Posted on 12/19/2012 6:24:05 AM PST by blam
Watch: “The Global Food Crisis You Need To Prepare For Is Now Imminent”
Mac Slavo
December 19th, 2012
Grocery stores may still be stocked with food and most Americans are still able to keep their family’s fed, but with 50 million Americans requiring government assistance to do so and prices on a seemingly never ending rise, how long will it be before the situation becomes unmanageable?
The global food crisis you need to prepare for is now imminent.
For the past six years the world has consumed more food than it has produced. As a result, global food reserves are at the lowest level since 1974, when the world had 4 billion people. Today we have 7 billion.
Like a person living paycheck-to-paycheck, the world is now living year-to-year when it comes to food supplies.
According to the U.N., world grain reserves are so dangerously low that severe weather in the U.S. or other food exporting countries could trigger a major hunger crisis next year. The U.N. also warns that supplies are so tight and reserves are so low that we literally have no room for an unexpected event in 2013.
…
We are already seeing prices rise significantly this year, with corn rising 31%, soy beans rising 28%, and red meat rising 20%.
In the west higher food prices are a manageable burden for now.
Americans spend about 10% of their after tax incomes on food… But in the developing world some households are spending up to 50% of their income on food, which is usually the basic essentials like bread.
An increase in food prices can mean riots, revolutions and chaos.
Video excerpts via PeakResources.org
(click to the site to see the video)
Watch: The Global Food Crisis & Bernanke’s Recipe for Disaster: Three Major Disasters That Could Lead to a Food Crisis Around the World
Any number of disasters, natural or man-made, can cause food prices to skyrocket to such levels that the most basic essentials like corn, rice, wheat, and soy beans become almost impossible to acquire for the majority of the population.
Another prolonged drought, a war with Iran that restricts the flow of oil, or a rapid collapse in the US dollar’s purchasing power could all lead to unprecedented worldwide pressure almost immediately.
We’ve seen what happens in countries where the populace is forced to spend 50% or more of their earned income on food. Despite how the media portrays it, the riots we’ve seen in the middle east, Greece and Spain have been largely fueled by cost increases in food and the inability of individuals to provide the basic essentials for their families.
Americans have been, for the most part, immune from these pressures thus far. But the social safety nets are very quickly becoming overburdened and prices at grocery stores are rising consistently and without pause.
With the consumer economy coming to a standstill, continued central bank monetary easing, job losses and wage reductions, and the urbanization of millions of people, it is only a matter of time before Americans are forced to spend 50% or more of their paychecks just to stay alive.
When that happens, look out, because what comes next is something that, up until now, we’ve only experienced on television feeds from the comfort of our living room couches.
However...
If I were a younger person...I would be investing in farm land and associated industries.
Im sure there is some truth in the article but when I see UN.
I think liars.
50 million Americans do NOT require governemnt assistance to feed their families. That's the number of people on food stamps. It has no correlation to the need of the recipient. Not when we have a government working overtime to develope a constituency of dependence!
Not one to normally quote the bible, but it seems pertinent. I think there is more to it--quantitative easing and EPA meddling are going to drive the cost of basic consumables much higher while luxury consumables remain relatively affordable (based on their current price). I am of the school that in this modern era famine is affected more due to man made conditions (case in point: Zimbabwe) than natural phenomena.
Prices are able to rise BECAUSE of the food stamp distribution. The EBT card allowance is close to DOUBLE what it should be. So the supermarket industry has nothing to fear from higher prices.
There is no market conditions within the consumer and supermarkets. The market is drastically skewed by the unlimited source of govt funds thru the EBT waste.
Ping worthy?
Preppers’ PING!!
I don’t foresee shortages here, but higher prices are a given and as pointed out those that work for a live will see more and more of their income going toward feed themselves while the ‘takers’ will just get more ‘gubermint’ money to cover the prices rise.
The trouble is that more wars have been started over resources especially food than any other single thing and there may come a time when when ‘forced shared sacrifice’ in which those nations that can feed themselves are force to share the starvation so the less fortunate won’t live in misery alone.
The concept of a “Zombie Apocalypse” is currently being popularized in books, movies & TV. IMHO, its really a thinly veiled preview of what will happen when the EBT cards finally get shut off.
The below clip seems almost plausible when looked at from that perspective.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HcwTxRuq-uk
There's a UN knee slapper.
The other day I spurged and went through a bbq joint's drive thru (voted "best in the county"). They had a sign, larger than the menu, that they accepted EBTs. The bbq was dry and not very good but that's not the reason I'll never go back. I'll never go back because of the big sign, larger than the menu, that said they accepted EBTs. Excuse me, I can't afford going through a drive thru but my tax dollars can?
((”The concept of a “Zombie Apocalypse” is currently being popularized in books, movies & TV. “))
It’s also being popularized by the CDC
Centers for Disease Control.
http://blogs.cdc.gov/publichealthmatters/2011/05/preparedness-101-zombie-apocalypse/
Storing food is not the answer.
Producing your own food is the answer.
As you said, they’ll continue to inflate the costs while subsidizing the takers. Just another wealth transfer there.
Produce your own food, thwart them.
This article gets things essentially backwards. Americans currenly spend less than 10 percent of our disposable incomes on food. The USDA figure for 2011 was 5.7 percent of disposable income on food at home, and 4.1 percent on food away from home. Note as well that food at home includes a lot of high convenience heat-and-serve foods. I personally haven’t killed a chicken in 45 years, and I get most of my vegetables in boxes from the freezer section.
The percentage of disposable income spent on food in the U.S. has been trending downward for decades and is now the lowest percentage figure in the world.
It’s also important to note that the commodity value of the foods eaten in the U.S. is about 14 percent. This too has been trending downward for years.
Calories are cheap.
Why then does food seem expensive? Glad you asked. It’s because as incomes rise, people choose to eat higher on the food chain, and we start buying many value added attributes: freshness, convenience, better taste, convenience, higher nutritional content, convenience, indulgence of superstition and food fetishism (organics), convenience, safety (and the perception of safety through branding), convenience, entertainment value and snob appeal (proliferating festival markets that become yuppie meccas on sunny Saturdays).
And did I mention that Americans pay a lot for convenience? I shop mostly in a plain-jane Safeway that has upgraded in recent years, but which is still fairly close to its utilitarian roots in a transitional neighborhood. This is a basic city grocery, not an upscale yuppie food palace (not even the famouss social Safeway in Georgetown...). Even so, I have access to a remarkably international cuisine at a price and quality point my grandparents could not have imagined. This means paying for a global logistics system and armies of clerks to stock the shelves. But I don’t mind this one bit. No siree; I remember canned asperagus, and I don’t begruge the modern grocery one bit.
Calories are cheap. But most of our food dollar is spent on other attributes. The same is true in Western Europe, Japan, and a few other places. But now a huge chunk of the developing world is climbing the food chain as well. That will affect pricing in a big way. It is hard to be a left-behind in a society that is fast developing a high value added food economy. That’s a transitional issue the emerging economies will have to tackle.
No one in the city would be able to raise a crop to maturity during a crisis of that sort. Only those living in a cooperative community way out in the boonies may survive.
Soylent Green, anyone?
Yup. I was going to post it, but checked first to see if anyone else had. You are correct. This is where it is going. The haves will have the money for it and those that don’t will starve. One of the judgments of Revelation.
One thing we know for sure...
The EBT zombies aren’t interested in brains.
The 12 week drought map is an improvement over the previous summer and spring.
It doesn't matter how much food is grown in this county, IF TRUCKS STOP THERE IS NO FOOD AT THE GROCERY. If there is no power, trucks stop. If the economy crashes, trucks stop. If the sun sends out a huge solar flare which hits this country, trucks stop. If a nuclear bomb explodes over the US, trucks stop. Hurricanes take out power but that is regional and recovers, earthquakes are regional, not covering the entire US.
No trucks = no food (unless you store beforehand).
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