The Coming Food Crisis

[Modbert]

The Coming Food Crisis - By John D. Podesta and Jake Caldwell | Foreign Policy

There was already little margin for error in a world where, for the first time in history, 1 billion people are suffering from chronic hunger. But the fragility of world food markets has been underscored by the tragic events of this summer.

The brutal wildfires and crippling drought in Russia are decimating wheat crops and prompting shortsighted export bans. The ongoing floods and widespread crop destruction in Pakistan are creating a massive humanitarian crisis that has left more than 1,600 dead and some 16 million homeless and hungry in a region vital to U.S. national security. These and other climate crises trigger widespread food-price volatility, disproportionately and relentlessly devastating the world's poor.

Less noticed has been the spiking price of wheat -- up 50 percent since early June. The U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization recently cut its 2010 global wheat forecast by 4 percent amid fears of a scramble among national governments to secure supplies. As wheat prices climb, demand for other essential food crops such as rice will increase as part of a knock-on effect on world food markets, driving up costs for consumers. In particular, Egypt and other countries that depend heavily on Russian wheat might see dramatic price increases and unrest in the streets.

Fortunately, there are signs we will likely avoid a repeat of the 2007-2008 food crisis, when prices jumped as much as 100 percent and led to deadly riots in Port-au-Prince and Mogadishu. This year, bumper crops in the United States, alongside replenished wheat stocks globally, may be adequate to offset shortages due to the fires in Russia. But these short-term measures should not lull us into complacency or a false sense of confidence. We still have neither a strategy nor a solution to ending global hunger.

Thoughts USMB?

 

[johnrocks]

My opinion is, we never will have a strategy nor a solution to ending global hunger. As long as people depend on others, drop out of school,do drugs, drink in excess, live in deserts or a host of other things, hunger ,health problems and other forms of "crisis" will be with us.

 

[martybegan]

The Coming Food Crisis - By John D. Podesta and Jake Caldwell | Foreign Policy

There was already little margin for error in a world where, for the first time in history, 1 billion people are suffering from chronic hunger. But the fragility of world food markets has been underscored by the tragic events of this summer.

The brutal wildfires and crippling drought in Russia are decimating wheat crops and prompting shortsighted export bans. The ongoing floods and widespread crop destruction in Pakistan are creating a massive humanitarian crisis that has left more than 1,600 dead and some 16 million homeless and hungry in a region vital to U.S. national security. These and other climate crises trigger widespread food-price volatility, disproportionately and relentlessly devastating the world's poor.

Less noticed has been the spiking price of wheat -- up 50 percent since early June. The U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization recently cut its 2010 global wheat forecast by 4 percent amid fears of a scramble among national governments to secure supplies. As wheat prices climb, demand for other essential food crops such as rice will increase as part of a knock-on effect on world food markets, driving up costs for consumers. In particular, Egypt and other countries that depend heavily on Russian wheat might see dramatic price increases and unrest in the streets.

Fortunately, there are signs we will likely avoid a repeat of the 2007-2008 food crisis, when prices jumped as much as 100 percent and led to deadly riots in Port-au-Prince and Mogadishu. This year, bumper crops in the United States, alongside replenished wheat stocks globally, may be adequate to offset shortages due to the fires in Russia. But these short-term measures should not lull us into complacency or a false sense of confidence. We still have neither a strategy nor a solution to ending global hunger.

Thoughts USMB?

Something like this happening 100 years ago would have been far worse. The global distribution system we have now for trade makes it easier to offset local crises such as these.

The problem is often a problem of local distribution and control. For Somalia the lack of a strong goverment makes restoring the agricultural base impossible. Why farm when some guys with AK's can just stop by and take your whole crop.

Even with the loss of production in Russia and Pakistan, there is enough food, the issue becomes getting it to the people who need it.

 

[007]

The world is over populated. This may surprise some but I'm going to say this anyway. I think people should be required to apply for a license to have kids. I think they should first be required to prove they can afford the kid, and are fully prepared for this child. This should be implemented world wide. All those starving people in Africa are directly attributable to the men hut hoping after the sun goes down breeding women like rabbits. The effect is millions, possibly billions of unplanned children to mothers who can't take care of them. It's not that bad here in America, but we have our share of unwanted pregnancies here to, to mothers who are in no shape, way or form either ready or able to care for these kids. It's a problem. One I think could be solved.

OK... now beat me up for my opinion.

 

[Skull Pilot]

if you're not growing all or some of your own food, you're an idiot.

For all the government regulation and control of our food supply from paying farmers not to grow some things and subsidizing others and all the so called quality controls, our food supply is no more abundant nor safer than home grown foods.

We have no idea where our foods come from, what's been done to them along the way, or even if so called organic food is actually organic.

So start a small garden, save some money and eat healthier than you ever have.

Grow $700 of Food in 100 Square Feet!

Even if you live in an apartment, you can mange to grow some of your own food.

 

[Yukon.]

A reduction in food will do America good. You people are the laziest and fattest conglomerate in the world. Pathetic............

 

[Big Black Dog]

Jesus said "The poor will always be with us." So why is a food shortage a big surprise?

 

[boedicca]

Thoughts USMB?

We are the only major civilization in history that has a government subsidized policy of burning FOOD for Fuel.

There have always been weather patterns which cause periods of famine, which is why storing surpluses and cultivating hardy strains (yes, this includes GMO) makes sense. The people who will be the hardest hit by this are THE POOR. So yet again, the leftwing do gooders and government do nothings have colluded on inane policy which will cause millions of people to die needlessly.

 

[Barb]

The Coming Food Crisis - By John D. Podesta and Jake Caldwell | Foreign Policy

There was already little margin for error in a world where, for the first time in history, 1 billion people are suffering from chronic hunger. But the fragility of world food markets has been underscored by the tragic events of this summer.

The brutal wildfires and crippling drought in Russia are decimating wheat crops and prompting shortsighted export bans. The ongoing floods and widespread crop destruction in Pakistan are creating a massive humanitarian crisis that has left more than 1,600 dead and some 16 million homeless and hungry in a region vital to U.S. national security. These and other climate crises trigger widespread food-price volatility, disproportionately and relentlessly devastating the world's poor.

Less noticed has been the spiking price of wheat -- up 50 percent since early June. The U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization recently cut its 2010 global wheat forecast by 4 percent amid fears of a scramble among national governments to secure supplies. As wheat prices climb, demand for other essential food crops such as rice will increase as part of a knock-on effect on world food markets, driving up costs for consumers. In particular, Egypt and other countries that depend heavily on Russian wheat might see dramatic price increases and unrest in the streets.

Fortunately, there are signs we will likely avoid a repeat of the 2007-2008 food crisis, when prices jumped as much as 100 percent and led to deadly riots in Port-au-Prince and Mogadishu. This year, bumper crops in the United States, alongside replenished wheat stocks globally, may be adequate to offset shortages due to the fires in Russia. But these short-term measures should not lull us into complacency or a false sense of confidence. We still have neither a strategy nor a solution to ending global hunger.

Thoughts USMB?

Scientists do offer some suggestions though, if those suggestions made their way into policy they might be helpful:

Ecoagriculture and Hunger
One of the most pressing concerns of contemporary time is hunger. Poverty and food insecurity in developing nations is so acute that elimination of extreme poverty and hunger is the number one target of the United Nations Millennium Development Goals. Although environmental sustainability is number seven on the MGD listing, it is critical to meeting every other objective, and especially important to any lasting solution to the first. Moreover, all of the eight MGDs are interdependent on progress regarding the others.

Ecoagriculture is an emergent method of development planning attempting to address these concerns through whole landscape approaches to managing agriculture in ways that support biodiversity, environmental stability, and the welfare of human communities. Integrating traditional agricultural practices of the world’s peasantry and indigenous people with current technology and market channels of economic support, ecoagriculturists hope to gain cooperation from variously interested regional, national, and global parties to work in their own interest by working towards the interests of us all. Broad economic support for these initiatives is important, and gaining that support requires offering opportunities for increased profit. Nevertheless, the need for funding should not allow a controlling interest to stakeholders such as globalized business interests and the WTO that seek to impose liberalized trade as a condition of aid.

Population, poverty, hunger, and health

Human population increased by 400% during the last century from 1.5 billion to 6 billion, and demographers expect an estimated 3 billion more by the first quarter of this century. Of the multitudes of people on earth today, too many live in abject poverty while few live with more than they could ever consume. While 9 million of the worlds hungry live in the richest nations alongside rising obesity, hunger is highest in developing nations and most acute in sub-Saharan Africa. Anticipated improvements in food security do not exclude uneven results, and are particularly unfavorable concerning sub-Saharan Africa.

Poverty, as quantified by income level, does not account for lack of assets, sociopolitical disadvantage, or vulnerability to economic or ecological shocks. Of the 850 million people that are undernourished, 815 million live in developing nations, and three quarters of the worlds poor live predominantly in rural areas where people are especially dependent on natural services for economic activity, medicine, and the most basic forms of sustenance. Environmental degradation threatens the sustainability of livelihoods, the maintenance of wild food stocks and game, traditional medical stocks and lessens the chances of new discoveries. Failures to include ecological services in economic accounting make the externalities caused by increased economic expansion an invisible part of regional, national, and local budgets. Development and conservation both need to account for actions that change access to natural services, and use management methods supportive of the maintenance, sustainability, and restoration of ecological resources.

Status of global ecosystems
Natural ecosystems supply nourishment, clean water, fuel, fiber, biochemicals, and genetic resources. Nature provides everything made in the economy. Ecosystems also help control weather, illness, floods, drought, and pollution. Other ecosystem services are supportive of soil integrity, nutrient cycling, carbon sequestration, and the primary production of other services. Coastal ecosystems contain thirty nine percent of the world’s population within twenty percent of the earth’s land area. Agricultural use and human communities have changed nineteen percent of coastal land. Of the twenty five percent of the land that contains forest ecosystems, only forty percent are free from human alteration, diminished by twenty percent since industrial agricultural activity began.

Ninety percent of the world’s poor depend on forest resources for their living.
Grassland makes up forty percent of the worlds land, and nearly twice the numbers of people live in grasslands than do in forests. Almost half of the world’s grassland is somewhat corrupted, and much lost because of conversion to agricultural purposes. Freshwater systems make up less than one percent of the earth’s landmass, and supply ecological services assessed at trillions of dollars. For 1.5 billion people, groundwater is the only source of drinking water, and half of the world’s wetlands have been lost in the last century. “Fortune magazine suggests that water shortages will make water the oil of the twenty-first century, ‘the precious commodity that determines the wealth of nations.’”

Agroecosystems comprise twenty eight percent of the world’s surface, and supply almost all of human caloric intake. Thirty one percent is farmland, and the rest currently used for grazing. Both irrigation for farming and land use for grazing increase yearly. Rising population will intensify the need for food, but higher productivity of existing agricultural systems is constrained by poor maintenance of soil nutrient and the integrity of other ecological support services.

Estimates are that 20% of irrigated land suffers from secondary salinization and waterlogging, induced by the build-up of salts in irrigation water. […] Considerable investments will be required to rehabilitate degraded resources and ecosystems upon which food supplies, particularly of the rural poor, depend.

Climate change affects landscapes, the production and growing seasons of food crops, and threatens biodiversity. The yields of rice, wheat and maize decline on a ratio of one to ten with every Celsius rise in temperature, increasing demand for more land in the next season as well as replacement food staples. Farmers will also have to go higher into hills and natural forests to plant and tend to crops that need shade and cooler temperatures to grow.

Fractured approaches to management
In order to increase production of farmlands, agriculturalists of the industrial age completely reconfigured the way much of the world farmed, and in doing so did not take measure of the success of those methods that maintained the resource base needed to sustain production. The way industrial agriculture plots pastures and cropland breaks up the landscape, and splinters formerly large populations of wild species into smaller units that are more vulnerable to local extinction. Preservation efforts of the recent past have had a fragmented effect as well. Reserve systems, formulated under the theory of “island biogeography” treated surrounding landscapes as distinct systems, separated from and in competition with the whole for space and funding. Most efforts towards increasing biodiversity “focused on addressing problems at the ‘end-of-pipe’ to offset existing problems rather than rethinking the ecological management system, or even considering potential trade-offs of risks and benefits.”

The introduction of bioengineered crops and species to unfamiliar habitats causes some of the most unpredictable instability because of what is unknown about how they will reproduce in new surroundings. Some imported crops, livestock, trees, and fishes have become invasive to their new habitats, spread beyond planned range, and hybridized with or displaced native species. Interactions between populations of species can be competitive, predatory, or cooperative. Predation produces negative feedback, and is usually a mutually stabilizing oscillating constraint, but the delays in response loops coupled with other factors that cause extinction of either prey or predator can produce overcorrection and a destabilized system. Contrary to planned results, these introductions, improperly planned or poorly studied in advance, can lower rather than increase biodiversity. Growth of one type of vegetation can change the environment to become hospitable to its own kind, or create competition with other types, and chemical methods to control or eliminate invasive species often harm beneficial species such as pollinators and natural predators.

These fragmented approaches, taken separately, in competition rather than cooperation, and without an understanding of how action in one place on the landscape leads to reaction elsewhere causes instability in the system.

Environmentalists concerned about wild biodiversity and agriculturalists focused on producing food have often worked at cross-purposes. Environmentalists seek to protect wildlife by expanding protected areas and reducing the intensity of input use in farming. Agriculturalists strive to increase agricultural production in order to meet growing market demand and, in developing countries, to provide livelihoods and protect people from starvation and malnutrition. In order to accomplish all these important goals, both sides will have to recognize that endangered species, essential farmlands, and desperately poor humans often occupy the same ground.

Ecoagriculture solutions
To move forward, we have to go back. The traditional agricultural practices of the world’s peasantry and indigenous peoples underlie the ecologically friendly agriculture methods forwarded by progressive scientists of today. Human populations have farmed within forests dating from as recent as hundreds of years ago back to prehistory, and have contributed to biodiversity by those activities. Agroforestry and ecoagriculture methods are an important way to integrate populations and farms with forestry to expand forests and other natural habitats without the need to enclose them. These approaches create higher levels of human cooperation with nature by making human communities partners with rather than contestants of natural processes. Ecoagriculture is a cooperative approach to land use that increases productivity of food crops within management systems protective of wild biodiversity and ecological services.

Ecoagriculture uses varied methods of management that copy natural ecosystems based on region, climate, condition, and the needs of existing human, plant, and animal populations. Ecoagriculture methods that increase sustainable crop yields on existing land reduce the need to disturb natural habitats. Farm management that improves unused space by planting perennial crops with annuals, adding natural hedgerows, windbreaks, and tree line fences, protects soil, water, crops, and livestock while providing corridors for wild species to travel and often more habitable spaces for would-be pests.

By helping and in some cases paying farmers and communities to use unproductive strips of land for small conservation reserves and buffer strips, ecoagriculture partners have increased habitats for wild species, reduced erosion, and lowered pollution runoff into streams, lakes, and rivers. Varied organic planting methods and educational initiatives have reduced the use of pesticides, lowering production cost for farmers as well as pollution levels, while increasing crop yields.

Improved water management protects critical watershed functions, improves water quality, sustains aquifers, and regulates water flow. Balanced landscapes also serve to lessen the occurrence and severity of flood damage, and provide greater protection from and resilience in the face of natural weather related shocks. Traditional irrigation methods in Zimbabwe and other areas of Africa take advantage of natural wetland plots called “dambos” to use as crop beds. “Researchers studying dambos in Zimbabwe found that yields per unit of land and water were approximately twice as high as in mechanical irrigation systems. They were also much less expensive than formal irrigation systems.”

Benefits to nature
“The concept of agriculture as ecological ‘sacrifice’ areas is no longer valid in many regions, because agricultural lands both perform many ecosystem services and provide essential habitat to many species.” Lower agricultural pollution through less chemical use, better management of livestock waste, water management, natural pest control, and natural buffer zones produce healthier environments. Ecoagriculture management methods decrease waste and pollution; and conserve water, soil, and wild vegetation. By reducing the conversion of natural habitats and where possible reverting those that have been converted to more natural states, ecoagriculturists produce ecological corridors between crop areas and within networked landscapes supportive of wild species biodiversity.

Ecoagriculture is an ideal method of management for all agricultural areas. It will be most simply to achieve in landscapes with low production and where farmlands are already interspersed between hills, forests, and abandoned farms. The more complicated areas to convert are heavily cultivated and concentrated industrial agricultural landscapes, and those are the areas most critically in need of reduction and reversal of damage.

Benefits to poor and hungry
“Lower-productivity lands (drylands, hillsides and rainforests) now account for more than two-thirds of total agricultural land in developing countries.” Development aid to those regions will be especially helpful to the hungry by ecoagriculture methods that increase currently poor yields in sustainable ways. Areas in those same developing countries with more potential for diverse crops and higher production can ensure sustainability of production through ecologically friendly farming. Safeguarding natural resources and biodiversity in these areas are especially important to poor farmers because natural forests provide wild greens, spices, medicines, and the fruit trees and root crops that stave off “pre-harvest hunger” and provide “famine foods” in the case of failed crops, natural disasters, or economic shocks. Wild game, including insects, provides protein for rural diets. “Achieving food security therefore will require the conservation of the ecosystems providing these foods and other products.”
Policy strategies

In hard economic times when nations are tightening budgets and cutting funding for public good, the promotion of ecoagriculture policies and obtainment of financial aid is challenging. Educating policymakers about the cost-effectiveness of ecologically friendly farming, the profit available through increased production contrary to the higher cost of industrial methods that produce less and degrade future natural services has helped. However, the allocation of development aid trends disproportionately towards organized business interests. More attention is needed regarding land rights for the poor, raising subsidies for beneficial farming methods, and eliminating subsidies for agricultural methods that harm the environment. “Effective cross-sectoral political coalitions have seldom arisen to advocate for reconciling conflicting agriculture and environmental policies.”

Dark waters
Government, non-government (NGO), and international organizations have collaborated in various conventions and protocols that received promised support from signatories, but actual delivery has been disappointing. Complicating allocation of existing agricultural development aid is WTO pressures to predicate funding on the adoption of liberalized trade policies that that open regional, national, and local communities to global market pressures, and the reliance on and debt to the WTO and IMF. The conditionality and selectivity of USAID policies favor countries that adhere to such liberalization, and confine funding to those nations considered strategic to national security and other geopolitical ambitions.

WTO rules of economic activity favor global corporations at the expense of national sovereignty. The need for caution in bargaining for funding cannot be stressed enough. Perhaps the most immediately appalling effect of globalization has to do with the potential for increasing hunger, and imposing the conditions that would lead to famine. If everything has a price, and no one is entitled to the most basic of needs simply on ethical grounds, instability in markets have the potential to make famine a method of genocide. If the liberalization of trade regarding agriculture occurs:
“Poor citizens in LDCs will be competing with the rich citizens in ODCs for food. In his groundbreaking study of famines, Amartya Sen has shown that famines are generally the result of a lack of entitlements to food rather than a lack of food itself.”

Conclusion
Allen and Hoekstra identify humans as the disruption to the biosphere. It would be impossible and unfavorable to return to when the biosphere was pure, and in our better interest to manage disequilibrium in the most beneficial way to the systems that make our existence possible. Ecoagriculture offers integrated approaches to manage that disequilibrium and realize the MGDs for the reduction of poverty and hunger, and to improve water cycling, sanitation, and environmental sustainability at low cost and with improved cooperation between all stakeholders. Global market stakeholders will need to be watched closely to guard against proven trends toward predation, invasion into new habitats, their spread beyond planned range, and the displacement of native species. Humans mimic nature.

I gave myself permission to post in its entirety. The footnotes won't format here, but my references are below.

References
Allen, T. and Hoekstra, T. (1992) Toward A Unified Ecology Columbia University Press, NY
Bhagwat, S., Willis, K., Birks, J., and Whittaker, R. (2008) Elsevier, “Agroforestry: a refuge for tropical biodiversity?” Opinion retrieved July 5, 2009, from http://tiny.cc/P6GIn
Daly, H. and Farley, J. (2004) Ecological Economics: Principles and Applications Island Press, Washington DC, US
Mainka, S., McNealy, J., Jackson, W. (2008) Environment “Depending on Nature Ecosystems for Human Livelihoods” retrieved July 9, 2009 from Tiny URL - create a shorter link
Marchione, T. (8 February, 2008) Hunger Notes The right to food 1998-2008: a casualty of the war on terror “Increased vulnerability through globalization” retrieved July 9, 2009 from World Hunger Notes -- The right to food 1998-2008: a casualty of the war on terror by Thomas J. Marchione
Scherr, S., McNealy, J. (May, 2001) Common Ground, Common Future; How Ecoagriculture Can Help Feed the World and Save Wild Biodiversity retrieved July 11, 2009 from http://www.ecoagriculture.org/documents/files/doc_10.pdf
Scherr, S., McNealy, J. (2007) The Royal Society, “Biodiversity conservation and agricultural sustainability: towards a new paradigm of ‘ecoagriculture’ landscapes” retrieved July 9, 2009 from Empire State College - Login
USAID (July, 2004) U.S. Agency for International Development Linking Producers to Markets retrieved July 8, 2009 from http://www.usaid.gov/our_work/agriculture/ag_strategy_9_04_508.pdf

 

[Barb]

My opinion is, we never will have a strategy nor a solution to ending global hunger. As long as people depend on others, drop out of school,do drugs, drink in excess, live in deserts or a host of other things, hunger ,health problems and other forms of "crisis" will be with us.

Food insecurity isn't a national, regional, or cultural problem, it is global.

 

[Barb]

Thoughts USMB?

We are the only major civilization in history that has a government subsidized policy of burning FOOD for Fuel.

There have always been weather patterns which cause periods of famine, which is why storing surpluses and cultivating hardy strains (yes, this includes GMO) makes sense. The people who will be the hardest hit by this are THE POOR. So yet again, the leftwing do gooders and government do nothings have colluded on inane policy which will cause millions of people to die needlessly.

Burning food for fuel was a pretty fucked up Idea. Odd that you'd target the left though, because it was George Bush that publicly championed Ethanol from corn...

Bush's ethanol dreams make corn a hot commodity - Monsters and Critics

Washington - When Americans fire up their grills for late summer barbecues over the next few weeks, a cloud will be hanging over them in the form of higher prices for steak, chicken and ribs.

The reason can be found in the rapid rise in the cost of corn, which is used not only as food for animals that provide meat, but also as an important basic ingredient used in the production of ethanol in the US.

President George W Bush unleashed the new popularity of ethanol when he set a goal to lower US dependence on foreign oil. The price of corn has shot up to nearly double 2005 levels in response to the increased demand.

 

[007]

A reduction in food will do America good. You people are the laziest and fattest conglomerate in the world. Pathetic............

Once again you're full of shit clear up to your eye brows... you ungrateful, America hating, steaming pile of moose shit...


The World’s Top 10 Fattest Countries | Expatify

The World Health Organization has recently released the results of health surveys taken between 2000 and 2008 on world obesity, and the news isn’t pretty.

Since obesity rates can be an indicator of a nation’s nutritional trends, health and culture, we thought it might be useful information for the expat to know. Here are the 10 fattest countries of the last decade:

(1) American Samoa, 93.5% (of the population that is overweight)

It’s a staggering number. Many Pacific Island nations have had trouble with weight in modern times mostly because they have abandoned their traditional foods for cheap, easily attained processed foods from the West. Perhaps no other Pacific Island has had such access to these habits as American Samoa.

(2) Kiribati, 81.5%

Like American Samoa, Kiribati has been flooded with processed foods like Spam and mutton flaps (fatty sheep scraps), often sold at lower prices than native food.

(3) U.S.A., 66.7%

Well, the U.S.A. doesn’t top the list, but it’s close, and it falls behind only a small islands nation and one of its own unincorporated territories. The United States of Processed food, high fructose corn syrup and fast food has been high on this list over the last half century.

 

[uscitizen]

How are we going to have an economic recovery is prices do not rise?

 

[Yukon.]

Americans = obese, fat, out-of-shape, beer swilling, hamburg chomping, NEGRO worshipping slobs !

 

[boedicca]

How are we going to have an economic recovery is prices do not rise?

Stagflation is not a good definition of economic recovery.

What we are seeing how is the beginning of a loose money policy driving capital into commodities. The bond market is being destroyed by government spending; stocks are too risky for many people. Hence, the flight to commodities.

This will not lead to real growth, just inflation in a moribund economy with high unemployment.

How Hopey Changey is that?!?!?!

 

[johnrocks]

My opinion is, we never will have a strategy nor a solution to ending global hunger. As long as people depend on others, drop out of school,do drugs, drink in excess, live in deserts or a host of other things, hunger ,health problems and other forms of "crisis" will be with us.

Food insecurity isn't a national, regional, or cultural problem, it is global.

Sure it is but what to do about it, more foreign aid hasn't helped, more government intervention hasn't helped or we wouldn't even be concerned with this issue as much that has been spent over the past several years.

 

[Ringel05]

Euel Gibbons
Stalking the Wild Asparagus
(Pines cones anyone?)

 

[boedicca]

Thoughts USMB?

We are the only major civilization in history that has a government subsidized policy of burning FOOD for Fuel.

There have always been weather patterns which cause periods of famine, which is why storing surpluses and cultivating hardy strains (yes, this includes GMO) makes sense. The people who will be the hardest hit by this are THE POOR. So yet again, the leftwing do gooders and government do nothings have colluded on inane policy which will cause millions of people to die needlessly.

Burning food for fuel was a pretty fucked up Idea. Odd that you'd target the left though, because it was George Bush that publicly championed Ethanol from corn...

Bush's ethanol dreams make corn a hot commodity - Monsters and Critics

Washington - When Americans fire up their grills for late summer barbecues over the next few weeks, a cloud will be hanging over them in the form of higher prices for steak, chicken and ribs.

The reason can be found in the rapid rise in the cost of corn, which is used not only as food for animals that provide meat, but also as an important basic ingredient used in the production of ethanol in the US.

President George W Bush unleashed the new popularity of ethanol when he set a goal to lower US dependence on foreign oil. The price of corn has shot up to nearly double 2005 levels in response to the increased demand.

The push to demonize oil comes from the Left. Bush was hardly a conservative, btw.

 

[uscitizen]

How are we going to have an economic recovery is prices do not rise?

Stagflation is not a good definition of economic recovery.

What we are seeing how is the beginning of a loose money policy driving capital into commodities. The bond market is being destroyed by government spending; stocks are too risky for many people. Hence, the flight to commodities.

This will not lead to real growth, just inflation in a moribund economy with high unemployment.

How Hopey Changey is that?!?!?!

you just described the last 10 years.

 

[lizzie]

if you're not growing all or some of your own food, you're an idiot.

For all the government regulation and control of our food supply from paying farmers not to grow some things and subsidizing others and all the so called quality controls, our food supply is no more abundant nor safer than home grown foods.

We have no idea where our foods come from, what's been done to them along the way, or even if so called organic food is actually organic.

So start a small garden, save some money and eat healthier than you ever have.

Grow $700 of Food in 100 Square Feet!

Even if you live in an apartment, you can mange to grow some of your own food.

Great observation imo.

I'm one of those "nuts" who actually considers things like this as a possibility. I don't necessarily expect it, but it's something that would be catastrophic to many in the event of real food shortages. We have become so dependent on others for meeting our basic needs, that many people have no clue how to take care of themselves if the unthinkable happens.