Food crisis tightens its grip on the world

[Rmf3175]

INTERNATIONAL. WIth grain being diverted to biofuels and shortages rising, the signs on the wall are clear: the world is in the grip of a food crisis. The World Bank has cautioned that 33 countries could face social unrest because of higher food and energy prices.

''The pressure is visible on the streets already with protests against food prices increasing and governments responding with often counterproductive controls on prices and exports. In the latest incident, at least four deaths have been reported in southern Haiti when demonstrations against rising food prices turned into riots,'' wrote The Gulf Today on its editorial for today.

Last week, the paper said, a riot broke out in Cote d' Ivoire over rising food prices leading to one death and injury to about ten others, forcing President Gbagbo to cancel custom duties and cut taxes on household products. There have also been reports about riots in other West African countries including Cameroon, Burkina Faso and Senegal.

'The worst drought on record has slashed Australia's exports of wheat. Global wheat stocks are at their lowest levels since 1979. Prices are increasing sharply for some of the most basic foodstuffs traded on international commodity markets. Harvests have been reduced by drought in countries including Canada and Australia, and by a US freeze followed by excessive rain last year.

China, India and Vietnam, it continued, have cut rice exports and Indonesia has reduced import tariffs to protect food supplies and cool inflation. Harsh weather in producing countries and a boom in demand from fast-developing countries have pushed up prices of staple foods by 80% since 2005. Last month, rice prices hit a 19-year high, wheat prices rose to a 28-year high and almost twice the average price of the past 25 years.

''With higher energy prices and demand for biofuels draining maize stocks, no one country can deal with the problem alone," as World Bank president Robert Zoellick has pointed out. A major factor adding to the crisis is unbridled population growth.


http://www.bi-me.com/main.php?id=18906&t=1&c=34&cg=4

[Jamie]

not to be selfish or mean or anything or sound rude
but i know theres a food crisis but why is there like not.. here? we arent having any food problems here? unless there r but just not noticing?

[kenny1659]

not to be selfish or mean or anything or sound rude
but i know theres a food crisis but why is there like not.. here? we arent having any food problems here? unless there r but just not noticing?

Watch the prices at the store they keep going up. Can you imagine the scene if a food shortage was announced in this country? All the people who run to the store for every little thing with no food stored at home. These people would panic and clear the store shelves in a matter of hours. :panic

[Southern Grace]

I noticed this weekend at walmart-Folgers coffee was $10.00 per container. I used to pay $8.00. So it has went up $2.00.

[tygerkittn]

So 9 weeks supply of wheat globally and 7 weeks of corn, and stores have a 2 or 3 day supply, and harvests aren't until fall? Is it just me or is that really kind of bad?

[Amanda's mom]

not to be selfish or mean or anything or sound rude
but i know theres a food crisis but why is there like not.. here? we arent having any food problems here? unless there r but just not noticing?

Watch the prices at the store they keep going up. Can you imagine the scene if a food shortage was announced in this country? All the people who run to the store for every little thing with no food stored at home. These people would panic and clear the store shelves in a matter of hours. :panic

Kenny's right. Jamie, you're not seeing the shortages here YET because we do have a bit more in storage than other countries. However, if you read some of the other threads on the board that deal with rising prices and getting food stores in to your home, you will see that finding some very basic things is becoming much harder. For example, we have been trying to find hard red wheat for home grinding and bread baking. It's almost impossible. People who have been ordering from websites that provide such things say that their orders are backordered...the companies are having trouble finding the wheat as well. With the flooding in the mid-US and the drought in other wheat producing areas, wheat is going to very rapidly become a hard-to-come-by commodity. Think about all the living things that feed off of wheat and all the products that we eat that are made from wheat and you start to get a picture of what's coming in a few months. You can expect to see a glut of beef on the market soon because corn is becoming a problem...much of the beef industry feed the cattle on corn. They won't be able to afford this grain soon and will send their cattle to slaughter. In a few years, however, it will become a rare delicacy to have beef because no one will be raising it.

In short, to answer your question, you need to look at a long line of interconnected things and reason out the probable outcomes when one thing is affected. What we're seeing, though, isn't one thing being affected it's many things in the early part of the chain that are having problems.

[SumSam]

Folks, troubles are already breaking out in other countries. The Philippines passed a law that hands out life sentences for rice hoarders and blackmarketeers. They earlier had the capital penalty for that.

A lot of Asian countries will be hit hard because China, Vietnam Egypt and India stopped up their rice exports, since they need all the grain they can get for their own people. Countries like Philippines, Bangladesh and Thailand are already feeling the pinch.

With the failure of wheat harvests in Australia, African countries are feeling the pinch too. We've read about folks getting killed in breadline riots in Egypt. I saw a news report that bread prices are rising out of reach of many people in Nigeria.

Point is - even 50 years ago, most folks ate food that had been grown in their own countries, perhaps in their own villages, farms and backyards. If crops failed, people migrated or faced famine. Now with a huge amount of international trade going on, a lot of countries have got dependent on food imports, perhpas to the extent they can no longer feed themselves with what they grow. So the situation get really grim pretty quickly if the supplier countries cannot produce enough, such as Australia on account of drought, or they decide they can't spare enough grain for export, like India or Vietnam. We could have famine like conditions and nations begging each other for food supplies, international disputes breaking out. :(

[Rmf3175]

Matthew 24:6-7 (King James Version)


6And ye shall hear of wars and rumours of wars: see that ye be not troubled: for all these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet.

7For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom: and there shall be famines, and pestilences, and earthquakes, in divers places.


It really is at the door.

Even so, come Lord Jesus!!!!

[Rmf3175]

(IsraelNN.com) Consumers will have another reason to refrain from eating bread after the seven-day Passover holiday. Major bakeries announced Monday they will hike prices by four percent and are waiting for a response from the Industry, Trade and Labor Ministry. The continuing higher prices of energy and of flour were cited as the reasons for the proposed increases.


http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/Flash.aspx/144569

[Heartstorm]

I read an article 2 weeks ago that pointed out for the first time in history there is a GLOBAL food shortage, Ususaly there will be one or two countries that due to drought or flooding etc, will run out of food ,but in the past all the other countries had extra to ship to them to help them out, Now however every country is running out of food so there is NO extra to ship out to help. This is already affecting 3 world countries alot since they have always depended on help. It will trickle down and get worse and worse until food is hard to come by for everyone except the very rich, I suspect just like during the depression they still had food since they could afford to buy it at any cost or off the black market. But the everyday people could not afford to buy food. There will be food here, but it will be very very dear.