Michael
Snyder | A devastating global food crisis unlike anything we have ever seen in
modern times is coming.
http://albertpeia.com/foodinflationshortagesriotscoming.htm
Michael Snyder
Prisonplanet.com
Sept 7, 2012
A devastating global food crisis unlike
anything we have ever seen in modern times is coming. Crippling drought and
bizarre weather patterns have damaged food production all over the world this
summer, and the UN and the World Bank have both issued ominous warnings about
the food inflation that is coming.
To those of us in the Western world, a
rise in the price of food can be a major inconvenience, but in the developing
world it can mean the difference between life and death. Just remember what
happened back in 2008. When food prices hit record highs it led to food riots
in 28 different countries. Today, there are approximately 2 billion people that
are malnourished around the globe. Even rumors of food shortages are enough to
spark mass chaos in many areas of the planet. When people fear that they are
not going to be able to feed their families they tend to get very desperate.
That is why a recent CNN article declared that “2013
will be a year of serious global crisis“.
The truth is that we are not just facing
rumors of a global food crisis – one is actually starting to unfold right in
front of our eyes. The United States experienced the worst drought in more than
50 years this summer, and some experts are already declaring that the weather
has been so dry for so long that tremendous damage has already been done to
next year’s crops. On the other side of the world, Russia, Ukraine and
Kazakhstan have all seen their wheat crops devastated by the horrible drought
this summer. Australia has also been dealing with drought, and in India monsoon
rains were about 15 percent behind pace in mid-August. Global food production
is going to be much less than expected this year, and global food demand
continues to steadily rise. What that means is that food inflation, food
shortages and food riots are coming, and it isn’t going to be pretty.
The United States exports more food than
anyone else in the world, and that is why the entire globe has been nervously
watching the horrific drought in the United States this summer with deep
concern.
It has been the worst drought in more
than 50 years, and it has absolutely devastated corn crops all over the nation.
According to
Bill Witherell, the U.S. corn crop this year “is said to be on a par with
that of 1988 crop, the worst in the past thirty years.”
Sadly, this will be the third
year in a row that the yield for corn has declined in the United States.
That has never happened before in the
history of the United States.
And coming into this year we were already
in bad shape. In fact, U.S. corn reserves were sitting ata 15-year low at the end of 2011.
So where will we be at the end of 2012?
The official estimates for corn yields
put out by the U.S. government just keep dropping, but many fear that they
aren’t dropping quickly enough. There have been some reports on the ground from
some areas of the country that have been very distressing. The following is
from a recent Wall
Street Journal article….
Meanwhile,
scouts with the Pro Farmer Midwest Crop Tour on Monday reported an average
estimated corn yield in Ohio of 110.5 bushels per acre, down from the tour’s
estimate of 156.3 bushels a year ago. In South Dakota, tour scouts reported an
average yield estimate of just 74.3 bushels per acre, down from 141.1 bushels a
year ago.
Those
are catastrophic numbers.
But
farmers are not the only ones that have been impacted by the dry weather. A
recent article by
Chris Martenson summarized some of the other effects of this drought…..
Even
though the mainstream media seems to have lost some interest in the drought, we
should keep it front and center in our minds, as it has already led to sharply
higher grain prices, increased gasoline costs (via the pass-through of higher
ethanol costs), impeded oil and gas drilling activity in some areas (due to a
lack of water), caused the shutdown of a few operating electricity plants,
temporarily reduced red meat prices (but will also make them climb sharply
later) as cattle are dumped in response to feed- and pasture-management
concerns, and blocked and/or reduced shipping on the Mississippi River. All
this and there’s also a strong chance that today’s drought will negatively
impact next year’s Winter wheat harvest, unless a lot of rain starts falling
soon.
Ranchers
have had a particularly hard time during this drought. If you expect to pay
about the same for meat this time next year as you are doing now you are going
to be deeply disappointed. The following is from a recent
Reuters article….
The
worst drought to hit U.S. cropland in more than half a century could soon leave
Americans reaching deeper into their pockets to fund a luxury that people in
few other countries enjoy: affordable meat.
Drought-decimated
fields have pushed grain prices sky high, and the rising feed costs have
prompted some livestock producers to liquidate their herds. This is expected to
shrink the long-term U.S. supply of meat and force up prices at the meat
counter.
All
over the western United States pastures have been destroyed and there is not
enough hay. It would be hard to overstate the damage that this nightmarish
drought is doing to
our ranchers….
I
spoke with Caldwell [of Indiana horse rescue] and a number of other
horse-rescue organizations around the country by telephone this week. The
relentlessly hot dry weather, amplified in many areas by wildfire, has been
devastating to farmers, ranchers and other horse owners.
‘Everybody
is using their winter hay now. The pastures are destroyed and they probably
won’t recover before winter,’ said Caldwell. ‘The price of hay has doubled, and
the availability is down by 75 percent.’
Caldwell
is somewhat sanguine about his own lot, but not optimistic about what lies
ahead.
‘Today
the problem is not nearly as bad as it’s going to be,’ he told me. ‘It’s
terribly bad today, but it is going to get a lot worse.’
But
of course as I mentioned earlier this is not just an American problem.
The
truth is that the entire globe is facing a rapidly growing food crisis.
According
to the UN, the global price of food rose 6 percent in the month of July alone.
According
to the World Bank, global food prices actually rose 10 percent during July.
Either
figure is really, really bad.
The
other day, the UN Food and Agriculture Organization, the International Fund for
Agricultural Development and the World Food Program issued a joint statement in
which they stated the following….
‘We
need to act urgently to make sure that these price shocks do not turn into a
catastrophe hurting tens of millions over the coming months.’
If
the price of food at our supermarkets suddenly went up 20 percent that would
really stretch our family budgets here in the United States, but we would
survive.
On
the other side of the globe, such a price change can mean the difference
between life and death. The following is from the CNN
article mentioned above….
But
step outside the developed world, and the price of food suddenly becomes the
single most important fact of human economic life. In poor countries, people
typically spend half their incomes on food — and by ‘food,’ they mean first and
foremost bread.
When
grain prices spiked in 2007-2008, bread riots shook 30 countries across the
developing world, from Haiti to Bangladesh, according to the Financial Times. A
drought in Russia in 2010 forced suspension of Russian grain exports that year
and set in motion the so-called Arab spring.
Already, 18
million people in Niger, Mali, Chad, Mauritania and Senegal are dealing
with very serious food shortages.
In
Yemen, things are
even worse….
Yemen
has a catastrophic food crisis. Nearly half the population, 10 million people,
does not have enough to eat. While 300,000 children are facing life threatening
levels of malnutrition.
The
United Nations says Yemen is already in the throes of a disaster.
‘The
levels are truly terrible. Whatever we do thousands upon thousands of children
will die this year from malnutrition,’ Unicef’s man in Yemen, Geert Cappelaere,
said.
‘In
some areas child malnutrition is at 30%, to put it in context, an emergency is
15%. It is double that already.’
But
this is just the beginning. These food shortages are going to spread and we
will eventually see food riots that will absolutely dwarf the food riots of
2008.
Many
scientists fear the worst. Some are even now warning that food shortages will
become so severe that they will eventually force much of the globe on
to a vegetarian diet….
Leading
water scientists have issued one of the sternest warnings yet about global food
supplies, saying that the world’s population may have to switch almost
completely to a vegetarian diet over the next 40 years to avoid catastrophic
shortages.
Humans
derive about 20% of their protein from animal-based products now, but this may
need to drop to just 5% to feed the extra 2 billion people expected to be alive
by 2050, according to research by some of the world’s leading water scientists.
‘There
will not be enough water available on current croplands to produce food for the
expected 9 billion population in 2050 if we follow current trends and changes
towards diets common in western nations,’ the report by Malik Falkenmark
and colleagues at the Stockholm International Water Institute (SIWI) said.
The
days of very cheap meat are coming to an end. Meat will be increasingly viewed
as a “luxury” around the globe from now on.
Sadly,
there are some in the financial world that actually intend to make
lots of money off of this crisis….
The
United Nations, aid agencies and the British Government have lined up to attack
the world’s largest commodities trading company, Glencore, after it described
the current global food crisis and soaring world prices as a ‘good’ business
opportunity.
With
the US experiencing a rerun of the drought ‘Dust Bowl’ days of the 1930s and
Russia suffering a similar food crisis that could see Vladimir Putin’s
government banning grain exports, the senior economist of the UN’s Food and
Agriculture Organisation, Concepcion Calpe, told The Independent: ‘Private
companies like Glencore are playing a game that will make them enormous
profits.’
Does
that disturb you?
It should.
Driving
up the price of food for starving people is not a good way to make
money. Food is one of our most basic needs. When people are deprived
of food they become very desperate.
Just
look at what is already happening in Spain. The economic crisis in that country
has just begun, and people are already looting supermarkets. You can see a
video news report about Spanish activists looting 3 tons of food from local
supermarkets right
here.
Much
of that food was donated to food banks, but in the future I am sure that the
desperate “activists” will not be so generous when things get really tight.
In
other areas of Spain, large numbers of people have been filmed digging
through trash dumpstersfor food.
Could
you ever see yourself doing that? Don’t be so sure that hunger will never
come to America. Right now, a record 46.7 million Americans are on food
stamps, and anti-hunger organizations all around the country are reporting more
of a need than
ever before.
For
now the federal government is able to feed the tens of millions of Americans
that do not have enough money for food, but what happens when a day comes when
the federal government stops doing that?
And
what happens if the drought in the United States continues throughout the
winter and into next summer and Dust Bowl conditions return to the United
States?
In
a previous article entitled “17
Signs That You Better Start Preparing For A Nightmarish Global Food Crisis“,
I detailed some more of the reasons why people need to start preparing for food
inflation and food shortages.
In
the past we could always go out to the supermarket or to Wal-Mart and fill up
our shopping carts with huge piles of very cheap food whenever we wanted to.
It
will not always be that way.
Get
prepared while you still can.
Meanwhile,
many Americans continue to enjoy life as if nothing will ever change. For
example, the “Rich Kids of
Instagram” have been very busy showing off their wealth all summer long.
You can see some of the ridiculous ways that they are blowing their
wealth right here.
Sadly,
they are just a product of our degenerating
society. We have piled up wealth in these troubled times while the rest of
the world has suffered.
But
even our great wealth was not enough for us so we went out and borrowed
trillions upon trillions of dollars. We have accumulated the greatest mountain
of debt in the history of the world, but we are still not satisfied.
In
the end, we will weep and howl in misery as everything that we have built falls
apart around us.
Michael Snyder is the writer and editor at The Economic Collapse