Hey buddy... Spare Some Food?

I was reading about the drought in Europe today on the BBC website (story). Yields of cereal grains will be reduced significantly this year.

I remembered this thread: Soon to be Worldwide Water Shortage??

Then I remembered reading about droughts in Australia and in Africa, and I know our farmers here in Canada have had a tough few years, so I did a search for news stories on drought (Google news). Look at all those stories!

Now throw in mad cow scares and avian flu killing millions of poultry in a desperate attempt to prevent human transmission and we may have a real food supply problem on our hands this year.

Combine food scarcity with the current price of oil and things are about to get real expensive at the grocery store and many will just go without.

With climate change (whatever the cause) starting to affect our food supply, this little planet of ours is going to get a little crazy.
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Well for the meat situation, I hear it takes 50 lbs of grain to create one pound of beef. So with that off the market, food supplies should increase.

I dont think lack of food is the problem-- its a lack of distribution that causes world hunger.

Distribution is definitely an issue, but I think this is much bigger, I definitely forsee grain as being one of those high priced commodities such as oil in the not so distant future. There will definitely be food shortages in many areas of the world and even if the supply chain can be handled, the prices of grain products will skyrocket. We're already paying more for our cereals due to high oil prices, but with continuing weather and natural woes for farmers, the prices will continue to soar. It is probably the pocket of the consumer that will be hurting the most in the western world, but in other areas such as in Africa, latin America and south America, the price on consumers and the average family will be much greater. Famine will only increase on the world scale.

Drought? What are you on about? Switzerland is flooded:

BBC news report

But Portugal is on fire, so lets pick somewhere between the two -- how about France?

As for food becoming more valuable you are probably right as Earth's population is constantly increasing so we are using up more arable land as cities expand, yet that land has to support more people. Bugger.

Hmmm Carlos - France was in the news some weeks ago about their HUGE drought problem; grain production was reduced.

Illinois was also in the news that week with the same problem.

Yeah, this is definatly a catch-22.. We can already see the price influx from oil in our daily shopping. Just compare anything you've bough with a newspaper from 3-5 years ago and you'll be astonished..

And as the population grows, and the climate change escalates, you can bet your bottom things can and probably will go to hell in a handbasket..

Looking to the future always disturbs me.. all these clear signs of doom lay ahead, and yet, no one gives a damn.. not even our governments

Well I give a damn. I have 2 little girls that are going to have to live through this crap, and I sure as hell hope someone can do something.

I live in in a relatively small city in Iowa and we've had a wicked drought this year with little to no rain. It's nuts cause i remember about 4-5 years ago it used to rain at least once a week. Now we're lucky if we get once a month.

/e looks out of the window and watches the rain again. That`s Scotland for you.

Seriously though, i see a time when water is going to be worth more than oil. Will we have "water wars"?

Originally posted by jacquio999
Well for the meat situation, I hear it takes 50 lbs of grain to create one pound of beef. So with that off the market, food supplies should increase.

I dont think lack of food is the problem-- its a lack of distribution that causes world hunger.

This is a lame vegetarian propaganda "fact". The grain fed to cattle is grown in harsh climates where it is not economicly feasible to grow better quality grain. The rough low quality grain is then fed to cattle who can handle it with thier 4 stomachs.

If you were forced to eat the cattle grain, it would provide almost no nutrition, and eventually mess up your digestive track so much, you wouldn't get nourishment from any other food either.

In addition, Grain threshers kill tens of thousands of animals a year.

People should eat meat about twice a week however. Not multiple times a day like most americans.

And back on topic, yes, we are due for a lot of change. Including where we can grow food. The good growing land isn't going away, its just moving to new areas as weather patterns change.