LOOMING FOOD SHORTAGES: Bigger Than Oil...

[Bushwalker]

Ivan Diederhoff had the following to say over in ".. Chit Chat" yesterday -

Now the republican agenda is blaming Biofuels for higher food costs. I love how they can swing anything back to oil companies raping the world for profit a GOOD thing.

How are people going to do their part in conservation and smart energy consumption when they will only push us into a corner and force what they want us to have in our face at greatly increased rates?

To begin, the actual blame here originated with the World Bank yesterday - and has been jumped on by the Repub's in turn, like drowning rats climbing onto the nearest flotsam - and seems to be a blatant attempt by the Oil Industry lobbyists in their turn,to find a new scapegoat (and a competing industry - to boot..) to steer attention away from their own wrongdoings...

The World Bank's own actions are quite disingenuous in their own right - they have deliberately zeroed in on one single factor that was identified by the United Nations a few weeks ago, as just one part of a group of multi-factorial causes for both the current and increasing food production/distribution/shortages problems..

To wit, some of the causes of the current food shortages - as identified by those aforementioned UN/UNICEF/WHO studies, and last months summit- will include:

*ongoing droughts, bushfires;

*bad and negligent government policies - worldwide;

*climate change, storms, floods;

*loss of agricultural lands to: suburban sprawl, pollution, salinity and acid soils, erosion/desertification/deforestation, mining and oil-drilling;

*competition from 'biofuels' - i.e. ethanol, biodiesels;

*competition from alternative higher value crops - e.g. coffee, cocoa, strawberries and nut crops..


Now: All you Republican defenders line up here to defend the Oil companies, World Bank, and the American Republican machine and Right-Wing media, as they begin a new round of mistruths, outright lies, self-serving propaganda and whitewashing on this subject...

[Bushwalker]

Boring, boring, boring - things moving slow here, so to keep things rolling over, I'm copying the following over from a blog I'm working on elsewhere :


Farms: With the impacts of climate change, upcoming fuel shocks, and changing market forces, there must be a few radical changes in the farms and the production techniques over the next few decades to address these changing conditions – farmers will either have to relocate to new (more suitable..) areas if they want to keep faming in the same way, or drastically change their on-farm practices to adapt, if they want to stay where they are now - either way they will have to adapt the machinery, irrigation systems, crop types and husbandry practices to accommodate these changes as well; and they will have to build into their systems the flexibilities to be able to continually change and update to match this new and ever-changing new future we’re racing towards…

Those assorted intransigents, denialists and troglodytes in that minority who don’t want to change and adapt to meet this brave New World – who still want to do the same old, same old, the way their redneck and Hill Billy fathers and grandfathers before them did - will need to be prepared to meet their collective dooms, as their old worlds “crash and burn” around their ears..
The other big problem I can see raising it’s head here is the ‘economic imperative’ – in other words, how to finance these necessary changes, updates and modifications; what part possible tax breaks, subsidies and grants might have to play in this; and how to maintain fair returns and decent profits, in relation to the effort, risks and capital the farmer has invested in their farms.

[The Chairman]

Only for countries who rely o

[Cambridge]

Only for countries who rely on oil to import food... The USA is self sufficent when it comes to food because they grow their own....In the UK over the years money was taken away from agriculture and transfered to import...

Um, we're talking about California, the 6th largest economy in the world. 25 percent of the world's vegitable resources (not grain or corn) come from California. Again, Oh God, do I wish for a United States of the PacificRim.