We all know what it’s like to live under a regime of health care rationing (unless of course you’re one of the lucky 1 percenters). Imagine however, that you had to live under conditions of food rationing, because global climate change, drought, worsening water supplies, more expensive fertilizers and the investment in growing crops for biofuels rather than food consumption. Sounds like something out of a B-Grade Sci-Fi movie staring a certain gun nut we all love so well? Well, actually not. In some parts of the world the United Nations is already rationing food supplies, and the prediction is that things are going to get much, much worse by this time next year:
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Increasing demand for food from the growing economies in India and China has left global stocks at a historic low. Biofuel production has reduced the amount of food being marketed for human consumption, and high oil prices have increased the cost of transporting food and purchasing fertiliser to improve crop yields.
Add to this weather-related disruptions that have upset delicate food ecosystems, and it is easy to understand how the price of food has risen to the point where people’s ability to feed their families, and our ability to help the hungry, is being severely threatened.
This “perfect storm” of factors means that for those already surviving on one bowl of grain a day, there is no place to retreat. Experts say that the rise in food prices is a structural reversal in the previous long decline in food prices and trends in high food commodity prices are now predicted to stay with us for the long term. […]
What is most alarming is that food price rises are affecting new communities who had previously been protected from the scourge of hunger. This “new face of hunger” is found in the cities, towns, and slums of developing countries. It includes people who might normally have found ways of buying the food they need for their families, but who now find they cannot afford to pay the inflated prices for food, even if it is available in their markets and shops.
This past week, we have seen food riots erupt in the West African state of Burkina Faso. Late last year, there were food riots in Mauritania and Senegal. Communities living in countries where food has to be imported to feed hungry populations are rising up to protest at the high cost of living.
This is only the beginning my friends. The next few decades will see world wide food scarcities the likes of which we haven’t experienced in our lifetimes, as global climate change, water shortages and rising oil prices make the cost of producing and delivering food to those who need it most ever more expensive and unreliable.
The dramatic escalation of grain prices now feeding through into a wide range of other foodstuffs seems to have taken world leaders completely by surprise. This may also explain, though it certainly does not excuse, their almost complete lack of public response to the new danger of a global hunger pandemic. […]
Drought and the switch of land to biofuel output (notably in north America) threaten years of production shortfall. Already, higher food prices have threatened social and political unrest: on a small scale in Italy and a potentially enormous scale in China.
There is no quick fix. But it would help if there was an international agreement to reverse the lunatic commitment to biofuel production.
The truth is, the global warming crisis, the rapidly developing international tensions over energy security and the all-too-possible disaster of worldwide famine are intrinsic parts of the same challenge. For now, we should demand that our political leaders (starting with George Bush) publicly admit the seriousness of the situation. That should be followed by a world summit, called by the UN and relevant global agencies, to launch an emergency plan to deal with the consequences of radical food price inflation and possible mass hunger. In the meantime, we should be grateful that the anti-CAP zealots in this country and others have failed to prevent a return to policies designed to encourage food production.
Frankly, I don’t think Mr. Bush gives a damn about starving people in other countries, because he sure as hell doesn’t give a damn about rising food prices here in the United States, where at least one would think political calculation alone would influence his decision making process. Nor has he taken much of a role in dealing with the drought conditions facing the American Southest. And despite his much ballyhooed “humanitarian” photo-op trip to Africa I don’t see George Bush making food production and famine relief to developing countries a priority in the waning days of his Presidency, where legal protection for telecommunications companies (and his own administration) seem to be the most prominent place he is willing to spend his political capital these days.
Nor do see any of the other candidates on the campaign trail likely to raise this issue either. Yet in the years to come, the growing food and water crises fueled in great measure by the disastrous economic, environmental and energy policies of the Bush administration will come back to haunt us all. Expect more food riots around the world, more “illegal” immigration, more economic hard times and more wars in the coming decades. I don’t envy the next several Presidents (or other world leaders for that matter) because they will be faced with an increasing array of difficult problems for which there are no simple solutions, or perhaps any solutions whatsoever. The storms of the 21st century are merely in their infancy. Soon enough we will be facing their full fury.
Go here for more on this global food crisis.
food is rationed here in america
if you are choosing between buying food this week and putting gas in your car so you can get to work so you can pay your rent and put oil in your oil tank so you can have some heat….your food is being rationed.
i was at acme the other day and porterhouse steaks were $4.99 a lb…a very good price…i remarked on the price to the meat guy and he said they were practically giving it away because people are so broke they cant afford meat and arent buying it.
bread is more expensive….vegetables at the produce junction which normally has the cheapest prices are all more expensive than normal.
and people on 60 minutes are worried obama might be a muslim…
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more countries should be growing hemp seed for food.
Pasture fed meat is actually the most efficient way to produce protein from grassland. Sure, there is that whole 10% efficiency per trophic level problem, but people aren’t ruminants so we can’t eat grass. Most pasture based grassland simply cannot be easily changed over to food crop productions without huge amounts of inputs. Hemp is a thirsty crop.
On the other hand, I would totally agree when comparing it to feedlot meat.
Um, is this where Booman’s brother comes back and explains why white liberal women need to have more babies?
(ducks)
Seriously, this is real and scary. Later this week I’ll do a diary about two of my daughter’s schoolmates who we found out had NO FOOD at home. We took over 7 boxes by the end of that day, but I have no idea how long they’d been hungry.
I’m not a fan of John McCain, but at least he has addressed the issue. As senator he opposed ethanol subsidies. As a presidential candidate in Iowa he backed down (just as he did when Rove attacked him)
But at least he’s thought about it and seen the problems with it.
Diversity will end up creating the best defense…single crop, single ownership mile after mile negates the ability to react successfully to climate change, water shortages, pestilence, transportation challenges & genetic design.
National security crops may evolve not from big ag but from the small organic farms sited locally. They will specialize in fast tracking to meet the needs of their community not national supply.
See Farfetched’s Far Future.
stop making ethanol with corn?
Yes, stop it. Ethanol is a great rip-off. I suspect that the federal subsidies for ethanol are greater than the subsidies for food crops (most of which go to large, corporate farms, with most of the corn previously going to feed livestock).
And yet we are pushed to buy processed food like pre-formed peanut-butter and jelly sandwiches rather than the simple task of making our own, fresh.
We lived on a farm in Iowa for a few years (we rented the house – I wouldn’t want people to think we actually farmed!). The farm was wholly planted in two crops: soybeans and corn. In a state with incredibly thick topsoil, there was no “tilth”, no organic material in the first 4-5 inches. Instead, the ground was sprayed each year with ammonia fertilizer, and the seed was pre-treated and developed to resist weeds and various forms of blight. No crop rotation, whatsoever.
“I wouldn’t want people to think we actually farmed!”
That statement makes me sad.
Knowing Kidspeak, I believe that the comment was meant in a self-derisive way, not as a slam against farming.
Good to see you!
I agree about making as much fresh food as possible. My summers and falls are spent canning and preserving as much local produce as I can. We still have blueberry jam from the summer. I must have made 30 jars, just for the three of us.
If you haven’t already discovered this
http://www.smallfarmersjournal.com/
I would encourage you to take a look. The publisher Lynn Miller is the BooMan of farming and the community of readers outstanding. You don’t have to be a small farmer to appreciate, the editorials are just the best.