<DIV>Tom,</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Thanks for the article. It is my understanding that it is oil prices rising from greedy OPEC and oil companies are cause of this food crisis.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>They are causing this for two reasons, first, the cost of fuel, especially diesel, used to ship the food, has skyrocketed. </DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>The other reason is that farmers are switching to growing biodiesel fuel because it pays so much more than food crops, because fuel has skyrocketed.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>The real problem here seems to be that there is an unchecked monopoly on the world's only real energy source, oil. </DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Best Regards,</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Donovan<BR><BR><B><I>Tom Trail <ttrail@moscow.com></I></B> wrote:</DIV> <BLOCKQUOTE class=replbq style="PADDING-LEFT: 5px; MARGIN-LEFT: 5px; BORDER-LEFT: #1010ff 2px solid">>Visionaires A very informative article about the
world food crisis<BR><BR>by Lester R. Brown, President of the Earth Policy Institute.<BR><BR>Tom Trail<BR><BR>><BR>>Earth Policy Institute<BR>>Plan B Update<BR>>For Immediate Release<BR>>April 16, 2008<BR>><BR>>WORLD FACING HUGE NEW CHALLENGE ON FOOD <BR>>FRONT <BR>>Business-as-Usual Not a Viable Option<BR>><BR>>http://www.earthpolicy.org/Updates/2008/Update72.htm<BR>><BR>>Lester R. Brown<BR>><BR>>A fast-unfolding food shortage is engulfing the <BR>>entire world, driving food prices to record <BR>>highs. Over the past half-century grain prices <BR>>have spiked from time to time because of <BR>>weather-related events, such as the 1972 Soviet <BR>>crop failure that led to a doubling of world <BR>>wheat, rice, and corn prices. The situation <BR>>today is entirely different, however. The <BR>>current doubling of grain prices is <BR>>trend-driven, the cumulative effect of some <BR>>trends that are
accelerating growth in demand <BR>>and other trends that are slowing the growth in <BR>>supply.<BR>><BR>>The world has not experienced anything quite <BR>>like this before. In the face of rising food <BR>>prices and spreading hunger, the social order is <BR>>beginning to break down in some countries. In <BR>>several provinces in Thailand, for instance, <BR>>rustlers steal rice by harvesting fields during <BR>>the night. In response, Thai villagers with <BR>>distant fields have taken to guarding ripe rice <BR>>fields at night with loaded shotguns.<BR>> <BR>>In Sudan, the U.N. World Food Programme (WFP), <BR>>which is responsible for supplying grain to 2 <BR>>million people in Darfur refugee camps, is <BR>>facing a difficult mission to say the least. <BR>>During the first three months of this year, 56 <BR>>grain-laden trucks were hijacked. Thus far, only <BR>>20 of the trucks have been recovered and some 24
<BR>>drivers are still unaccounted for. This threat <BR>>to U.N.-supplied food to the Darfur camps has <BR>>reduced the flow of food into the region by <BR>>half, raising the specter of starvation if <BR>>supply lines cannot be secured.<BR>> <BR>>In Pakistan, where flour prices have doubled, <BR>>food insecurity is a national concern. Thousands <BR>>of armed Pakistani troops have been assigned to <BR>>guard grain elevators and to accompany the <BR>>trucks that transport grain.<BR>> <BR>>Food riots are now becoming commonplace. In <BR>>Egypt, the bread lines at bakeries that <BR>>distribute state-subsidized bread are often the <BR>>scene of fights. In Morocco, 34 food rioters <BR>>were jailed. In Yemen, food riots turned deadly, <BR>>taking at least a dozen lives. In Cameroon, <BR>>dozens of people have died in food riots and <BR>>hundreds have been arrested. Other countries <BR>>with food riots include
Ethiopia, Haiti, <BR>>Indonesia, Mexico, the Philippines, and Senegal. <BR>>(See additional examples of food price unrest at <BR>>www.earthpolicy.org/Updates/2008/Update72_data.htm.)<BR>><BR>>The doubling of world wheat, rice, and corn <BR>>prices has sharply reduced the availability of <BR>>food aid, putting the 37 countries that depend <BR>>on the WFP’s emergency food assistance at risk. <BR>>In March, the WFP issued an urgent appeal for <BR>>$500 million of additional funds.<BR>><BR>>Around the world, a politics of food scarcity is <BR>>emerging. Most fundamentally, it involves the <BR>>restriction of grain exports by countries that <BR>>want to check the rise in their domestic food <BR>>prices. Russia, the Ukraine, and Argentina are <BR>>among the governments that are currently <BR>>restricting wheat exports. Countries restricting <BR>>rice exports include Viet Nam, Cambodia, and <BR>>Egypt. These export
restrictions simply drive <BR>>prices higher in the world market.<BR>><BR>>The chronically tight food supply the world is <BR>>now facing is driven by the cumulative effect of <BR>>several well established trends that are <BR>>affecting both global demand and supply. On the <BR>>demand side, the trends include the continuing <BR>>addition of 70 million people per year to the <BR>>earth’s population, the desire of some 4 billion <BR>>people to move up the food chain and consume <BR>>more grain-intensive livestock products, and the <BR>>recent sharp acceleration in the U.S. use of <BR>>grain to produce ethanol for cars. Since 2005, <BR>>this last source of demand has raised the annual <BR>>growth in world grain consumption from roughly <BR>>20 million tons to 50 million tons.<BR>><BR>>Meanwhile, on the supply side, there is little <BR>>new land to be brought under the plow unless it <BR>>comes from clearing tropical
rainforests in the <BR>>Amazon and Congo basins and in Indonesia, or <BR>>from clearing land in the Brazilian cerrado, a <BR>>savannah-like region south of the Amazon <BR>>rainforest. Unfortunately, this has heavy <BR>>environmental costs: the release of sequestered <BR>>carbon, the loss of plant and animal species, <BR>>and increased rainfall runoff and soil erosion. <BR>>And in scores of countries prime cropland is <BR>>being lost to both industrial and residential <BR>>construction and to the paving of land for <BR>>roads, highways, and parking lots for <BR>>fast-growing automobile fleets.<BR>><BR>>New sources of irrigation water are even more <BR>>scarce than new land to plow. During the last <BR>>half of the twentieth century, world irrigated <BR>>area nearly tripled, expanding from 94 million <BR>>hectares in 1950 to 276 million hectares in <BR>>2000. In the years since then there has been <BR>>little, if
any, growth. As a result, irrigated <BR>>area per person is shrinking by 1 percent a year.<BR>><BR>>Meanwhile, the backlog of agricultural <BR>>technology that can be used to raise cropland <BR>>productivity is dwindling. Between 1950 and 1990 <BR>>the world’s farmers raised grainland <BR>>productivity by 2.1 percent a year, but from <BR>>1990 until 2007 this growth rate slowed to 1.2 <BR>>percent a year. And the rising price of oil is <BR>>boosting the costs of both food production and <BR>>transport while at the same time making it more <BR>>profitable to convert grain into fuel for cars.<BR>><BR>>Beyond this, climate change presents new risks. <BR>>Crop-withering heat waves, more-destructive <BR>>storms, and the melting of the Asian mountain <BR>>glaciers that sustain the dry-season flow of <BR>>that region’s major rivers, are combining to <BR>>make harvest expansion more difficult. In the <BR>>past the
negative effect of unusual weather <BR>>events was always temporary; within a year or <BR>>two things would return to normal. But with <BR>>climate in flux, there is no norm to return to.<BR>><BR>>The collective effect of these trends makes it <BR>>more and more difficult for farmers to keep pace <BR>>with the growth in demand. During seven of the <BR>>last eight years, grain consumption exceeded <BR>>production. After seven years of drawing down <BR>>stocks, world grain carryover stocks in 2008 <BR>>have fallen to 55 days of world consumption, the <BR>>lowest on record. The result is a new era of <BR>>tightening food supplies, rising food prices, <BR>>and political instability. With grain stocks at <BR>>an all-time low, the world is only one poor <BR>>harvest away from total chaos in world grain <BR>>markets.<BR>><BR>>Business-as-usual is no longer a viable option. <BR>>Food security will deteriorate further
unless <BR>>leading countries can collectively mobilize to <BR>>stabilize population, restrict the use of grain <BR>>to produce automotive fuel, stabilize climate, <BR>>stabilize water tables and aquifers, protect <BR>>cropland, and conserve soils. Stabilizing <BR>>population is not simply a matter of providing <BR>>reproductive health care and family planning <BR>>services. It requires a worldwide effort to <BR>>eradicate poverty. Eliminating water shortages <BR>>depends on a global attempt to raise water <BR>>productivity similar to the effort launched a <BR>>half-century ago to raise land productivity, an <BR>>initiative that has nearly tripled the world <BR>>grain yield per hectare. None of these goals can <BR>>be achieved quickly, but progress toward all is <BR>>essential to restoring a semblance of food <BR>>security.<BR>><BR>>This troubling situation is unlike any the world <BR>>has faced before. The
challenge is not simply to <BR>>deal with a temporary rise in grain prices, as <BR>>in the past, but rather to quickly alter those <BR>>trends whose cumulative effects collectively <BR>>threaten the food security that is a hallmark of <BR>>civilization. If food security cannot be <BR>>restored quickly, social unrest and political <BR>>instability will spread and the number of <BR>>failing states will likely increase <BR>>dramatically, threatening the very stability of <BR>>civilization itself.<BR>><BR>># # #<BR>><BR>>Lester R. Brown is President of the Earth Policy Institute.<BR>><BR>>For more information, see Plan B 3.0: Mobilizing <BR>>to Save Civilization, available online for free <BR>>downloading.<BR>><BR>>Data and additional resources at www.earthpolicy.org.<BR>><BR>>For information contact:<BR>><BR>>Media Contact:<BR>>Reah Janise Kauffman<BR>>Tel: (202) 496-9290 x 12<BR>>E-mail: rjk
(at) earthpolicy.org<BR>><BR>>Research Contact:<BR>>Janet Larsen<BR>>Tel: (202) 496-9290 x 14<BR>>E-mail: jlarsen (at) earthpolicy.org<BR>><BR>>Earth Policy Institute<BR>>1350 Connecticut Ave. NW, Suite 403<BR>>Washington, DC 20036<BR>>Web: www.earthpolicy.org<BR>>---<BR>>You are currently subscribed to public as: ttrail@moscow.com<BR>>To unsubscribe send a blank email to <BR>>leave-public-1365614D@lists.earth-policy.org<BR><BR><BR>-- <BR>Dr. Tom Trail<BR>International Trails<BR>1375 Mt. View Rd.<BR>Moscow, Id. 83843<BR>Tel: (208) 882-6077<BR>Fax: (208) 882-0896<BR>e mail ttrail@moscow.com<BR><BR>=======================================================<BR>List services made available by First Step Internet, <BR>serving the communities of the Palouse since 1994. <BR>http://www.fsr.net <BR>mailto:Vision2020@moscow.com<BR>=======================================================<BR></BLOCKQUOTE><BR><p> 
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