Rice jumps as Africa joins race for supplies (and food supply shortages)

Rice jumps as Africa joins race for supplies (and food supply shortages

www.ft.com

Rice prices rose more than 10 per cent on Friday to a fresh all-time high as African countries joined south-east Asian importers in the race to head off social unrest by securing supplies from the handful of exporters still selling the grain in the international market.

The rise in prices – 50 per cent in two weeks – threatens upheaval and has resulted in riots and soldiers overseeing supplies in some emerging countries, where the grain is a staple food for about 3bn people.

(visit the link for the full news article)


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Corn rises to $6 a bushel

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Global Rioting Potential? The looming meltdown.
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[edit on 4/6/2008 by biggie smalls]

This is some startling news. Food prices all over the world are rising, and food shortages are becoming pandemic.

Corn hit $6 a bushel recently and wheat is in low supply as well.

We are in very volatile times right now, and if we don't get a hold on the food supply problem, many will die of starvation.

The increase also risks stoking further inflation in emerging countries, which have been suffering the impact of record oil prices and the rise in price of other agricultural commodities – including wheat, maize and vegetable oil – in the last year.

The poor will be greater affected by the increase in prices, as well as those who are already in degraded ecosystems.

This is a worldwide problem not a local problem.

We need to deal with this as soon as possible or many of us will perish.

www.ft.com
(visit the link for the full news article)

Without cheap fossil fuels, food production will continue to dwindle. The food supply and energy supply are intricately linked thanks to our reliance on conventional agriculture.

Farm and oil subsidies keep the price low, but we still pay the cost through our taxes. If we truly want to be independent, we'll need to cut these 'socialist' measures that only help certain businesses, not the American/world peoples.

Sustainable agriculture and renewable energy are the way of the future (should be past and present too) and the only way we'll be able to survive and adapt to the changes in our environment.

I hope we can all live to see "tomorrow."

[edit on 4/6/2008 by biggie smalls]

This isn't good. They'll start squabbling over it sooner or later.

Then the prices really will shoot up, and they'll be forced to fight over what they have.

If nothing is done to correct this problem by the pre-determined time of 2 months is up, i'm going to start reading up on bushcraft.

The one area of knowledge i have left for last.



[edit on 6-4-2008 by Throbber]

Stop breeding.


Just sayin'

Throbber,

No this indeed is not all good. Who is 'they?' Anyone going to the grocery store will be hurt by a price hike that has been on the incline for some time.

How much is milk for a gallon now, $4? $5? How about gas? $3 a gallon at least.

I'd recommend taking up survival skills right now before its too late, and starting a garden. You may save your life and that of others if you plan right.

I'm in the process of stockpiling enough food to last me a few seasons if the food delivery system fails. Right now I can't subsist off all my own food as the garden isn't fully grown yet. I'm going to try growing hemp this summer to see if I can eat it as a food and use the fiber for clothes, rope, paper, building material, etc.

You shouldn't leave knowledge of your well-being for last. I'd get on the bandwagon.



Steve,

That's very easy for someone without kids to say. I feel the same way, but who are we to tell anyone to stop reproducing? The Chinese have forced their citizens to have only 1 child, unless the 1st child is a girl and the 2nd a boy. Maximum 2 children (in some areas anyway)!

Forcing anything is a bad idea. If we educate people as to why having 10 kids is a bad idea that's one thing; forcing their hand is another.

What about all the farmers who need 5 kids to help them take care of their land?

I'm all for not breeding like rabbits, but its a slippery slope once the government steps in to make these kind of changes.

I can understand where you're coming from, and do agree, but how would you plan on enforcing people to "stop breeding"?

Its mighty tricky.

Man this is crazy.


Mix this with the Haiti uprising posted today as well, and you start to see the pieces falling into place.


I wonder what the "food stores" if any the US has saved up for it's people in this tide of food shortages.

Sounds like growing your own is a MUST.

reply to post by biggie smalls


Yeah, I'll admit it's difficult to put into action. But the truth is right there. Selfish breeding is causing the overpopulation of our world. Overpopulation means one thing, supplies of everything must increase. The Earth is a finite resource, and so is the soul bank. The more we push, the worse for all of us it becomes.

Not to mention how irresponsible it is to bring a child into a life of poverty and starvation.

[edit on 2008/4/7 by SteveR]

Well, I think this is really going to hit the poor and 3rd world countries. I think that the US will be burdoned by this, but it won't reach "rioting in the streets" levels. If this goes unchecked, like it appears that it will, millions of people are going to starve to death. This feels very engineered if you ask me.

Engineered or not, at some point the whole world will feel the effects of this shortage.
Just think of the implications... we will see refugees who have the choice between leaving and starving. At some point, the foodprices even here in Europe or in the US are bound to rise to an impossible level.
What will happen then? What will we do with the refugees? How will we secure the food for ourselves and our families?

If everybody who can do it in any way would plant edibles in his garden, we might stave off the worst implications for some time. For how long remains the question. But a widespread humanitarian catastrophe can not be ruled out anymore.

I for one have decided it's time for America first. I have been watching some countries for 40 + years and hundreds of billions of US dollars and nothing has changed. It's not the US's fault everytime something bad happens in the world and it's time people and their governments take charge of their future instead of waiting for the next free handout.


mikell

Water rationing and drought conditions don’t help one little bit. Too may people live in the cities and not enough people are individual farmers these days.

The conditions are ripe for major catastrophe because most of the food is also produced by a few large corporations. If just one of them decided to engineer problems to further inflate the price dramatically then that would immediately cause a political meltdown in the third world.

But I think that this is exactly what the power elite wanted all along. Too many people, not enough resources. What many elitists foolishly think (in my opinion) is that we need to let the third world destroy itself for the betterment of the entire globe.

Too many global resources have been spent on third world countries that can’t or won’t get their acts together. Somalia is a perfect example. I think that the power elite want all of this to happen because it saves them the expense of trying to fight wars for global dominance if they can engineer the entire world to give in to One World Government by believing that they have no other choice if they want to live.

Growing food simply isn’t an option for too many people. However, if one were so inclined as to try, what should they grow. I hear that fruit trees, while taking a few years to start, are one of the best means of consistently producing a high volumes of edible crops given varying conditions of drought and or heat and cold.