assume that a country in which food constitutes a modest percentage of its total imports, and a significant percentage of its total exports, enjoys food security. Let us examine the magnitudes compiled at the end of 2020 by the World Bank, remembering that the global average of food imports is 9% of total imports.
Brazil, the largest economy in Latin America, has vast arable land, one of the world's largest river systems, as well as wetlands and large forest systems in the Amazon. Its food imports are 5% of total imports, its food exports 35% of total imports.
The Russian Federation also has huge tracts of arable land and modern agricultural equipment. The Soviet Revolution collectivized the land and took substantial steps toward the mechanization of the agricultural industry. According to the World Bank, Russia's food imports are 12% of total imports, three points above the global percentage, and its food exports are 8% of the total. These are acceptable scores, but perhaps it would be desirable to improve them in view of the numerous and aggressive external enemies of the Russian Federation.
India has land that is intensively cultivated thanks to the labor of countless smallholders and farmers who largely use traditional techniques. Until now, this modality of agricultural production has allowed it to supply its large population, although in austerity conditions, with a preponderance of vegetable production and notable conflicts between small farmers and large agricultural companies. Food imports are only 5% of their total imports; their export of them, 11% of the total.
China, thanks to its ancient tradition of making use of water courses through ponds, dams and canals, and to the modernization of agriculture promoted by the Revolution, spends 8% of its total imports on food, and only exports food worth of 2% of the total. Its fossil energy reserves are modest, compared to its huge population.
South Africa spends 8% of its total imports on food, and 12% of its exports is food. (https://datos.bancomundial.org/indicator/TM.VAL.FOOD.ZS.UN).
According to these figures, the Brics countries would seem to present acceptable food security, although in Brazil, India and South Africa it is relativized by the extreme concentration of land ownership by large transnational monopolies that export food to the detriment of local consumers. creating food insecurity in countries with high nutrient production.
Let us compare these figures with the magnitude of the oil reserves that would allow us to prolong and increase food production, remembering that Venezuela occupies the first place on the scale with 303.806 million barrels of black gold.
Russia occupies the 8th place in the world rank of reserves, with 80.000 million barrels, almost double those of the United States.
The immense China occupies the 14th port, with 25.000 million barrels.
It is followed by Brazil, in 15th place, with 16.184 million barrels.
The highly populated India is in 22nd place, with 2.625 million barrels.
And South Africa in the 83rd range, with 15 million barrels.
These figures are approximate, and calculated with small differences of years, but offer a general overview of the availability of one of the largest sources of fossil energy (https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anexo:Pa%C3%ADses_por_reservas_probadas_de_petr %C3%B3leo).
According to them, the Russian Federation is the country with the greatest energy security of the Brics: it not only has enough oil to satisfy its internal demand, but also to export. China and India, for their part, are in a delicate situation, given their huge populations and the industrial power of their economies, largely dependent on fossil energy. South Africa has few reserves of it, and is forced to import it.
The possible conversion of the Brics into Brica is discussed, with the incorporation of Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates. The alliance with these oil countries, as well as with Venezuela, is essential to prolong the energy and food security of the Brics and guarantee affordable and affordable energy to their countries in need of it, particularly China and India. On the other hand, this would free the Organization of the Petroleum Producing Countries (Opec) from its annoying dependence on demand from the United States and other NATO members, as well as on the dollar, which could be replaced by a combination of the ruble and yuan, or by another monetary sign with a solid backing to be created in the future.
We have passed or are about to pass the "Peak of hydrocarbons", from which they will become increasingly scarce and difficult to extract, until their possible exhaustion in four or five decades. (https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2020-peak-oil-era-is-suddenly-upon-us/)
The Brics and the entire world critically depend on the remaining fossil fuel to articulate agricultural production systems based on renewable energy. It will decide the fate of civilization.
Excellent article prof!!
Good analysis, it could be extended to a kind of speculation of the effects that an extension of the brics alliance to a brics type would cause in the brics world. CETERIS PARIBUS: energy consumption technologies remain intact.