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"We think in generalities, we live in details"
  
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Global Food Shortage Looms
« on: 2007-12-20 01:20:10 » |
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http://www.livescience.com/blogs/2007/12/18/global-food-shortage-looms/
Global Food Shortage Looms
December 18th, 2007
Author Robert Roy Britt
While the media has been focusing on looming potential global crises — a peak in oil production, shortages of potable water, threat of escalating war(s), and myriad effects of global warming — a more urgent problem has been simmering: a global food shortage.
The alarm bell has now been sounded by Jacques Diouf, head of the UN Food and Agriculture Organization, who said there is a “very serious risk that fewer people will be able to get food” as prices soar and supplies dwindle.
From the International Herald Tribune:
“World wheat stores declined 11 percent this year, to the lowest level since 1980. That corresponds to 12 weeks of the world’s total consumption - much less than the average of 18 weeks consumption in storage during the period 2000-2005. There are only 8 weeks of corn left, down from 11 weeks in the earlier period.”
Global inflation is accelerating, meantime, and that has spurred investors to buy grains and other commodities as a store of value, reports Bloomberg news. Wheat for March delivery reached a record $10.095 a bushel yesterday.
The problems are all interrelated. Higher oil prices add to food distribution costs, for example. Climate change has already contributed to crop declines. Behind it all is the growing global population, which puts more demands on the planet for all these resources. One odd pressure, according to the Herald Tribune article: More grain is being diverted “to feed cattle as the population of upwardly mobile meat-eaters grows.”
Don’t expect the oil part of the equation to get any better. As demand in China and India soars, one study suggest production could peak as early as 2008.
http://bellaciao.org/en/article.php3?id_article=16296
<snip>
...the United Nations has issued a dire report that brings into sharp focus the prospect of mass death due to starvation, and as we can read as reported by the International Herald Tribune News Service in their report titled, "World food stocks dwindling rapidly, UN warns", and which says:
"In an "unforeseen and unprecedented" shift, the world food supply is dwindling rapidly and food prices are soaring to historic levels, the top food and agriculture official of the United Nations warned Monday.
The changes created "a very serious risk that fewer people will be able to get food," particularly in the developing world, said Jacques Diouf, head of the UN Food and Agriculture Organization.
The agency’s food price index rose by more than 40 percent this year, compared with 9 percent the year before - a rate that was already unacceptable, he said. New figures show that the total cost of foodstuffs imported by the neediest countries rose 25 percent, to $107 million, in the last year.
At the same time, reserves of cereals are severely depleted, FAO records show. World wheat stores declined 11 percent this year, to the lowest level since 1980. That corresponds to 12 weeks of the world’s total consumption - much less than the average of 18 weeks consumption in storage during the period 2000-2005. There are only 8 weeks of corn left, down from 11 weeks in the earlier period.
Prices of wheat and oilseeds are at record highs, Diouf said Monday. Wheat prices have risen by $130 per ton, or 52 percent, since a year ago. U.S. wheat futures broke $10 a bushel for the first time Monday, the agricultural equivalent of $100 a barrel oil."
Russian economists are quick to point out, that with the prospect of the Western banking system collapsing, coupled with the shocking rise of oil prices, and now the prospect of Global food shortages, the United States is left with little leverage to protect itself other than its vast military might, and, which many believe is leading the US towards an inevitable conflict with the East in its quest for survival.
To the American people, however, the imminent dangers they are facing are being kept from them as they are consumed by the trivial populist media trash that is being fed to them on an hourly basis, but which does nothing to help them in preparing for the catastrophic events that are soon to overtake them.
And, as the US War Leaders accelerate their battles between their various factions, the World today stands closer to the abyss than in any other time since the outbreak of World War II.
By : Sorcha Faal</snip>
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