World grain stocks running low.

[nino_savatte]

Huh? (I am genuinely confused by your second sentence here?)

I'd still say there was over-production in the Roman Empire.

I'd argue that the Romans (and later the Byzantines) planned better. There was no consumer society back then.

Why are you confused? You said this.

1) "pre-industrial" - do you mean any and all socio-economic systems back to the hunter-gatherers?

 

[A Dashing Blade]

Maybe you should read what you write first, and check for abiguities (sp)
Without going into a "he said", "she said" routine . . .
I asked . . .

1) "pre-industrial" - do you mean any and all socio-economic systems back to the hunter-gatherers?

to which you replied

1. Easy, it's the period before the industrial revolution. I don't know how you could interpret that to mean "the stone age

Now, I read that second bit to as implying "the stone age isn't before the industrial revolution"

And you're asking why I'm confused?

(I'd argue that the Byzantines were the Romans . . . but we'll leave that for another time)

 

[nino_savatte]

Maybe you should read what you write first, and check for abiguities (sp)
Without going into a "he said", "she said" routine . . .
I asked . . .



to which you replied



Now, I read that second bit to as implying "the stone age isn't before the industrial revolution"

And you're asking why I'm confused?

(I'd argue that the Byzantines were the Romans . . . but we'll leave that for another time)

Yes, the Byzantines were Roman, I already know this.

You mentioned "hunter-gathering", which may or may not have implied "stone age" or even "pre-history". I was referring to the period in the 1000 years or so before the industrial revolution.

Maybe you should read what you write first, and check for abiguities (sp)
Without going into a "he said", "she said" routine . .

Whatever. <sighs>

 

[A Dashing Blade]

I was referring to the period in the 1000 years or so before the industrial revolution.

So, after 4 (?) attempts, we've finally agreed that your definition of "pre-industrial" is "feudal and post feudal within a UK socio-political context" yes?

(nothing from outside Europe for example)

And that's the economic context in which you asked . . .

. . . in the pre-industrial age, was there over-production and if so, how much waste was there as a result? Were needs (that previously didn't exist) stimulated in order to create new markets for the sale of useless commodities?

Which, don't get me wrong, is an interesting set of questions. I'd go for "yes", "impossible to quantify", and "yes" myself. What's your answer?

 

[nino_savatte]

So, after 4 (?) attempts, we've finally agreed that your definition of "pre-industrial" is "feudal and post feudal within a UK socio-political context" yes?

(nothing from outside Europe for example)

And that's the economic context in which you asked . . .


Which, don't get me wrong, is an interesting set of questions. I'd go for "yes", "impossible to quantify", and "yes" myself. What's your answer?

Beg your pardon? You're the one who took it upon himself to make presumptions about what I meant in my post. That's pretty dishonest in my book.

As for the rest of your post, I detect the desire to score cheap points and thus avoid the ugly truth.

Bye.

 

[A Dashing Blade]

I was merely pointing out that, in order to answer your question, a set of definitions were required. Now the definitions have been established I provided my answers (not explanations obviously).
No desire to score cheap points at all (serious) and apologies if you read it that way.

 

[nino_savatte]

I was merely pointing out that, in order to answer your question, a set of definitions were required. Now the definitions have been established I provided my answers (not explanations obviously).
No desire to score cheap points at all (serious) and apologies if you read it that way.

Fair dinkum, mate.

 

[david dissadent]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/7300899.stm

Egytian army ordered to help in bread crisis. Egypt is the home of modern militant islamism with Qutb and the murder of Sadat. The possibility of the muslim brotherhood or even more radical groups exploiting tension over food prices is pretty high. It makes a key player in the middle east rather unstable. Emphisising how this food crisis could underly other politics threads over the comming months and years.

 

[paimei01]

http://larouchepub.com/other/2006/3342wheat_supplies.html

In the 1990s, the UN Food and Agriculture Organization figured that world grain stocks should be well above 20-25% of annual grain consumption. By FAO calculations, the world reaches a danger point when grain stocks fall below 17-18% of a year's average consumption. For 2006, stocks of grain are 319 mmt—barely 16% of today's annual use of 2,043 mmt.

However, this dangerous grain gap coheres with the the dictates of globalization, namely that no nation shall be allowed to retain food reserves, nor to intervene to build up its national farm production potential, to counter occasional bad crop years. The free-trade idea is that nations are supposed to rely on global "sourcing" and so-called "market forces," and somehow, these mystical conditions are supposed to even out any crop problems.

The banning of national grain reserves was made explicit in the 1995 World Trade Organization tenets, and before that, was part of the years-long talks by the GATT (UN General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade), on how to "reform" world agriculture. The sophism used was that, citizens of every nation had a "right" to access their food on world markets, and not rely on developing their own national food and farm systems. Only Japan has defied this WTO globaloney, and still maintains a "ricebowl reserve."

Yes, "they" want population reduction

 

[yield]

Yes, "they" want population reduction

Which particular "they" would that be paimei01?

And why link to a Lyndon LaRouche website when there are plenty of credible alternatives?

 

[paimei01]

The ones controlling World Bank, IMF, WTO, Federal Reserve.
This current collapse in the US economy was planned. Fed let some greedy bankers loan money that could not come back, from that the situation of today appeared.

In my country the president of the central bank banned all easy credits 2 years ago, because too much people that were not checked properly if they could pay were buying stuff on credit. Smart idea. No banking collapse. I do not think the USA Fed stupid, that is why I say it was engineered

After this there would be food and gas shortages, and riots in the US, that is why they built those FEMA camps. In the "Developing" world many will die because of food shortages. Better for the NWO, they want less people. Then martial law, unity between US , Canada and Mexico, and later on global unity, NWO, big brother, 1984

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgia_Guidestones

Maintain humanity under 500,000,000 in perpetual balance with nature

Also there is that Doomsday Seed Bank built so far north, Rotschild was one of the people that put money for that. He must know something
Just my crazy conspiracy theory

 

[hammerntongues]

Whilst you guys have been squabbling the markets have collapsed , in the last 7 days drops of between 10 and 20 percent on most grains and vegetable oils and seeds , markets are still locked limit down and more price drops look probable.

 

[zoltan]

yup - a downturn will mean less to spend and lower demand - the Chinese export their manuf. products to the US & Europe mostly and any drop in demand from the West will impact significantly on the chinese workers who have been spending more and more on the domestic foodstuff markets of late

 

[david dissadent]

yup - a downturn will mean less to spend and lower demand - the Chinese export their manuf. products to the US & Europe mostly and any drop in demand from the West will impact significantly on the chinese workers who have been spending more and more on the domestic foodstuff markets of late

Last month the Chinese trade surplus dropped but this did not affect growth which currently easily outstrips inflation, that means there is more money in China inspite of not selling as much to the US and that is greater than inflation. The Chinese now seem to be adopting an easier policy on the Yuan that will mean they will no longer tie it so tightly to the dollar accepting the slowdown in exports due to higher prices in dollars but this will tame the inflation from the dollars devaluation. If this process is implemented then growth in meat consumption may conitnue for some time, although at a smaller rate.

There are new ethanol plants comming online in the US this year which could see further demand for corn, and if the estimates on planting are right then there may be a drop in corn acerage as farmers move across to the more profitable wheat, which may again puch ethanol up. Ofcourse farm gate costs in terms of diesel and fertilizer are going nowhere but up.

Good rains are being reported in the Southern Hempesphere graineries so this may be good new, but Ill wait a few weeks before the full story comes out, a big increase in output in Australia would be all round good news driving down price hopefully... hopefully.

Yesterdays drop in price was part of a correction in the comodities market that was across the board and due to speculators end positions they were holding as the recession look certain. It will most likely see a few weeks of swings while people come to realise that commodities are not equities. When you buy an oil or wheat future you have to sell it or be stuck with something you dont need. Much of the price increases since mid January have been put down to speculators seeking to park there money out of stocks. I will await to see what the full story is.

Dont get suckered in by market volatility, prices go up and down and in such an uncertain climate are likely to fluxuate quite regularly. This thread is trying to look at the longer term trends and they have been up for a while and many of the factors forcing them up seem still to be in play. The consasuencies of higher food costs are difficult to guage but unlikely to be good.

A big test will be when the new interest rates are announced today. The dollar is likely to have another fall, although most of that should already be priced into the rates atm. As the dollar goes down, then commodities could rise again.

The underlying story however is not really price, its volume of available food and its usage.

Well thats my 2 pence anyway.

 

[frogwoman]

a link to a lyndon la rouche website really isn't a good idea ...

i heard a propgramme on the radio about bread prices in Egypt, people fighting and being killed in bread queues, and some people having to wait frm four in the morning onwards ... really makes you think ...

 

[david dissadent]

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/2851626a-f905-11dc-bcf3-000077b07658.html

The World Food Programme has launched an “extraordinary emergency appeal” to governments to donate at least $500m in the next four weeks to avoid rationing food aid in response to the spiralling cost of food.

The WFP, the United Nations agency responsible for relieving hunger, said in a letter to donor countries that if fresh money did not arrive by May 1, it might cut “the rations for those who rely on the world to stand by them during times of abject need”.

The letter, a copy of which has been obtained by the Financial Times, was sent to donor countries over the Easter holiday and shows that the threat of a cut in aid is real and imminent after several warnings from the WFP.

“We urge your government to be as generous as possible in helping us to close this gap – which stood at $500m on February 25 and has been growing daily,” wrote Josette Sheeran, WFP executive director.

Well this is no longer a theoretical threat but a real one.

There is some good news though, due to la Nina conditions Australia has had a reprieve from the super drought it is experiancing and may have a good harvest in a couple of months, but the fall in comodities across the board has been reversed in grain prices. There was some big falls there last week but grain prices remain high on fundamentals like very low stocks.

 

[david dissadent]

Rice prices jumped 30 per cent to an all-time high on Thursday, raising fears of fresh outbreaks of social unrest across Asia where the grain is a staple food for more than 2.5bn people.

The increase came after Egypt, a leading exporter, imposed a formal ban on selling rice abroad to keep local prices down, and the Philippines announced plans for a major purchase of the grain in the international market to boost supplies. Global rice stocks are at their lowest since 1976.

On Friday the Indian government imposed further restrictions on the exports of rice to combat rising local inflation, with traders warning that the new regime would de facto stop all India's non-basmati rice sales.

Link

Rice stocks hit there lowest since 1976. Prices surge. Hungry people are angry people. If we dont get our act together this will blowback in our faces like a fucking bomb. How many of the strikes, demonstration, riots and protests round the world have the price of food and energy at there base?

 

[yield]

Link

Rice stocks hit there lowest since 1976. Prices surge. Hungry people are angry people. If we dont get our act together this will blowback in our faces like a fucking bomb. How many of the strikes, demonstration, riots and protests round the world have the price of food and energy at there base?

High cost of rice raises fears of unrest.
IHT March 30, 2008

"The price of rice, a staple in the diets of nearly half the world's population, has almost doubled on international markets in the last three months. That has pinched the budgets of millions of poor Asians and raised fears of civil unrest.

Shortages and high prices for all kinds of food have caused tensions and even violence around the world in recent months. Since January, thousands of troops have been deployed in Pakistan to guard trucks carrying wheat and flour. Protests have erupted in Indonesia over soybean shortages, and China has put price controls on cooking oil, grain, meat, milk and eggs.

Food riots have erupted in recent months in Guinea, Mauritania, Mexico, Morocco, Senegal, Uzbekistan and Yemen. But the moves by rice-exporting nations over the last two days — meant to ensure scarce supplies will meet domestic needs — drove prices on the world market even higher this week."

Currency devaluation, tariffs and protectionism, food riots...

 

[david dissadent]

Rats and flowers

Once in every 50 years the bamboo of a north east indian state flower and the rat population boombs. This causes a wide spread famine due to the rats also eating all of the crop.

A story in Indias battling of the rats.

 

[Barking_Mad]

Interesting and worrying read.......

As food prices surge, starvation looms for millions. Experts call for emergency action but admit there's no quick fix.

Rome - Fatal food riots in Haiti. Violent food-price protests in Egypt and Ivory Coast. Rice so valuable it is transported in armoured convoys. Soldiers guarding fields and warehouses. Export bans to keep local populations from starving.

For the first time in decades, the spectre of widespread hunger for millions looms as food prices explode. Two words not in common currency in recent years - famine and starvation - are now being raised as distinct possibilities in the poorest, food-importing countries.

Unlike past food crises, solved largely by throwing aid at hungry stomachs and boosting agricultural productivity, this one won't go away quickly, experts say. Prices are soaring and stand every chance of staying high because this crisis is different.

A swelling global population, soaring energy prices, the clamouring for meat from the rising Asian middle class, competition from biofuels and hot money pouring into the commodity markets are all factors that make this crisis unique and potentially calamitous. Even with concerted global action, such as rushing more land into cultivation, it will take years to fix the problem.

The price increases and food shortages have been nothing short of shocking. In February, stockpiles of wheat hit a 60-year low in the United States as prices soared. Almost all other commodities, from rice and soybeans to sugar and corn, have posted triple-digit price increases in the past year or two.

Yesterday in Rome, Jacques Diouf, director-general of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, said the cereal-import bill for the poorest countries is expected to rise 56 per cent this year, on top of the 37 per cent recorded last year. "There is certainly a risk of [people] dying of starvation" unless urgent action is taken, he said. "I am surprised I have not been summoned to the Security Council to discuss these issues."

The UN's donor countries, he said, need to come up with as much as $1.7-billion (U.S.) to implement quick-fix food programs, such as topping up the World Food Programme, whose emergency food-buying power has been clobbered by the rising prices. Its budget shortfall, the difference between the food it intended to buy and can now afford, is $500-million.

Other UN officials have been equally blunt. Sir John Holmes, the UN's top humanitarian official and emergency relief co-ordinator, said this week that soaring food prices threaten political stability. The UN and national governments are especially worried about potentially violent situations in Africa's increasingly crowded urban areas. Rioting triggered by absent or unaffordable food could cripple cities. "The security implications should not be underestimated as food riots are being reported across the globe," Mr. Holmes said.

Nigeria's Kanayo Nwanze, vice-president of the UN's International Fund for Agricultural Development, sees no short-term fix. "I wouldn't be surprised if there is an escalation of food riots in the next few months," he said. "It could lead to famine in certain parts of Africa if the international community and local governments do not put emergency actions into place."

And it's not just the UN that thinks so. Independent analysts, economists and agriculture consultants say the term most often used to describe the food prices and shortages - crisis - is not hyperbole.

How did it come to this? Surging food prices, now at 30-year highs, are actually a relatively new phenomenon. In the mid-1970s, prices began to fall as the green revolution around the world made farms dramatically more productive, thanks to improvements in irrigation and the widespread use of fertilizers, mechanized farm equipment and genetically engineered crops. If there was a crisis, it was food surpluses - too much food chasing too few stomachs - and dropping produce prices had often disastrous effects on farm incomes.

By 2001, the surpluses began to shrink and prices reversed. In the past year or so, the price curve has gone nearly vertical. The UN's food index rose 45 per cent in the past nine months alone, but some prices have climbed even faster. Wheat went up 108 per cent in the past 12 months; corn rose 66 per cent. Rice, the food that feeds half the world, went "from a staple to a delicacy," says Standard Chartered Bank food commodities analyst Abah Ofon.

The price of Thai medium-quality rice, a global benchmark, has more than doubled since the end of 2007. This week it reached a record $854 a tonne, which helps explain why World Food Programme trucks carrying rice in certain parts of Africa have come under attack.

Food prices in the first three months of 2008 reached their highest level in both nominal and real (inflation adjusted) terms in almost 30 years, the UN says. That's stoking double-digit inflation and prompting countries such as Egypt, Vietnam and India to eliminate or substantially reduce rice exports to keep a lid on prices and prevent rioting. But, by reducing global supply, this only increases prices for food-importing countries, many of them in West Africa.

Throughout history, the world has seen food shortages and famines triggered by drought, war, pestilence, crop failures and regional overpopulation. In the Chinese famine between 1958 and 1961, an estimated 30 million people died from malnutrition. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, severe food shortages hit India and parts of southeast Asia. Only the emergency shipment of hundreds of thousands of tonnes of grain from the U.S. prevented a humanitarian disaster. Drought, violent conflict, economic incompetence, misfortune and corruption created deadly famines in Ethiopia and Sudan in the first half of the 1980s.

In each case, the food shortages were alleviated through emergency aid or investment in farming and crop productivity. While no one so far is dying of hunger in this latest crisis, the UN and agriculture experts predict years of pain, at best, and severe shortages, possibly famine in the worst-hit countries. The reason: High prices are likely to persist for years.

Swelling population explains only part of the problem. The world's population, estimated at 6.6 billion, has doubled since 1965. But population growth rates are falling and, theoretically, there is enough food to feed everyone on the planet, said Peter Hazell, a British agriculture economist and a former World Bank principal economist.

Why millions may go hungry, he said, is because prices are so high, food is becoming unaffordable in some parts of the world.

The "rural poor" (to use the UN's term) in Burkina Faso, Niger, Somalia, Senegal, Cameroon and some other African countries exist on the equivalent of $1 a day or less. As much as 70 per cent of that meagre income goes to food purchases, compared with about 15 per cent in the U.S. and Canada. As prices, but not incomes, rise, the point may be reached where food portions shrink or meals are skipped. Malnutrition sets in.

The dramatic price rises have been driven by factors absent in previous food shortages.

They include turning food into fuel, climate change, high oil and natural gas prices (which boost trucking and fertilizer costs), greater consumption of meat and dairy products as incomes rise (which raises the demand for animal feedstuffs), and investment funds, whose billions of dollars of firepower can magnify price increases.

Driven by fears of global warming, biofuel has become big business in the U.S., Canada and the European Union. The incentive to produce the fuels is overwhelming because they are subsidized by taxpayers and, depending on the country or the region, come with content mandates.

Starting next week, Britain will require gasoline and diesel sold at the pumps be mixed with 2.5-per-cent biofuel, rising to 5.75 per cent by 2010 and 10 per cent by 2020, in line with European Union directives. Ontario's ethanol-content mandate is 5 per cent. As the content requirements rise, more and more land is devoted to growing crops for fuel, such as corn-based ethanol. In the EU alone, 15 per cent of the arable land is expected to be devoured by biofuel production by 2020.

That's raising alarm bells, especially given lingering doubts about the effectiveness of ethanol in combatting climate change. British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said this week he's worried that ethanol production is pushing up food prices everywhere, and he called for an urgent review of the issue. Economist Dr. Hazell has said that filling an SUV tank once with ethanol consumes more maize than the typical African eats in a year.

Rising ethanol demand is one of the main reasons why Wall Street securities firm Goldman Sachs predicts high food prices for a long time. "We believe the recent rise in agriculture prices is not a transient spike, but rather represents the beginning of a structural increase in prices, much as has occurred in the energy and metals markets," Jeffrey Currie, Goldman's chief commodities analyst, said in a research note last month.

Severe weather has clobbered crop production among some big exporting countries. Drought in Australia, the third largest wheat exporter after the U.S. and Canada, has pushed wheat production down by half since the 2005-06 crop year. Statistics Canada said Canadian wheat production fell 20.6 per last year. Exports, as a result, are expected to fall by six million tonnes in the 2007-08 year.

cont.

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/041208E.shtml

 

[david dissadent]

I think there is an element to this of divergence of wealth. We have been used to a small portion of the world being wealthy and the rest being poor, but as China and other rapidly developing economies start moving tens and hundreds of millions of people out of abject poverty and towards modest lifestyles, those not moving are being caught ina vice.It is a testament, if an unfortunate one, to just howmany peoples lives are being brought out of abject poverty by China that it can have such a huge impact on the world.

Modest Chinese ambition and US stupidity of course.

 

[david dissadent]

Rice suppliers offered the Philippines 325,750 tons compared with the 500,000 tons tendered for, according to the tally from the National Food Authority. Prices were more than 40 percent higher than the last tender in March, which also fell short of requirements.

China imposing export tarrifs on fertilizer and wheat

If China effectively stops exporting fertilizers, it may be ``fatal'' for the global supply of some products, such as ammonium phosphate, Xu Hongzhi, an analyst at Beijing Orient Agribusiness Consultant Ltd., said before the ministry's announcement.

China also started to tax wheat exports at a rate of 20 percent this year, according to a December statement from the Finance Ministry. The tax for corn and rice was set at 5 percent.

Egypt, Africa's largest rice exporter last year, will reduce the land allocated for planting the grain to save water and encourage farmers to grow more corn, Agriculture Minister Amin Abaza said in an interview April 15.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=a.c6ORUiuqng&refer=home

Problem with corn is that it depleats the soil quite quickly so needs to be rotated and land rested.

Ofcourse it is not all doom and gloom as around the world money is flowing into farmers to plant more crops. But its all getting a bit of a tight squeeze.

Heres hoping we have a nice stable years worth of weather and some good harvests to buy us time to have a long hard think about where we are going.

 

[david dissadent]

Potash prices triple.

China has to pay three times as much for its potash this year. Potash is an important fertiliser. The nations with big chequebooks can afford it this year so the poorer ones cant. This will drive up the cost of food in the medium term, although I dont know if it will drive it up in the short term as those prices are more to do with supply and demand not underlying costs.

This will mean some poorer farmers will not get the yeilds as Chinese and Indian famrers will have the potash they wont.

I think this may not be a long term problem as potash manufacture can be expanded..... not sure though.

Also I am hearing anecdotal evidence of farmers reducing heards and slaughtering animals. Meat is slightly cheaper in parts of the US because because farmers are putting more on the market, they cant get the returns on the meat to justify the cost of feed.

The invisible hand nudges America toward vegetarianism?
Lord.........

 

[david dissadent]

.

 

[david dissadent]

Rice is busting new highs with 60% of Burmas crop destroyed.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=acgkigV11YVk&refer=home

Corn dipped from $13 highs to $8.5 and a bit lower now back up to 8.83 as demand for rice spills back over and other concerns kick in.

HOWEVER!!!!!!!!!
I keep hearing about huge economic problems in the palm oil and corn ethanols. I keep hearing that refinaries are really struggling with the high costs. I am deeply sorry for all of those with livlihoods in those industries but the pressure from them is breaking entire nations. Days of rioting in Somalia last week the latest in a long series of civil disturbance around the world on the back of these prices.

 

[hammerntongues]

Rice is busting new highs with 60% of Burmas crop destroyed.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=acgkigV11YVk&refer=home

Corn dipped from $13 highs to $8.5 and a bit lower now back up to 8.83 as demand for rice spills back over and other concerns kick in.

HOWEVER!!!!!!!!!
I keep hearing about huge economic problems in the palm oil and corn ethanols. I keep hearing that refinaries are really struggling with the high costs. I am deeply sorry for all of those with livlihoods in those industries but the pressure from them is breaking entire nations. Days of rioting in Somalia last week the latest in a long series of civil disturbance around the world on the back of these prices.

Believe me , those involved in the Palmoil industries are making more money than they know what to do with , so much money in fact that they are expanding their plantation holdings and buying into the major european food companies and investing in the biodiesel sector like there is no tomorrow.

 

[Barking_Mad]

Interesting read........

We are facing a humanitarian drama of incalculable consequences

Speech by Esteban Lazo Hernández, vice president of the Council of State of the Republic of Cuba, at the Presidential Summit on Food Sovereignty and Security for Life, given on Wednesday, May 7, 2008 in Managua, Nicaragua

Dear Commander Daniel Ortega, president of Nicaragua.

Distinguished presidents and high-ranking representatives:

THE figures are more than eloquent. In 2005 we paid $250 to import one ton of rice; now we are paying $1,050, four times as much. For one ton of wheat, we paid $132; now we are paying $330, two-and-a-half times more. For one ton of corn, we paid $82; now we are paying $230, almost three times as much. For one ton of powdered milk, we paid $2,200; now it is $4,800. This is a perverse and unsustainable situation.

This reality is impacting the internal markets of the majority of countries in our region and in the world, directly affecting the population, in particular the poorest, and is taking millions of people into destitution. There are countries which, just a few decades ago, were self-sufficient in rice and corn. But IMF neoliberal recipes led them into liberalizing their markets and importing subsidized grains from the U.S. and Europe, with which national production was eradicated. With the increase in prices at the rate I noted, a growing number of people can no longer eat those basic foodstuffs. It therefore comes as no surprise that they are resorting to protest, that they are going into the streets to seek any means of feeding their children.

As Fidel has been warning since 1996, when at the World Food Summit he said, “Hunger, the inseparable companion of the poor, is the offspring of the unequal distribution of wealth and injustices in this world. The rich do not know hunger.” “In the struggle against hunger and injustice millions of people in the world have lost their lives.”

The food crisis that brings us together today is being aggravated by high oil prices and the impact upon them of the military adventure in Iraq; by the effect of these prices on the production and transportation of food; by climate change; by the growing destination of a significant amount of U.S. and EU grains and cereals to biofuel production; and by speculative practices on the part of international capital, which gambles on food stocks at the cost of the hunger of the poor.

However, the essence of the crisis is not rooted in these recent phenomena, but in the unequal and unjust distribution of wealth at a global level and the unsustainable neoliberal economic model irresponsibly and fanatically imposed over the last 20 years.

Poor countries that are dependent on food imports are not in a position to resist the blow. Their populations do not have any kind of protection and the market, of course, does not have the capacity or the sense of responsibility to offer them any. We are not facing a problem of an economic nature, but a humanitarian drama of incalculable consequences that is even placing the national security of our countries at risk.

 

[david dissadent]

the oil we eat and older article but very well written in my opinion that links colonialism, energy and food production.

Given its from January 2003 it feel somewhat prescient.


http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-farm13-2008may13,0,38893.story
Despite higher prices farmers are struggling to make a profit.

 

[bigfish]

Joseph And Pharaoh - Modern Version

Richard S. Lindzen [[email protected]]

You might enjoy this.

Dick

And the land became full of wheat. Pharoah called upon Joseph to inquire of the meaning of this.

And Pharoah said unto Joseph, "Behold, the land waxeth full of wheat. It is abundant everywhere. It has swallowed up the land. Even worse, it is intruding upon habitats of endangered species."

And Pharoah said unto Joseph, "Last night I dreamed a dream. There was a banquet in the palace. Bread was brought to the table, and we ate. But as soon as the bread was eaten, more bread appeared on the table as if none had been eaten. This continued until I sent the servants away. What means this?"

Joseph said unto Pharaoh, "The dream is one with the land. It is global wheating. Global wheating is caused by man's planting and harvesting. We have to stop the planting and harvesting."

And Joseph told Pharaoh what he must do.

"Appoint ministers over wheat and ministers over taxes throughout the land, and set goals to reduce global wheating. A 5-year plan to bring wheat levels down to 20-year-ago levels; a 10-year-plan to bring them down to 50-year-ago levels. Cap the allowable planting, and levy high taxes on those whose yields are too much as they profit too much. Give tax credits to those who do not yield wheat, and they can barter with those who do yield wheat. Those who yield too much wheat will have a large wheat footprint."

"You, Pharaoh, will have more power over the people and more wealth in your treasury; and global wheating will cease."

But Pharaoh entreated Joseph, saying, "What about the famines? We have always had famines in Egypt. Should we not have too much in time of plenty as there will be too little in time of scarcity?"

"You are under term limits", replied Joseph. "Let the next Pharaoh worry about famines. Now you can increase your power and your treasury; the people will cheer you as a hero and love you. The kings and princes of the world will bow to you because you stopped the global wheating. But you must act now, while there is time."

Pharaoh was very pleased when he heard this.

 

[free spirit]

Richard S. Lindzen [[email protected]]

You might enjoy this.

Dick

And the land became full of wheat. Pharoah called upon Joseph to inquire of the meaning of this.

And Pharoah said unto Joseph, "Behold, the land waxeth full of wheat. It is abundant everywhere. It has swallowed up the land. Even worse, it is intruding upon habitats of endangered species."

And Pharoah said unto Joseph, "Last night I dreamed a dream. There was a banquet in the palace. Bread was brought to the table, and we ate. But as soon as the bread was eaten, more bread appeared on the table as if none had been eaten. This continued until I sent the servants away. What means this?"

Joseph said unto Pharaoh, "The dream is one with the land. It is global wheating. Global wheating is caused by man's planting and harvesting. We have to stop the planting and harvesting."

And Joseph told Pharaoh what he must do.

"Appoint ministers over wheat and ministers over taxes throughout the land, and set goals to reduce global wheating. A 5-year plan to bring wheat levels down to 20-year-ago levels; a 10-year-plan to bring them down to 50-year-ago levels. Cap the allowable planting, and levy high taxes on those whose yields are too much as they profit too much. Give tax credits to those who do not yield wheat, and they can barter with those who do yield wheat. Those who yield too much wheat will have a large wheat footprint."

"You, Pharaoh, will have more power over the people and more wealth in your treasury; and global wheating will cease."

But Pharaoh entreated Joseph, saying, "What about the famines? We have always had famines in Egypt. Should we not have too much in time of plenty as there will be too little in time of scarcity?"

"You are under term limits", replied Joseph. "Let the next Pharaoh worry about famines. Now you can increase your power and your treasury; the people will cheer you as a hero and love you. The kings and princes of the world will bow to you because you stopped the global wheating. But you must act now, while there is time."

Pharaoh was very pleased when he heard this.

there are more than a few grains of truth in that I reckon bigfish IMO