2011年2月23日

Food Crisis 2011: take actions now to be prudent with food consumption

Food Crisis 2011? 14 Disturbing Facts That Make You Wonder If The Coming Global Food Shortage Has Already Begun


Will 2011 be the year that we point to as the beginning of the great global food crisis? 
Food prices are soaring, supplies are very tight and already we have seen some very intense food protests flare up around the globe this year.  When people don't have enough to eat, they tend to become very desperate, and unfortunately it looks like the global food situation is not going to improve much any time soon.  Right now the world is really struggling to feed itself, and with each passing day there are even more mouths to feed.  It is being projected that the population of the world will reach 9 billion people by the year 2050.  There are already way too many people starving to death around the globe, and unfortunately starvation is only going to become more rampant as food supplies get even tighter.  Some of the key food producing provinces in China are facing their worst drought in 200 years.  Flooding has absolutely devastated agricultural production in Australia and Brazil this winter.  Russia is still trying to recover from the horrific drought of last summer.  Global weather patterns have gone haywire over the past 12 months, and this is putting immense pressure on a global food system that was already on the verge of a major breakdown.
Food stockpiles all over the world are disturbingly low at this point.  If a major global famine broke out not even the United States would be able to last for long.  The U.S. government is supposed to be keeping a lot of food stockpiled in the event of an emergency, but that is just not happening.
Right now a desperate scramble for food is beginning.  Quite a few nations that used to be huge food exporters are now importing a lot of their food.  Prices for staples such as wheat, corn and soybeans are absolutely soaring, and the UN is projecting that they will continue to rise rapidly throughout 2011.
Unless something dramatically changes, the global food situation is only going to get tighter and tighter and tighter as this decade rolls along.
So who is going to decide who gets fed and who doesn't?
As food prices continue to rise, will we start to see more food riots erupt all over the world as starving populations demand answers from their governments?
What is going to happen if weather patterns get even worse or if we have a string of really bad natural disasters?
What is going to happen if we experience a really bad global economic collapse?
Right now these are just the "birth pains", but if things get much worse we could be looking at a horrific food shortage that will rock the globe.
The following are 14 facts that make you wonder if the coming global food shortage has already begun....
#1 According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, U.S. corn reserves will drop to a 15 year low by the end of 2011.
#2 The United Nations says that the global price of food hit another new all-time high in the month of January.
#3 The price of corn has doubled in the past six months.
#4 The price of wheat has roughly doubled since the middle of 2010.
#5 According to Forbes, the price of soybeans is up about 50% since last June.
#6 The United Nations is projecting that the global price of food will increase by another 30 percent by the end of 2011.
#7 Due to all of the unprecedented flooding, the winter wheat crop in Australia has been absolutely devastated.
#8 This winter Brazil was hit by some of the worst flooding that nation has ever seen.  This has substantially hampered food production in that country.
#9 Russia, one of the largest wheat producers on the entire globe, is still feeling the effects of last summer's scorching temperatures.  In fact, Russia is actually importing wheat this winter to sustain its cattle herds.
#10 China is busy preparing for a "severe, long-lasting drought" that is projected to have a huge impact on several provinces.  In fact, Chinese state media says that the eastern province of Shandong is dealing with the worst drought it has seen in 200 years.  The provinces being affected by this severe drought grow approximately two-thirds of the wheat in China. The following is a very short video news report about the horrible drought that China is going through right now....

#11 It appears that Chinese imports of corn will be about 9 times larger than the U.S. Department of Agriculture originally projected them to be for 2011.
#12 Approximately 1 billion people around the world go to bed hungry each night.
#13 Somewhere in the world someone starves to death every 3.6 seconds, and 75 percent of those are children under the age of five.
#14 As food has become increasingly scarce around the world, many companies have started using whatever kinds of "fillers" that they can think of in their "food" products.  For example, Raw Story is reporting that some companies in China have actually been mass producing "fake rice" that is made partly of plastic.  According to one Chinese Restaurant Association official, eating three bowls of this fake rice is the equivalent of consuming an entire plastic bag.
Let us pray that this is not the beginning of a major global food crisis, because hunger and starvation are horrible things.
Starving to death is a fate that nobody should ever have to go through.
So, let us hope for the best, but let us also prepare as if we will be facing the worst.



28 comments to Food Crisis 2011? 14 Disturbing Facts That Make You Wonder If The Coming Global Food Shortage Has Already Begun

  • VegasBob
    We are staring into the maw of “the worst.”
    First, we ought to recognize that no species of life on this planet has ever been able to increase its numbers indefinitely. 9 billion people on this earth? I don’t believe it.
    Second, supplies of phosphates, used to manufacture fertilizer, will be mostly exhausted by the 2030s.
    Third, as oil and gas companies increasingly use hydraulic fracturing to extract underground oil and gas deposits, we are going to wind up polluting most of our underground water reservoirs, if they have not already been depleted by excess water consumption.
    What we are going to be looking at in 25 years is starvation on a scale never before known. That starvation will lead to large-scale wars – it always has and always will.
  • A Dodgy Bloke
    One of the things people should have started doing especially if they have back yard is start growing their own food. Seeds are dirt cheep and there are a hundreds of Pod casts and web sites that can show you what will grow in your part of the world. Sprouts are a quick cheep way to grow veggies if don’t have room container gardening can work if you have a big balcony but no back yard. There are a couple of sprout guides below stop watching the Lindsay Lohan Train Wreck and get ready.
  • Tiacarolann
    Matt 24
  • Gary2
    One thing we still produce in the USA is food. Time to jack up prices to the rest of the world. Oil for corn pound for pound or they starve. Food for good jobs coming back from China.
  • Nexus
    I love it when all the survive the Apocalypse people come out and promote the live out of your own garden strategies – totally unrealistic for the vast majority of the population. You don’t realise that the future has been set by past actions. It is inevitable that tens of millions will starve and there is no way the human population will ever hit 9billion.
  • mondobeyondo
    An empty stomach is a great motivator for riots, violence and war. No matter how many electronic gadgets you have, you still have to eat. And if your stomach is growling incessantly, you will do just about ANYTHING to fill it. Considering that in many poor countries, 1/3 to 1/2 of peoples’ budgets go to food, any increase in price or lack of availability will make people very, very angry.
    Look out! The lid’s about to blow on this pressure cooker.
  • mondobeyondo
    Yes, the U.S. can grow and produce its own food, and even export some to other countries.
    FOR NOW.
    A 3 or 4 year long drought in the midwest, and the tables turn considerably. Suppose Kansas, Nebraska and Iowa have a severe drought. The corn, soybean and wheat harvests fail.
    You’d be surprised how much of our food products are related to corn, wheat and soybeans. Apart from vegetables and fish, just about everything you eat has something to do with those 3 grains. If there is a severe drought here, corn flakes will go up in price. (Duh!!) Bread and flour, obviously. So will beef, pork and poultry. Anything with high fructose corn syrup or other corn by-products as an ingredient – and that’s practically everything – will spike in price as well. Not to mention, ethanol…
    Egyptian and Tunisian style uprisings… coming soon to a Wal-Mart near you!
  • dodiligence
    Lewdness is the mother of Famine: INEVITABLE
  • Kathleen A
    On #1, why are corn reserves they dropping to a 15 year low? Is it because the government is putting restrictions on farmers–especially local farmers? Or has Monsanto run out of GMO corn and because Monsanto is in bed with the government, no one else is allowed to add to reserves? Corporate farmers have to obey Monsanto/govertnment. So it’s government contrived?
    On #2 is that because the off-shore banking cartel who sets all the prices have done this?
    #3, #4 – the dollar value as dictated by the rules of the Federal Reserve has been devaluated to reflect that the price is really the same but they are controlling the devaluation of our money.
    The UN is a global Eugenics Organization. Do you supose they have everything to do with this including the Monsanto GMO corn that causes sterilization among a host of other issues in laboratory tests but the FDA (another arm of the UN) says its good for you?
    Why not try some real reporting and look at the reasons this is happening?
  • missy
    Regarding point #9. Russia is importing more wheat because Putin has imposed a ban on all wheat export out of Russia. He did this as a strategy to counteract what many saw as price gouging by privately-held wheat companies in Russia who significantly raised prices after the drought to maintain their profit margin for their investors. Currently prices of wheat products are inflated in Russia not due to a real shortage of wheat (Russia, like most wheat exporters, has wheat stockpiled), but due to investor greed. Russia has always imported and exported different varieties of wheat as part of its trade portfolio.
  • missy
    In respect to point #3. An increase in the price of corn is actually a good thing. Corn is inferior as a grain source for fattening cattle (see http://onlygrassfed.com/pasture-vs-feedlot.html) Corn is also the most common genetically modified crop grown, often with high pesticide use. Many believe that the introduction of high fructose corny syrup into our food supply in 1977 and the parallel rise of obesity in society is no coincidence.
  • Cyk
    missy, you’re right.
    Latest scientific findings show that a high
    fructose diet is likely to cause obesity and
    heart diseases.
    Also more and more people are developing
    a fructose malabsorption, in most cases
    without knowing it.
    This results in chronic fatigue and depression.
    So you become tired and depressed, and don’t
    even know why. In most cases, doctors can’t
    help you, because they don’t find the reason
    and tell you that you’re just a hypochondriac.
  • Overpopulation means more consumers, means more speculation for food, and means higher food prices. The current instability began on 20 Jan 2001. It will end when Americans are able to distinguish between the truth and a lie. Right now, Americans still believe the lies…
    We help Americans find jobs and prosperity in Asia. For details, visit http://www.pathtoasia.com/job/
  • Tao Jones
    “What we are going to be looking at in 25 years is starvation on a scale never before known. That starvation will lead to large-scale wars – it always has and always will.”
    Can you give some examples of starvation that led to large-scale wars? If it “always” leads to large-scale wars examples should be Legion; I can’t think of a single instance, myself. ‘An army marches on its stomach’ is a trusim; if people are starving to death I wouldn’t think they would have the physical stamina to organize any large-scale wars.Bangladesh and Ethiopia, for example, did not lead or instigate any large-scale wars back in the 70s.
    It really does seem like humanity has reproduced itself to a point where feeding everyone is going to become a problem. Once people start getting hungry they may actually begin to break free of the TV propaganda haze that envelopes and clouds their minds. They may begin to grasp that while they sat around waiting for a Saviour the bus was driven right off the cliff. Of course, by then it will be far, far too late.
    It’s already far, far too late. Unless we elect Ron Paul!! Yeah! save us, save us! Everything will be fixed if we just find the right leader! And that way we won’t have to take any responsibility or intiative!
    I reasoned my way out of the Christian mind trap in the late 90′s. While the manipulation of the Gospel message is obvious t oa 5 year old of average intelligence, I must admit that Revelations is turning out to be a genuinely prophetic document. The global control grid it foretold is materializing before our eyes; the four Horsemen are abroad in the land.
    Just remember that ultimately Revelations is a message of hope: the old system of evil exemplified by the banks and the ‘leaders’ is going to die. There’s a new world coming, one of brotherhood and Truth.
    Can you feel it?
    Lift up your heads, brothers, for your redemption draweth nigh!
  • mondobeyondo
    The corn industry is highly subsidized by the government, so naturally corn farmers, and the agricultural and food companies that benefit from corn products, get an extra big hug from the government, not to mention subsidies, profits and loopholes. It’s profitable for them. They’ve allowed corn production and corn products to be relatively cheap. That’s the main reason why corn this and corn that, is in almost everything you eat.
    Yes, high fructose corn syrup is a primary reason why so many people are so obese. High fructose corn syrup is, well, fructose. Our bodily systems were meant to digest and use SUCROSE (found in oranges, grapefruits, strawberries, apricots and so forth) for bodily metabolism – NOT fructose. Sucrose is a natural sugar, not a synthetically processed one like fructose.
    FRUCTOSE is a more “complex” sugar, and it takes more energy for our bodies to digest. But it’s CHEAP! It’s easy to manufacture. Much fructose is stored in the body as fat, because it can’t be immediately utilized, or broken down into simpler sugars by the liver. Store enough fat over time, and guess what? You get fat!! And – a lot of this corn is genetically engineered, too, so who knows what you’re eating or consuming?! That is why a Coca-Cola you drank in 1977 tastes nothing like a Coca-Cola you’re drinking in 2011. They used real sugarcane sugar back in the day, not HFCS.
    And yes, it’s also true that cows aren’t meant to eat corn. They are ruminants (spelling?!) Cattle eat grass. Their stomachs are designed to eat grass, not corn. But they are fed corn, because it’s cheaper and it makes them fatter and more PROFITABLE for the marketplace!! (see first paragraph). A lot of cows get sick from eating corn – it is NOT their natural diet – and a lot of bad bacteria breed in their stomachs… such as E.coli.
    And you wonder why there have been so many cases of E.coli in ground beef recently…
  • anon
    “Let us pray …”
    really hard & w/out ceasing.
    maranâ’ thâ’
    Excita, Domine, potentiam tuam, et veni.
  • Susan
    All the comments on here have been absolutely informative. I did not realize that about corn syrup, guess listening to the dietician is an absolute now to lose the 30 lbs of fat, but not just that, need a colon cleanser now to rid of the yuck that is stuck in the system. Thank you guys, very excellent comments, not hate mongers or bashers really, just an honest discussion, full of useful information
  • Steve
    Let your heart not be troubled. This will be taken care of. Starvation will not cause the wars. When the radical Islamists get their caliphate they will attack and overwhelm Israel. The caliphate will include Africa, Europe, and the Middle East. In the end Israel will have to decide wether to let the Islamists confiscate Israel’s hundreds of nuclear weapons or to fire them. I believe the Muslim population will dwindle very very quickly throughout the caliphate. The result will be hundreds of millions of less mouths to feed. Problem solved.
  • Thank you Countercurrents again, for bringing this concern to a public forum
    … and making obvious the desirability of scalable soil “inserts” cost-effective at any scale.
    There is evidence that small minor increase in soil carbon sequestration would pull enough carbon from the atmosphere to get us into a safe range. There is also evidence that we can double soil carbon sequestration fast (in a couple of years) if we apply certain sea minerals to the soil. Growing inches of new topsoil and doubling plant production in a couple years will help all species that eat food. It will also sequester more carbon.
    These minerals can be concentrated from sea water or sea salt using simple, open-source methods. This reduced-salt mineral concentrate can be made at a cost of about two dollars per acre per year. Application (aerial or foliar spray) across broad areas, grazing rangelands, tree-farms, orchards, croplands & entire forested mountains may be the least costly most easily scalable technology for forest & soil restoration.
    Large-scale applications are largely untested; small-scale applications are plentiful.
    Some have been summarized at:
    http://www.subtleenergies.com/plant-lynx.htm
    http://www.physorg.com/news/2010-10-trees-large-carbon.html
    More information summarized here on reversing soil loss and improving soil productivity:
    http://www.subtleenergies.com/ormus/tw/Dirt_First.htm
    The very low application rates, and the open source methods for concentrating these sea minerals, make them possibly the cheapest and easiest way to pull greenhouse gasses out of the atmosphere and an ideal way to sequester more carbon in the soil.
    mgwest
    http://www.subtleenergies.com/ormus
  • mondobeyondo
    Greetings from the midst of Starvation Nation, where I just paid $2.49 for a loaf of bread.
    That’s correct. Two dollars and forty-nine cents, for a freaking loaf of bread. And it wasn’t even at Wally World – I bought it at Fry’s (which is the name the Kroger grocery store chain is called where I live). Oh, how I wish I had scanned in that receipt to prove it to everyone. But it’s in the garbage bin now.
    I didn’t even bother to look at the price for eggs. I’m beginning to feel like an Egyptian now.
  • mondobeyondo
    Daily prayer for tomorrow:
    “Lard help my kitchen. And Lord help us all”
  • Pogue
    This is a classic Malthusian argument going back over 100 years. Every time someone claims we can’t support more people, somehow we manage to feed even more. They were sure we couldn’t support 2 billion people back in the 30s. I’m not saying there isn’t a limit, but I think more efficient means of farming could be employed in more places to feed those with us.
    Not that I really think we should make an effort to. Why feed hungry people who can’t feed themselves? They’ll just make more hungry people. (remember Sam Kinneson’s food aid bit? God, that was classic.) Then where will we be? We’ll have MORE hungry people to feed. I waited to have kids ’til I could actually afford them-shouldn’t they? At a bare minimum, couldn’t we take care of our own poor and hungry before we embark on a mission to feed everyone else?
    It sounds cruel, I know, but we can’t do this forever. Some day, we’ll be thin on our own resources. Then what? I remember when I was a kid we always had these collections to feed hungry kids in, like, Ethiopia and Somalia and elsewhere. My mom remembers the same collections when she was a kid in the 40s and 50s. Now, decades later, they’re still collecting food to give to people in places like Ethiopia and Somalia. WTF? Shouldn’t we just stop at some point? Where does this commitment end? Either they can figure out how to make their own, find something to sell to buy their own, or let their population drop to a level the land can support. (At least charities do it privately and more effectively than governments.)
    Want to know how to make more food? Get the government to stop meddling in farming. We have farmers all over the place who have been paid for decades not to grow anything. Even in Europe-I have an uncle in Europe who is paid hundreds of Euros a year to grow a noxious weed on his farmland instead of food. Also, end the stupid subsidy to corn farmers for corn ethanol. Everyone knows the fuel is an energy loser, more expensive than it is worth, and it destroys car parts. End this stupid program and the cost and supply of corn will change immediately.
    As a final note-look up Breedlove Farms. They have a great aid plan. They buy up surplus food, make some kind of high-protein soup out of it, freeze dry it, and supply it to charities by the conex load for help overseas.
  • here in the uk we realy are in the shit ,were entering a double dip recetion brought on by the recless actions of the bankers and incompetant corrupt governments the price of even basic foodstuffs are rocketing.people are starting to go hungry as they are globealy its said we are 3 meals away from anarchy.it certainly feels so as people have said youl become desperate if your hungry….and you will literaly kill for food..god help us
  • vision
    You have until Oct,2011.
  • Muddigrl
    This is very scary stuff. I am planting a garden in most of my back yard this year I’m gonna try to plant everything I can maybe 20-25 different things. I have a family of 6 to feed so with help from the Lord I think we will be ok. I went to the grocery store and I about choked when I saw the rise in food prices just since the last time I had gone shopping.

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