Breadbasket

This article is about the cultural/political concept. For other uses, see Basket (disambiguation).
"Rice bowl" redirects here. For the Japanese food and container, see Donburi. For the American football championship in Japan, see Rice Bowl.
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The breadbasket of a country or of a region is an area which, because of the richness of the soil and/or advantageous climate, produces large quantities of wheat or other grain. Rice bowl is a similar term used to refer to Southeast Asia;[1] California's Salinas Valley is sometimes referred to as America's salad bowl.[2][3] Such regions may be the subject of fierce political disputes, which may even escalate into full military conflicts.[4]

Breadbaskets have become important within the global food system by concentrating global food-production in a small number of countries and, in countries such as India, in small geographic regions.[5] As climate change increases weather variability around the world, the likelihood of multiple breadbaskets failing at a time increases dramatically.[5] The 2022 food crises has been in part facilitated by a series of failures in key breadbasket regions, and the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine has created significant potential disruption of the respective breadbasket regions that are important for global wheat and oil seed production.[6][7][8][9][10]

  1. ^ Than, Ker (3 May 2012). "Scientists Race to Save World's Rice Bowl From Climate Change". National Geographic. Archived from the original on 26 February 2021. Retrieved 18 April 2023.
  2. ^ Bryce, Emma (8 May 2013). "Wildlife forced out of California 'salad bowl' by food safety regulations". The Guardian. Retrieved 5 August 2013.
  3. ^ Kaplan, Sheila. "Salinas, California: The Salad Bowl of Pesticides". Politics Daily. Retrieved 5 August 2013.
  4. ^ For example: Ukraine in 1941–1944 during World War II: Snyder, Timothy (12 October 2010). "The Economics of Apocalypse". Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin. New York: Basic Books (published 2010). p. 161. ISBN 9780465002399. Food from Ukraine was as important to the Nazi vision of an eastern empire as it was to Stalin's defense of the integrity of the Soviet Union. Stalin's Ukrainian 'fortress' was Hitler's Ukrainian 'breadbasket.' [...] Hitler wanted Ukraine 'so that no one is able to starve us again, like in the last war.'
  5. ^ a b Woetzel, Jonathan. "Will the world's breadbaskets become less reliable?". McKinsey & Company. Retrieved 12 March 2021.
  6. ^ Julia Horowitz (12 March 2022). "War has brought the world to the brink of a food crisis". CNN. Retrieved 1 April 2022.
  7. ^ Lynch, Colum. "U.N. to Keep Beasley at WFP as Food Crises Roil the World". Foreign Policy. Retrieved 1 April 2022.
  8. ^ McDonough, Siobhan (27 February 2022). "What the Russian invasion of Ukraine could mean for global hunger". Vox. Retrieved 1 April 2022.
  9. ^ Nicas, Jack (20 March 2022). "Ukraine War Threatens to Cause a Global Food Crisis". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 1 April 2022.
  10. ^ Good, Keith (21 March 2022). ""Global Food Crisis" Possible- – "No Precedent Even Close to This Since World War II" • Farm Policy News". Farm Policy News. Retrieved 5 April 2022.