The Global Food Crisis

[K. A. Pital]

I don't think morals have ever been mentioned anywhere in the US economic policy guidelines, sadly.

I actually applaud Braun for decrying the role of bioethanol craze in boosting up prices.

Sadly, Bush is not Brown. Now, if we get another president, who actually considers the problem to be at least somewhat in play when devising US financial and economic policy, that might help a little.

[Admiral Valdemar]

Sadly, America's economy is likely the chief cause here, though global pushes for bio-fuels aren't helping and should be stopped if using grains etc. for input.

Americans hoard food as industry seeks regs.

Rice, death and the dollar.

[K. A. Pital]

Wait, Americans - the nation that has the least food crisis affection - hoards foods? Just what the fuck is going on?

[Kanastrous]

Runs on goods that appear to be in danger of future shortage is pretty common in the US, although you usually see it more in the context of stuff like people cleaning out local drugstore shelves before a hurricane arrives.

Russian shoppers don't occasionally clean out shops in buying panics?

[discordian_saint]

Sadly, America's economy is likely the chief cause here

No, the chief cause is too many people having kids when there is no food, medicine, jobs or anything else where they live. The manipulation of the commodities market by traders and the use of grains for fuel are just highlighting this fundamental fact.

See this map? The two shades of green are the soil types where agricultural production is best suited for local conditions with minimal additives like fertilizer/lime/etc.

See this map? The areas in red denote the highest population densities. When the areas in red don't happen to reside in the same locale as the areas in green on the first map the locals are fucked, plain and simple.

I mean compare the birth rates:
US - 14 per 1000 ppl
India - 22 per 1000 ppl
Bangladesh - 29 per 1000 ppl
Haiti - 36 per 1000 ppl

I mean seriously stop fucking breeding like rabbits for crying out loud.

[GrandMasterTerwynn]

Just in case you weren't depressed enough:

Wal-Mart restricts rice purchases
Sam's Club
Rice prices have been hitting record highs

The world's largest retailer, Wal-Mart, is restricting sales of rice at one of its chains - the latest sign of a global shortage of the staple food.

Sam's Club, Wal-Mart's cash-and-carry division, says customers can buy a maximum of four bags per visit.

The limit applies to jasmine, basmati and long grain white rice.

The international price of rice has risen by 68% this year and Wal-Mart said the restrictions were "due to recent supply and demand trends".

There are more than 550 Sam's Club stores in the US.

With food prices rising, customers have been buying basic goods in bulk.

Wal-Mart said it was not restricting the amounts of flour or oil customers can purchase "at this time".

The prices of soybeans, corn and wheat have also soared and are currently near their all-time peaks.

Rice-producing countries like Vietnam and India have curbed exports to keep domestic prices under control and there are fears that Thailand - the world's largest rice exporter - could follow suit.

Rice shortages have sparked protests in several countries including the Philippines, Haiti and Egypt.

Wal-Mart said it was working with suppliers to address the shortage.

Link

[Admiral Valdemar]

No, the chief cause is too many people having kids when there is no food, medicine, jobs or anything else where they live. The manipulation of the commodities market by traders and the use of grains for fuel are just highlighting this fundamental fact.

See this map? The two shades of green are the soil types where agricultural production is best suited for local conditions with minimal additives like fertilizer/lime/etc.

See this map? The areas in red denote the highest population densities. When the areas in red don't happen to reside in the same locale as the areas in green on the first map the locals are fucked, plain and simple.

I mean compare the birth rates:
US - 14 per 1000 ppl
India - 22 per 1000 ppl
Bangladesh - 29 per 1000 ppl
Haiti - 36 per 1000 ppl

I mean seriously stop fucking breeding like rabbits for crying out loud.

Sorry, near seven billion people didn't appear overnight. This food crisis did. Same with bio-fuels, there weren't a hundred refineries popping up since January, which is why the economy issue is the prime cause here. Yes, there are too many people and that is something I put in every other post I have used for discussing resource depletion.

In this instance, however, the sudden influx of speculators and hoarders along with export cuts is down to the US and its ever growing economic clusterfuck.

Ideally, the take home point from this will be "There's too many fucking people" and not "There's a lack of food. Let's give out more food and let them breed and consume more". Because growth forever is a losing game.

[Darth Wong]

Is there mass starvation in India? Because if there's any country that's built up a truly ridiculous population density, that's it.

[Admiral Valdemar]

Is there mass starvation in India? Because if there's any country that's built up a truly ridiculous population density, that's it.

Actually, I hear the Punjab has a glut of food right now. Crazy, but if anywhere needs die-off right now, it's India and Bangladesh especially. You can't imagine a good ending for those regions.

They also export a lot of stuff too, but with these prices and the threat of Ig99 they seem to be keeping it within their borders, which only knocks on the effect.

[CaptainChewbacca]

Is there mass starvation in India? Because if there's any country that's built up a truly ridiculous population density, that's it.

I believe (and I may be wrong) that India is getting a handle on not only reducing population growth, but also on improving its own internal food distribution network to seriously reduce the effects of food shortages.

[Kane Starkiller]

While India is much smaller than China it has 1,605,000 km2 of arable land compared to 1,426,000 km2 of China. (from CIA world factbook)
Not that they couldn't use a decrease in population growth ASAP.

[Adrian Laguna]

Yeah, much of China is mountain, steppe, and desert. Not exactly prime food growing areas.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

While India is much smaller than China it has 1,605,000 km2 of arable land compared to 1,426,000 km2 of China. (from CIA world factbook)
Not that they couldn't use a decrease in population growth ASAP.

The Indians could also substantially increase their arable land; diverting part of the flow of the Ganges, for instance, into the dried up old riverbed of the Sarasavsati. This would however tend to accelerate erosion in Bangladesh, but Bangladesh is screwed anyway.

[Fire Fly]

I'm surprised no one has brought in climate change yet. I have to wonder if this is just a preview of what is to come in the next few decades with the increasing climate change. Just even a small increase in the price of food, combined with bad weather and harvests, has resulted in relatively large shockwaves already. It'll be even worse when you combine that with mass migration, economic turn down, increasing military conflicts, and deteriorating weather conditions. I hope the politicians are taking notes from Al Gore's movie now.

[J]

I'm surprised no one has brought in climate change yet. I have to wonder if this is just a preview of what is to come in the next few decades with the increasing climate change.

Climate change will make things even worse in some cases, for instance the major rivers in India are fed by glacial runoff from the Himalayas, glaciers which are shrinking every year and once they're gone river volumes, and thus the amount of water available for irrigation will drop significantly. China is also in a heap of trouble since their rivers are already being sucked dry, they no longer have enough flow for agriculture and are making up the shortfall by pumping water from aquifers. When, not if, when the aquifers run dry, around 1/3 to 1/2 of the water used for irrigating crops will be gone.

The same is also true in parts of the US, climate change is going to suck.

[Master of Ossus]

India's actually one of the better success stories from modern agricultural practices, so it's pretty well covered. When you have a large force of well-educated and capitalized people living in a country, you also have better access to education for farmers on using things like GM crops.

[MKSheppard]

[quote="Admiral Valdemar"]Sadly, America's economy is likely the chief cause here, though global pushes for bio-fuels aren't helping and should be stopped if using grains etc. for input.

Americans hoard food as industry seeks regs.

So I guess the "Moonie Times" is now a A++ Valdemar Trusted Source, despite all the crap that's been heaped onto it by people like Nitram?

[discordian_saint]

Is there mass starvation in India? Because if there's any country that's built up a truly ridiculous population density, that's it.

No mass starvations yet just the threat of them. They still cannot import the amount they need which puts them in the "on the edge" category. India's agricultural problem is similar to China, they are using water at a sickening rate for industry and farming without any real hope on the horizon of it changing.

Pakistan had to set up checkpoints to prevent the movement of wheat and flour out of certain areas.

And yes 7 billion people didn't appear overnight but only 300 million of that number actually live in the US where all this "missing" food comes from. That means quite a few people (i.e. a few billion) have done this to themselves just like we in the US have done it to ourselves with oil. Americans have known forever that we import far too much oil per person but we didn't reduce oil consumption one damn bit. Now our spread out cities like Atlanta are going to face some serious issues regarding suburban commutes.

US actions may have been the straw that broke the proverbial camel's back in the food arena but that camel already was loaded down through no fault of our own.

[Admiral Valdemar]

So I guess the "Moonie Times" is now a A++ Valdemar Trusted Source, despite all the crap that's been heaped onto it by people like Nitram?

Matters not. This story isn't exactly unverifiable from other sources. That link was just convenient at the time.

[Broomstick]

The thing is, the US and some other countries that don't have massive population densities can make changes that will allow people to survive. That doesn't mean they'll be happy, but they'll survive and their children have a reasonable chance to grow up. Even small things, such as more people shifting to backyard gardens, can add up when done by 300 million. Yes, some of the big urban areas may be fucked, but even civilizations with less energy resources and less productive agriculture have been able to support large cities.

Some place like Haiti? Massive, massive clusterfuck.

People in my parents' generation are talking about how they haven't seen food rationing, or even serious talk of it, since WWII. Big difference this time, though - although many areas, such as Europe, had fucked up agriculture there were other areas, such as the US, where production was largely unaffected and that were able to supply goods to deficient areas. This time, there is no unaffected oasis to bring in supplies. The shortage is, unlike in the 1940's, truly global

[Kanastrous]

With lots of arable farm land going unused, I wonder if the US could leverage its food-producing capacity for fun and profit, as the Saudis, for example, do with their oil.

Unethical, but I wonder if there's potential.

[K. A. Pital]

No, the chief cause is too many people having kids when there is no food, medicine, jobs or anything else where they live.

Dude, seriously, Valdemar's right. There wasn't just another billion people sprung up in 2007-2008, but there was a price hike which left many of the existing already people wondering how the fuck to get the food.

[Kanastrous]

If you are already living on the bare margin of survival, does it make any kind of rational, responsible sense, to have kids, at all? Siring litters of children when you are inches from catastrophe, does not impress me as being any more sensible than siring litters of kids, when you've gone over the edge.

Maybe that's the sense of what Valdemar had in mind.

Maybe.

[K. A. Pital]

If you are already living on the bare margin of survival, does it make any kind of rational, responsible sense, to have kids, at all?

Personally I think that population growth in un-industrialized countries is a biological mechanism.

It's pretty simple if you follow history and economy. Industrialization lowers the need of people to run an economy (a) and also provides for longer life expectancy due to increased economic and social benefits (b).

But what if a country failed to industrialize? If the life expectancy remains low, I think nature does have a compensatory mechanism, witnessed in XX century India, China, SEA and Africa. That mechanism is explosive population growth.

To maintain agricultural economy in a place where say 40% of children die, and you only live up to 35 - which means around 25 years of real job tops, considering brutal child labour - to maintain it, you need to explo-grow population. Of your family first of all. Later this translates to an entire country.

Therefore all "aid" which does not industrialize nations is bullshit; and the exploit of agricultural nations and forcing them to remain primitively agrciltureal, with low life expectancy, is a recipe for disaster and pop growth.

[The Yosemite Bear]

ok, my very bad sense of humour has just kicked in on this thread, and now suggest except for that Jacobs/Kretzfelt (yeah I know spellinmg is atrocious), problem, Tom Swift may indeed have an ecquitable solution to that problem...