Why are Tortillas now Tied to Oil Prices?

Why are tortillas now tied to oil prices?

www.alertnet.org

Global food prices are spiralling skyward.

From Cameroon to Mexico, riots have erupted as staples like rice and corn flour become unaffordable. In Pakistan, wheat flour prices have doubled. World soybean prices are at record highs.

The U.N. World Food Organisation (WFP) has warned of a "new hunger" spreading across the globe, plunging poorer countries into unrest and violence. The planet has never seen anything like this. Experts call it the worst food price inflation in history.

(visit the link for the full news article)



[edit on 17/3/08 by MikeboydUS]

As oil prices continue to rise and more farmland is devoted to bio fuel crops, the prices of food are going to be to high for billions of people around the world to afford. We literally are on the verge of the largest famine in human history if prices continue the way they are.

I would almost keep an eye out for a Black Horse with a rider upon it carrying a set of scales.



www.alertnet.org
(visit the link for the full news article)

dang'it. this sucks. first gas now tortillas? i'm pissed mad!


My diet includes 4 tortillas a day!

I guess i'll have to fill my tortillas up with mud soon.

reply to post by jedimiller



I hear the mud diet is all the rage now in Haiti. You got to bake it with oil and salt, then voila you have yummy tummy filling baked mud full of vitamins and minerals.

Originally posted by MikeboydUS
I hear the mud diet is all the rage now in Haiti. You got to bake it with oil and salt, then voila you have yummy tummy filling baked mud full of vitamins and minerals.

I suppose if I keep paying $4 bucks a gallon i'll have to start eatin' those mudfilled tortillas and move to mexico.

The rising prices are more likely tied to a shortage in some grains, such as wheat, due to weak harvests last year.

www.newsday.com...

things seem fine in Canada, mind you, now we are paying $1.06 a liter for gas which was down 3 cents from last week, (Translates to about $4.24 a gallon) like no riots, people are shrugging off the high prices a bit, some comment but some still buy, I will see that more of the 3rd world countries will be hit by this, that guy selling the eBikes in my town will be laughing to the bank.

i have a simple answer - the tortilla being the national food of america is the true indicator of real prices - forget all those econimists - watch the tortilla prices!

how do you make tortilla's?........................


the worlds going to pot that for sure

Blame oil being neccesairy for transport to fertilizers.

The current rising price of oil does not tell the whole story. It is a convenient excuse for long term greed.

Decades ago, in Africa for example, farmers were forced to turn from subsistence crops to export crops, to help nations pay off debts. Some countries, where locals starved, exported food crops.

Mexico has been driving farmers either off land or forcing them to plant certain crops (remember the Zapatistas revolt of southern Mexico). NAFTA has exported from the US the negative side of free markets and privatization, unregulated greed.

This assault on poor farmers down at the bottom of the food chain will be exacerbated at the end of 2007 when all tariffs on U.S. corn are abolished. Meanwhile President Calderon seeks to tamp down tortilla prices by importing up to 2,000,000 duty-free tons to augment what Mexican farmers can or cannot produce. Such a solution is guaranteed to drive more farmers off the land. Even worse is that much of the new influx of NAFTA corn will be transgenic.

soource

Why has the price of the tortilla risen in Mexico? There are three reasons. First and foremost, it is due to hoarding and speculation by the agro-industrial monopolies. Second, the rising cost of gasoline, diesel, and electricity has affected production, transport, and processing costs. And third, the international price of corn increased due to its use in ethanol production. Only by looking at all three of these factors together, can we understand the recent spike in the cost of Mexico's staple food.

source

Thus, the price of tortillas also has exacerbated the flow of Mexican/Central American workers coming to the United States to look for jobs to be able to send money back home.
Since the 1980's Americans and US corporations enjoyed the low cost of housekeepers (Not just the very wealthy could afford a housekeeper/nanny!), gardeners, construction workers, meat packers who would work for low wages without complaining about unsafe working conditions , etc.

What price the cost of tortillas? Ya basta!



[edit on 17-3-2008 by desert]

The Amish produce is still the same price. They don't use oil. Our crops depend on oil driven stuff to grow and be transported.

The current problem in the OP is due to the use of oil-based products for fuel and fertilizer.

Now, depending on what is eaten with the tortillas, and if vehicles can be modified to run on methane, the problem can be solved.

[edit on 3/17/2008 by centurion1211]

Did somebody say "tortillas"?

Like I've said before, there is no simple answer.
The global warming ecologists, aka "alternative fueloligists", are to blame here.

They want the World to use alternative fuel yet they never took into account that Ethanol production would soon affect food prices on a global scale.

Unforeseen problems are always ironically introduced when you try to affect the status quo.
This form of subsidized food burning makes no sense. These people want me to pump real food byproducts into my vehicle, while I continue to consume food made from artificial color, flavor and other poisons.

Now that I think about it I don't understand why my trash is always much heavier than my groceries.

Originally posted by John_Q_Llama
The rising prices are more likely tied to a shortage in some grains, such as wheat, due to weak harvests last year.

www.newsday.com...

Yeah... as soon as you crossed the Ohio River heading south, slowly it turned from brown / green to just... brown.

By the time I got past lexington, it was like driving in a drought ravanged savanah .. corn and wheat fields where baked brown, many times entirely lost.. many had pockets of green where farmers tried to save parts of the crop.. if any one remembers the water shortages.. in my own home town crops did not fail, in Ohio, but they where no where near as good as they would have been on a normal year.. and our water shortage was severe.. the only people allowed to water lawns for nearly 2 months where those who just had sod laid down.

This could explain some of the price rising..

however my favorite little delli, nice place to get a cheap sandwhich raised the price of their food.. when I asked the owner why.. he simply said.. it cost to much to ship in supplies because of gas prices.

remember.. everything must be shipped from somewhere.. we don't eat local produce anymore.

reply to post by John_Q_Llama


No, Despite weather last year showed an increase in total crop production for the US in every category. I thought the same thing as you and researched it.

Food is now valued at it's fuel equivalent if it is multimarketable.

Beyond that horror, lies the generalization of value.
The land food is grown on is maximized for profitability. So competition says that more land goes to fuel, less to food until food matches the per acre profitability of fuel. Right now meat is highly affordable compared to the recent increase in cost of vegitables. Yet it takes 5 pounds of grain to make a pound of meat. This is because the herds need to be thinned becasue they are not as profitable per acre. Expect the price of meat to skyrocket in the coming year.

here in san diego we have two most important commodities. tortillas and gasoline. everyone here eats tortillas, no matter what race you are. I only see bad things happening from this. tortillas are made from corn paste. I been to a factory..tortillas are the number one food source in south america.

reply to post by Alxandro


way to lump up all alternative energy as corn-based ethanol. That is sticking it to those pesky people who want clean air and renewable energies!


Seriously, hydrogen, wind, solar, hemp oil, oil from algae, are all much more efficient and don't affect food crops at all. Not to mention nuclear power for homes that cannot get sufficient energy from those sources. Better nuclear power and developing a way to utilize the nuclear waste (radiation is energy) would be a nice step ...

so would investing the money that would be put into off-shore drilling, then, we could build the infrastructure and have the technology developed instead of playing the chicken and egg waiting game while supplies run low and companies use excess profits for kindling in their fireplaces. Tell me, over 40 billion profit from just one company, imagine if each company put 10% of that profit into new energy each year. I think we would already be there (actually, we are, but shh, don't tell anyone).

Don't forget, about 100 years ago cars were built to be electric and run on vegetable oils. Chevy claims they can make a car that can run 40 miles without gas (Volt commercial), but they put out a car that could go over 200 miles electric only a couple decades ago. BTW, the Prius in non-US trim has a electric only mode which can do the 40+ mile trip without gas, and has had that option for years, it is called EV mode (electric vehicle).

Wake up to the scam. We can already run on electric cars, hydrogen power (Mazda has a duel-fuel RX-8 rotary that has been on public roads in 'testing' for many years, running on petrol or hydrogen at the flip of a switch), and oils from non-petrol/non-food sources today, solar power is more efficient and can be used to run houses and charge those car battery packs. It just doesn't make sense for the ones who supply us with energy to waste the current production facilities while they are still up and running, until they milk all it is worth.


Guess these crazy dinosaur burners don't know how to do anything without someone holding their hand



But blame it on the people who care about the future. Lump them up into some crazy group, since it is easier to live how you have than to realize it has been a lie. Watch 'Who killed the electric car?' or study up on what the Fords or yore built and accomplished. Learn for yourself the truth, or support your own pleasant stance ... they say ignorance is bliss.

Originally posted by Rockpuck
remember.. everything must be shipped from somewhere.. we don't eat local produce anymore.

I think that's going to have to change. I'll be growing potatoes and beans this year, and I even plan on trying to develop a potato that's adapted well to the area and so can be grown organically. We all better start getting used to living a lot more like our grandparents did, because that's exactly where the PTB are taking us.