Posted on 07/20/2012 7:24:27 AM PDT by Perseverando
The world is facing a new food crisis as the worst US drought in more than 50 years pushes agricultural commodity prices to record highs.
Corn and soyabean prices surged to record highs on Thursday, surpassing the peaks of the 2007-08 crisis that sparked food riots in more than 30 countries. Wheat prices are not yet at record levels but have rallied more than 50 per cent in five weeks, exceeding prices reached in the wake of Russia’s 2010 export ban.
The drought in the US, which supplies nearly half the world’s exports of corn and much of its soyabeans and wheat, will reverberate well beyond its borders, affecting consumers from Egypt to China.
“I’ve been in the business more than 30 years and this is by far and away the most serious weather issue and supply and demand problem that I have seen by a mile,” said a senior executive at a trading house. “It’s not even comparable to 2007-08.” More video
David Nelson, global strategist at Rabobank, added: “Today the [US crop] disaster is real, whereas to some degree the big run-up in prices in 2008 was speculatively driven.”
José Graziano da Silva, director-general of the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation, told the Financial Times: “I am certainly concerned about the recent rises in food commodity prices, given their potential implications especially for the vulnerable and the poor, who spend as much as 75 per cent of their income on food.”
In 2007-08, a rise in prices triggered food riots from Bangladesh to Haiti as the number of hungry people in the world surpassed 1bn. However, economists point out that supplies of rice and to a lesser extent wheat – key staples for many of the world’s poorest people – remain abundant, subduing prices.
(Excerpt) Read more at ft.com ...
As long as we have enough CarterOil for our gas tanks. Perhaps our Premier could stop the ethanol production to save the poor?
Pray for America
Is this the same U.S. hated and complained about by most of the world?
Obama and Comnie Company suppose to launch a manufactured crisis.
great idea
I agree with that.
For more than 50 years we have shown the world how to produce more food than they can possibly eat, leaving huge surpluses that can be burned to heat homes and fuel vehicles.
Almost without fail, they have rejected our ideas.
There is a price for being foolishly, willfully, ignorant. In this case food shortages.
LET THE BASTARDS STARVE TO DEATH.
As long as we have enough CarterOil for our gas tanks.
A teen friend has gone to Africa to show them how to dig wells. Another teen friend is helping in Taiwan. I tried to talk them out of these hair brained ideas and that there are people at home who need help. Sorry, but if these third world countries can't figure out how to dig a well and not poo in it after millions upon millions of years, there's no hope.
The corn is high and doing well here. Rain is a little low, but nowhere near a draught in north Texas.
Thought you might be interested.
I feel the same way. I used to be very close with my cousins until I did not give them money for a mission trip to Mexico. That was probably 15 years ago. They go there now several times a year. Their mission group is ironically based out of one of the poorest areas of Tennessee. I have chosen to work at my church’s soup kitchen and work the register at the diocese’s thrift store, and I am smiled at in condescending fashion because I “only” serve sloppy joes and hit register buttons. I don’t party like it’s 1499 in a drug war riddled third world country while my babies are at home wondering if mommy is stll alive.
Simple. Stop burning food stocks and stop giving free food to countries that hate (or even mildly dislike) us.
The crops are looking really bad from Northern KY north and from Ohio to west of the Mississippi river.
They don't even start looking normal until you get into northern Illinois or west to about 120 miles west of the Mississippi.
The USA is probably going to lose about 1/4 to 1/3 of its corn crop this year.
And if that area doesn't get some rain soon a large portion of the soybean crop is going to be gone also.
I’ve got eight little coffee beans on my coffee tree - - it’s a first for the tree...
Bravo! I seethe with jealousy.
Many/most/all of these places in no way have the per-capita resources to generate enough value to make transporting food to there worthwhile. Haiti can sustain around 3 million people; population there is 10 million ... do the math.
Brutal dictatorships/rebels using food as a weapon doesn't make it any better. Insofar as large volumes of food do get sent to such locations, all too often it just rots in port waiting for the right palms to get greased.
The solution? MOVE. The land can't support the population, and the governments won't support the population. A basic rule of survival is "don't be where trouble is".
In other news, South Dakota can't get enough laborers for any economic strata. Good money may be had for reasonable effort if only one moves there.
The large wet mills that make sugar are in trouble also. To high of a price to pay for feed stock. Livestock producers are cutting herds as we speak. With the mills shutting or slowing down, they can't afford to feed the animals.
Food is going up. This was supposed to be another record year, and a lot of contracts were signed at the “projected” prices. When you gamble, you loose sometimes.
I just wonder how many farmers will go under this year.
What is sad is that just across the Mississippi in Illinois, they are diverting 500 million gallons to fill a lake. The reason? Some fancy boat race. Farmers up and down stream have had their irrigation turned off by the state, but by God we will have a boat race!
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