Category: Food Crisis
The analysis published under this category are as follows.
Sunday, February 26, 2023
UK Tomatoes, Cucumbers and Eggs Panic Buying - Food Crisis 2023 / Politics / Food Crisis
By: N_Walayat
Mover over bog roll the new panic buying is for Tomatoes and Cucumbers due to shortage of produce as the European Union limits supplies to Britain as another punishment for voting for Brexit. The UK should do similar by refusing to sell British Gas to the EU but weak and feeble Rishi Sunak won't do that! So here we are once more panic buying perishable foods as supermarkets limit sale of Eggs, Cucumbers and Tomatoes. However there are solutions - Grow Your Own!
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Tuesday, May 31, 2022
Food, a Global Crisis – How bad is it going to get? / Commodities / Food Crisis
By: Richard_Mills
A comparison of this year’s grocery bills to last year’s yields a simple yet terrifying conclusion: food prices are rising at a rate beyond anyone’s imagination.
The Food and Agriculture Organization’s (FAO) food price index, which tracks the price movements of the most commonly traded and consumed food crops, recently reached its highest on record.
Most point to the exorbitant prices, like with many other commodities (i.e. oil), to the ongoing war in Europe, which has caused major disruptions to the global supply chain. Indeed, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine earlier this year triggered a series of events that blocked off some of the region’s supply routes, taking away a significant portion of the world’s food supply. The result? every category of food we consume — wheat, meat, dairy products, etc. — got more expensive.
FAO economists estimate that Russia and Ukraine together provided around 30% of the global wheat supply and 20% of maize exports over the past three years, representing a significant chunk of the global food supply. It’s been estimated that nearly 25 million tonnes of grain alone have been eliminated from the supply chain since Russia’s blockade of Ukrainian ports.
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Tuesday, October 26, 2021
Food Prices & Farm Inputs Getting Hard to Stomach / Commodities / Food Crisis
By: Richard_Mills
Thanksgiving is a time to appreciate the food on our tables, but that probably isn’t stopping a lot of people from grumbling about how expensive the turkey and all the fixings have become.
According to Statistics Canada, food prices are up 2.5% over the past year, but that may be underestimating the impact of inflation. New research from Dalhousie University’s Agri-Food Analytics Lab, quoted by BNN Bloomberg, shows that food inflation in Canada is closer to 5%, well above the normal 1-2%.
Among food categories, meat prices stand out as rising the most, with Stats Canada noting a 10% increase for these products over the past six months. Nearly half of Canadians, 49%, say they have reduced their purchases of Alberta meat, while a majority of consumers acknowledge cutting back on it since the start of the year. The higher number of vegetarians may be due to economic reasons as much as concerns over animal cruelty.
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Monday, October 26, 2020
How the Coronavirus is Exacerbating Global Inequality, Hunger / Politics / Food Crisis
By: Richard_Mills
Autumn is harvest season in North America and many families gather on Canadian and American Thanksgiving to celebrate the good fortune bestowed upon them throughout the year – including the ability to put food on the table.
This year for millions of people, there is less to be thankful for, and very likely, reason to lament or mourn – a lost job, an eviction, hours cut back, a friend or relative getting sick, loneliness, boredom, depression – all due to the coronavirus which has up-ended life as we knew it.
Today’s article is inspired by CNN commentator Fareed Zakaria, who presented a well-researched, timely segment on how the pandemic, in a matter of months, has un-done years of progress in improving global inequality. Pandemics, says Zakaria, should be the great equalizer because they affect everyone, regardless of age, gender, race, income or status. Even presidents and prime ministers have contracted covid. However, indications are that the virus is ushering in the greatest rise in economic inequality in decades.
How can a health problem widen the gap between rich and poor, and how is it pushing millions in developing countries toward the brink of starvation? Moreover, why should we, in the developed West, care?
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Tuesday, April 28, 2020
UN Warns Of Famines Of Biblical Proportions Due To Lockdown Caused By Covid Plandemic / Politics / Food Crisis
By: Jeff_Berwick
"Let them eat cake"
As the legend goes, this was Queen Marie-Antoinette from France’s famous response to the peasants who complained they didn’t have bread to eat. With this, she reportedly became a hated symbol of the decadent monarchy and fueled the revolution that would cause her to (literally) lose her head several years later.
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Sunday, April 08, 2018
The Bayer-Monsanto Merger Is Bad News for the Planet / Companies / Food Crisis
By: Ellen_Brown
Two new studies from Europe show that the number of birds in agricultural areas of France has crashed by a third in just 15 years, with some species being almost eradicated. The collapse in the bird population mirrors the discovery last October that more than three quarters of all flying insects in Germany have vanished in just three decades. Insects are the staple food source of birds, the pollinators of fruits and the aerators of the soil.
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Sunday, January 24, 2016
High Food Pricing Killing Benefits of Low Energy Prices / Commodities / Food Crisis
By: Richard_Mills
Lesson Learned
One of the places the decline in the Canadian dollar is most evident is in our grocery stores.
The University of Guelph's Food Institute estimates the average Canadian household spent an additional $325 on food in 2015 with meat rising 5% and fruit and vegetable prices rising between 9.1-10.1%.
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Tuesday, August 11, 2015
Agricultural Commodities Peak Food / Commodities / Food Crisis
By: Ned_W_Schmidt
Last we visited on Agri-Foods the concept of Peak Food was introduced. That shift in the fundamentals of global food production was identified as adding support to Agri-Commodity prices. For despite the negative sentiment on commodities and "China is collapsing" group think, Agri- Commodity prices continue to show strong resilience, as shown in the chart below right. As prices of Agri-Commodities do not move in unison, the Agri-Food Price Index has been essentially unchanged for about three years. For example, recently hog prices have been weak while U.S. cash corn hit a new 52-week high.
Saturday, April 11, 2015
Ghosts In The Machine - Population Growth vs Food Production / Commodities / Food Crisis
By: Richard_Mills
In 1798 32 year-old British economist Malthus anonymously published "An Essay on the Principle of Population" and in it he argued that human population's increase geometrically (1, 2, 4, 16 etc.) while their food supply can only increase arithmetically (1, 2, 3, 4 etc.). Since food is obviously necessary for us to survive, unchecked population growth in any one area or involving the whole planet would lead to individual pockets of humanity starving or even mass worldwide starvation.
"The power of population is indefinitely greater than the power in the earth to produce subsistence for man." Thomas Robert Malthus
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Friday, February 07, 2014
Farm Bill 2014: The Food Insecurity Bill / Politics / Food Crisis
By: Michael_T_Bucci
As part of a package of agricultural legislation, Congress and the President have passed what should be called "the food insecurity bill" that will cut $8.7 billion in food assistance (SNAP or food stamps) over the next decade. The bill will cause an estimated 850,000 low-income households in sixteen states (including Maine) to lose an average $90 in monthly benefits, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, following an approximately $11 billion cut to SNAP benefits on November 1 of last year. Since 2007 and the beginning of the Great Recession, food stamp enrollment has surged from about 26.3 million people to 47.6 million last year, according to Agriculture Department figures.
Tuesday, January 21, 2014
Smoking Gun: Global Food Waste Debunks Overpopulation Theory And Humanitarian Aid / Politics / Food Crisis
By: Sharon_Kayser
Would it be all about money again? To find out, let's follow Alice down the rabbit hole...
Would it be all about money again? To find out, let's follow Alice down the rabbit hole...
(countdown: time to choose Empathy over Fear)
The UN is quite a paradox onto itself as its reports continue to deliver excellent mathematical clues as why the system 'is clearly designed to fail'. Yes, you read well and instead of trying to patch its cracks getting larger and deeper it is about time to admit that Global Oligarchy is a 'cabal' whose century-long timeline has undeniable track records. Finally, the secret is more obvious than never. The flaws and evidence have become too huge to be concealed. Up to these days, not that many are aware that the UN (the ultimate aim of the cabal) was engineered by the very same club of elitist financiers that plotted the rise and downfall of the Soviets in order to replace Communism with its sugarcoated version, renamed Socialism. Isn't the 'Communist Manifesto' in favor of almighty elites ruling over the means of production (7th Plank), progressive taxation (2nd Plank) and centralization of credit (5th Plank) after all? As we shall see, Karl Marx must be laughing in his grave as you read this. This column isn't meant to take side but demonstrate that the system is utterly broken - beyond repair - and that we have to let it go in order to rebuild a new one from scratch. What kind of a system do we have left but Capitalism, would you ask? It is about time to quit thinking in these terms. The Right vs Left paradigm is a diversion preventing from seeing what is really going on while truth is hidden in plain sight. However, this being said, genuine Capitalism has never existed for long periods of time over the course of Human History and thus remains above all a theory for scholars and economists to fight over. Moreover, our current system has nothing to do with Capitalism at all, in a way a movement such as 'Occupy Wallstreet', against Capitalism, is mis/disinformed. This being said and let's face it: what we now globally have is a 'Fascistic Triumvira' composed of corporations, central banks and governments that have caged the Human Race in a prison that is so vast that bars and fences are invisible.
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Friday, November 29, 2013
Orwell's Frankenfoods Are New Normal / Politics / Food Crisis
By: Andrew_McKillop
THE NUCLEAR SOLUTION
The history of “recycled” nuclear wastes as military DU munitions is relatively well known and dates to the early 1970s. NATO analysts had reported that the Soviet military had developed armor plating for tanks that NATO ammunition could not penetrate. The quest to develop high-penetration anti-tank munitions quickly focused very dense (higher than lead) uranium wastes from “civil” nuclear power, that are also pyrotechnic or quickly inflammable and explosive on impact, and are easily machined into complex nose cones and sheaths for shells and projectiles. Since that time, DU munitions have grown to be held and used by nearly all major armed forces of the planet. Military analysts identify about 78 nations presently possessing DU munitions, that now cover a huge range of ordnance types and sizes, including anti-building, anti-aircraft and anti-personnel weapons.
Wednesday, April 24, 2013
Farm Supports and Social Welfare / Politics / Food Crisis
By: BATR
The planting season is in full swing as is the transfer of subsidies to big agriculture and social welfare food stamps. Which has more worth, paying the Monsanto and property tax bill or running a public assistance program that allows for the buying of lottery tickets? Well, if you are Congress, both have benefit, but mostly for their political value. Why are food stamps part of the Farm Bill? Nancy Marshall-Genzer makes a shrewd observation.
Saturday, September 22, 2012
Fears of a repeat of the 2008 Global Food Crisis / Commodities / Food Crisis
By: Pravda
The United Nations Organization sees signs in the current situation in world food markets that point towards a possible repeat of the world food crisis in 2007 and 2008, when prices of staple foods skyrocketed, creating instability which led to huge social upheavals. Measures are needed in the short, medium and long term, state experts from the UN.
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Friday, August 03, 2012
U.S. Drought Disaster Depression Agricultural Commodities Crops Report / Commodities / Food Crisis
By: Richard_Mills
Because of the worst drought since 1988 the U.S. Department of Agriculture declared a federal disaster area in almost one-third of all the counties in the United States - more than 1,300 counties covering 29 states, the largest disaster declaration ever made by the USDA. Only in the 1930s and 1950s has a drought covered more land.
The United States Drought Monitor shows 88 percent of corn, and 87 percent of soybean crops are in drought-stricken regions.
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Tuesday, January 24, 2012
World Food Supply Coming Global Angst / Commodities / Food Crisis
By: Richard_Mills
Our agriculture system is concentrated on producing a very few staple crops - there is a very serious lack of crop diversity. Corn, wheat, rice and soy are the main staples and production is oftentimes half a world away from where the majority of the crop would be consumed. The world's extreme poor exist almost exclusively on what is a 'buy today, eat today' plant based diet - wheat, corn, soy or rice provide the bulk of their calories.
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Saturday, January 14, 2012
Food Provisions Shortage Sparked Arab Spring / Politics / Food Crisis
By: Richard_Mills
In 1798 32 year-old British economist Malthus anonymously published "An Essay on the Principle of Population" and in it he argued that human population's increase geometrically (1, 2, 4, 16 etc.) while their food supply can only increase arithmetically (1, 2, 3, 4 etc.).
"The power of population is indefinitely greater than the power in the earth to produce subsistence for man". Thomas Robert Malthus
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Tuesday, November 15, 2011
Green Revolution Food Crisis, A Deeper Shade Of Brown / Politics / Food Crisis
By: Andrew_McKillop
There was nothing green about the first Green Revolution of the late 1950s and the 1960s. It was brown oil-coloured from start to finish. World population skyrocketed during the last 35 years of the 20th century, adding as many as 110 million more mouths to feed every 12 months in the early 1980s, before tapering down to the present approximate 70 - 75 million per year. Food crisis remains a real threat.
Thursday, August 04, 2011
The Food Crisis War Endgame / Stock-Markets / Food Crisis
By: Andrew_McKillop
Nothing gives better proof of a sure and certain, rapidly growing global food shortage than the simplest
look at how commodity markets have been responding to the US debt crisis, the coming devaluation of
the US dollar, and the merited exposure of Barack Obama as a loser. Stripping away the short covering,
the dollar crisis, inflation fear and all the rest, we find that food prices are resisting a lot better than oil
prices, to the rising likelihood of recession in the western world, and maybe also global economic
recession.
Tuesday, July 05, 2011
Why Food Prices are Rising so Fast? / Politics / Food Crisis
By: Pravda
If you do much grocery shopping, you have probably noticed that the cost of food has been rising at a very brisk pace over the past year. So why are food prices rising so fast? According to Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, inflation is still very low and the economy is improving. So what is going on here? When I go to the grocery store these days, there are very few things that I will buy unless they are on sale. In fact, I have noticed that many of the new "sale prices" are the old regular prices. Other items have had their packages reduced in size in order to hide the price increases. But with millions of American families just barely scraping by as it is, what is going to happen if food prices keep rising this rapidly?
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