"There Is a Hunger Coming"

I found the comments below interesting because I see so little writing about the current global agricultural crisis. Yeah, food prices aren't soaring like they were last year so out of sight, out of mind for most people, right? But the problem is far from over, and it remains complex. The global economic meltdown, a planet-wide drought this year, the invasion of new fungoids and weeds that are killing crops, the push towards water privitization, the practices of various agribusinesses, other factors....all of these play a role.

Take a look at the following...interesting observations. Link follows exerpt.

"...On July 15th, as I began my trip to Utah, I came off the Grapevine decline and hit the flat 250 or so mile stretch of interstate which begins the farming belt in the valley. Almost immediately I noticed what I had only heard about on the radio and in the papers. Where once there were vast fields of green, now there where empty, barely recognizable rows of unplanted dirt and growing weeds. Only sporadically at first, but once I passed Bakersfield and for about a 200 mile stretch, I could not believe my eyes. Field after field laid fallow. And not really fallow, but unattended... as if it was not going to be planted in the near future either.

Signs were staked in the ground on almost every patch of barren farmland. The most common one, which was yellow and obviously a group effort to wake up the sleeping travelers of their future plight, read:
"CONGRESS CREATED DUST BOWL"

Others, which looked more homemade were posted on non-operational farm equipment parked as close to the freeway as possible, stated things like:
"FOOD ONLY GROWS WHERE WATER FLOWS" -and- "NO WATER = NO JOBS = NO FUTURE"

At one point, after 150 miles or so of seeing this horror, I broke down in tears and had to pull over to the side of the road....It was like some horrific story-book come to life; science fiction in real time. I was thinking of the farmers and their families and wondering what would become of them and their land. I was thinking about the consequences of hundreds of miles of food no longer being grown, and adding together the other states like Campo, Colorado which have the same situation... only planting 60% of their crops this year...

...To the readers of this, I can only say that living in the city has literally blinded me to the truth, even though I knew it was happening. I wonder how many other things I ignore? Many economists and trends predictors have called for food shortages and food riots in the fall, and with what I saw last week, I have new reason to believe them.

But then, that's the real problem isn't it? Belief...
If you believe that the food will continue to flow (magically appearing on store shelves in a grocery store near you) and just dismiss the very real claims of shortages worldwide, including a severe wheat shortage in this country due to a harmfull fungus, then I might boldy say that you deserve whatever fate befalls you.

More at source:
thecomingdepression.blogspot.com...

reply to post by silent thunder

When the government subsidizes farmers NOT to grow food, it is a false way to control food prices.

More food, cheaper prices, big business makes no money.

We have the land, and the ability. No drive to do so, though.

Just my humble opinion. . .

Originally posted by mikerussellus
reply to post by silent thunder

 

When the government subsidizes farmers NOT to grow food, it is a false way to control food prices.

More food, cheaper prices, big business makes no money.

We have the land, and the ability. No drive to do so, though.

Just my humble opinion. . .

I also have "issues" with subsization of farmers, but that doesn't seem to be what is going on here right now. We have a combination of unusally dry weather, a messed-up economy, Agribusinesses acting in highly questionable ways, and several extremely serious blights and weeds (look up "pigweed": Every farmer in the southern USA is engaged in a battle against this stuff, and its killing lots of crops).

In this particular case, its not a matter of subsidies; the problems go deeper.

Yes there is and it's already happening all over the world:

California
www.wxii12.com...
Food Bank Experiencing Worst Shortage Ever

Texas Lack of water
www.mywesttexas.com...
DALLAS — Off-duty police officers are patrolling streets, looking for people illegally watering their lawns and gardens. Residents are encouraged to stealthily rat out water scofflaws on a 24-hour hot line. One Texas lake has dipped so low that stolen cars dumped years ago are peeking up through the waterline.

Kenya
allafrica.com...
Nairobi — Top education officials will hold a crisis meeting in Nairobi Tuesday to discuss ways of combating the biting drought threatening the school feeding programme

Iraq
www.timesofmalta.com...
What was known as history's fertile crescent, where lush farmland and abundant water gave rise to civilisation, is today a dusty desert where the Tigris and Euphrates rivers crawl sluggishly toward the sea.

nepal - govt accuses biz of creating food shortage!!!
www.nepalnews.com...

Officials sealing a godown after a raid by a joint team of District Administration Office (DAO), Kathmandu, the Metropolitan Police and the Department of Commerce (DoC) of a dozen godowns operated by three renowned
businesspersons in suspicion of creating an artificial shortage of food in the market, Saturday, July 26 09. nepalnews.com/ANA
A joint team of District Administration Office (DAO), Kathmandu, the Metropolitan Police and the Department of Commerce (DoC) has raided and sealed about a dozen godowns operated by three renowned businesspersons in suspicion of creating an artificial shortage of food in the market to unnaturally hike the prices.

India
www.thehindu.com...
NEW DELHI: The government has stated that deficient rainfall has had a major impact on crops this kharif season with the poor monsoon resulting in the total acreage of crops sown declining by 52.11 lakh hectare to 432.26 from 484.37 lakh hectare last year.

Fragile Earth. Such a proper forum name for this subject. We have taken for granted what the earth will do for us, and whether we are the cause or the government, natural or man made global warming, is of no consequence, we only need to wake up and realize quickly where our future is heading. Good post, thought provoking.

Eat more beef. There's plenty of cows!

On a serious note, this is really disturbing and really doesn't make much sense. Here in Wyoming we are dry and arid. Drought conditions are normal (this is considered High Desert). We've gotten so much rain this year that Wyoming looked like Ireland for most of the summer. More rain than we've ever had before!

For those of you who shrug this off or blame it on "subsidies," I invite you to consider the following:

Lots more, including links, at source:
www.marketskeptics.com...

Bulgaria Harvest Latest
As of July 15th Bulgarian farmers had harvested around 30% of the nation's wheat crop, with yields averaging 3.2 MT/hectare, according to the Agriculture Ministry.

Argentine Wheat Plantings Revised Lower Again
Argentine farmers will plant just 2.6 million hectares of winter wheat for the 2009/10 season, according to Oil World. That's 200,000 hectares down on their last estimate and a stunning 2.1 million less than was planted in 2008/09.

Brazil Turns To US For Wheat
Brazil, the world's third largest wheat importer, bought 51,000 MT of US wheat last week, that's more US wheat than it bought in the entire first six months of the year, despite a 10% import tax imposed by the government on purchases from outside the Mercosul bloc.

Canadian Crop Development Lags
Late planted crops in Saskatchewan continue to lag, leaving them vulnerable to an early freeze later in the season.

Ukraine Harvest Estimates
Ukrainian farmers are expected to be halfway through harvesting by the weekend, but estimates as to the size of the final grain crop this year still differ quite widely.

Russian Drought Damage Affects 3.3 Million Hectares
According to the Russian Agricultural Ministry 3.3 million hectares of the nation's spring crops have been badly damaged by drought.
A state of emergency has been declared in several regions along the Volga River and southern Urals, it says.

Spanish Grain Production Estimates Revised Lower
The Spanish agriculture ministry has revised down this year’s wheat and barley production estimates. Wheat output (excluding durum) is now projected 32% lower this year at 3.8 MMT, from the Ministry's previous forecast of 4.3 MMT and 5.6 MMT in 2008/09.

Ireland
...[An] Irish farmer who was recently quoted as saying: "This is the third year in a row of really dreadful grain growing conditions with no light on the horizon for better harvesting conditions."

Tight supplies send US soy on wild price ride
* Supplies could hit 32-year low before harvest arrives
* Chinese demand strong, leading to record export sales
* US soy cheapest in world due to drought in S. America


India warns scanty rains to hit rice crop, bans food exports
India warned Friday that patchy monsoon rains were threatening its lifeline rice crop and said it would ban food exports as part of a plan to prevent any crisis.

...and the beat goes on.





[edit on 7/28/09 by silent thunder]

To be honest i am surprised at how little response this thread had got. This is a massive problem for the world and is being caused by various factors such as soil erosion, draughts, disease, and not forgetting the disappearance of the Bees.

In my humble opinion all of these problems are being created or, at the very least, inflamed by human activity.

Vast areas of countryside are converted to monoculture farming causing a reduction in Biodiversity. Millions of trees chopped down each year causes soil erosion and also affecting weather patterns such as monsoons. Pesticide’s that kill not only harmful pest's but also kill or weaken beneficial bugs such as Bee's.

I have a friend who works at the head office of a major supermarket chain. He has told me that the buyers are getting in a panic because their suppliers are drying up. This means that they are having to offer higher and higher prices for food and in turn this affects the Supermarkets effort to offer competitive prices... anywho, that’s all corporate crap and I’m digressing slightly... Point is, the world is running outta food!

I'm glad you posted this silent thunder... it needs to be highlighted.

A Star and flag for you my friend

reply to post by DaMod


One of the bigger factors influencing the climate of the Western U.S. is the jet stream, which has been moving north now for awhile:

www.msnbc.msn.com...

That explains why your Wyoming landscape is now greener, because Wyoming nowadays gets much more coverage from the jet stream than it did before. Southern California, on the other hand, as our OP saw firsthand, is changing from a desert to a cinder. Ground water levels here are sinking like a stone. In the mountains where I live, non-native trees are steadily (over the last 5 years) dying from bark beetle infestation ... the bark beetles have always been part of our ecosystem here, it turns out, but they were never able to make much headway before because the sap levels in trees were so high --- but not anymore.