[vtsnowedin]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Pretorian', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('vtsnowedin', '
')I expect a very very bloody civil war to break out soon or perhaps a desperate attack on a neighboring state with more resources.

[radon]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('pup55', 'A')ccording to this, the US gives them nearly $1.5B in aid every year, and in this article it says that Egypt and Israel amount to nearly 1/3 of our total foreign aid donations...

Actually the population has only doubled since we started giving them aid in the 70's, and the real explosion is still about a generation away. It's their fault that this happened, right? right?

[Graeme]

Which countries will run out of food first?

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'L')iving in a country like the U.S., where most people struggle with limiting their food consumption, it’s hard to imagine a life where you don’t even have the option of accessing enough calories for health.

But The Economist Intelligence Unit’s new Global Food Security Index makes clear the existence of that reality. It shows that in the planet’s most food-poor countries, food availability for the average inhabitant falls over 300 calories shy of the recommended daily intake of 2,300.

The five countries with the greatest calorie shortage per capita are (ranked worst to least worst):

Congo (Democratic Republic)
Burundi
Haiti
Zambia
Angola

In the five countries with the greatest calorie excess the average person has over 1,300 more calories available than the recomended 2,300. Those countries are (ranked beginning with highest excess):

Austria
United States
Greece
Belgium
Italy

The US, Denmark, Norway and France came out on top for the overall Food Security Index. In addition to food availability, the index ranks countries on the affordability of food, as well as its quality and safety.
Interestingly, for most countries scoring high on the food security index, micronutrient availability remained a problem. France was the only country in the top ten for the overall index that also ranked in the top ten for micronutrient availability. The weak micronutrient scores appear to primarily come from limited the availability of vegetal iron in national food supplies.

The Economist Intelligence Unit argues for optimism:

[Ron Patterson]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'W')orld agriculture produces 17 percent more calories per person today than it did 30 years ago, despite a 70 percent population increase.

[dohboi]

Money IS the way food is distributed. If you have it, you get food; if you don't, you don't (unless, as you say, you have ways to grow your own, though access to arable land is something fewer and fewer poor have).

The first countries mentioned seem to be the ones that are already in the process of running out of adequate food.

Since there is a famine in Somalia going on right now that is killing hundreds of thousands of people, I would have thought that that country would be on the list. But maybe there is a lot of food in some parts of Somalis that just isn't getting to the starving masses?

Yemen is also undergoing a famine, so again, I would have thought that it would be on there, unless again it's just distribution. In general, more and more MENA countries are going to follow in the path of Yemen. Their populations have exploded, generally quadrupling (at least) over the last few decades with the help of oil revenues and modern medicine.

Now those oil revenues are going away (the combination of being on the down side of Hubbert's Curve nationally and of growing domestic consumption now known as the Export Land Model), so these countries no longer have access to foreign money to get foreign food cheaply to their people.

Meanwhile, climate chaos has insured that the food that there is less and less (and more and more expensive) food available on the world market. This was particularly acute in 2010 when Russia, previously one of the top exporters of wheat in the world (and particularly to Egypt), suddenly stopped exporting any wheat because they were suffering from extreme corp-killing drought conditions, so extreme that they wouldn't have happened where it not for GW.

The lack of access to affordable food due to these forces has been a (perhaps the) major factor in the recent revolts and revolutions in the area known as the "Arab Spring."

You can look at all the chart you want, though, and they won't really tell you how this plane-crash is going to proceed. The most complex societies that right now look well provided for will likely fall apart in cascading and abrupt ways as anyone of their energy-intensive systems crumples in the face of PO and CC. Even if countries started making perfectly rational decisions about preparing for these inevitable 'discontinuities,' there is no way for them now to avoid catastrophic collapses.

But of course decisions are and will be very, very far from rational.

[Ron Patterson]

Only 105 countries out of about 196 total countries in the world were surveyed. Yemen was on the survey but Somalia, and several other African countries were not.

Yemen ranks 83rd, Ethiopia ranks 100 and Tanzania ranks 99.

Global Food Security Index
http://foodsecurityindex.eiu.com/Country

[beamofthewave]

I wonder if the powers that be in the US would have done what Putin did and stop exporting wheat in such a case or would they continue to export and let folks starve?

[Ron Patterson]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'I')t is cornucopian nonsense that educated liberals have bought lock, stock, and barrel of apples.

[Fishman]

So theoretically food running out should run out based on decreasing food security (yes I know thats obvious). But many other factors may play a part, other resources, access or lack of donor countries etc. Haiti for example lies close to the US, gets huge amounts of donation, government and ngos. Will budget cutting influence the cuts a little or a lot? Lots of christian aid organizations work in Haiti, Haiti is close. Barundi, not so much.

[vtsnowedin]

The expression "Lock ,stock and barrel" refers to the parts of a flint lock muzzle loading rifle and means the " whole thing" or "all of it" To modify it to "lock , stock and a barrel of apples" is a corruption it and make it 's meaning uncertain.
Back to the point , I'm betting on Egypt and Yemen to win the run out of food sweepstakes. World wide chaos to follow.

[Fishman]

Actually, thanks for the correction there Pstarr. Agreed Haiti's time is limited, but their proxity might buy a little time. They are so overpopulated, minimal infrastructure, peak oil will be very hard for Haiti

[dohboi]

Ask and ye shall receive:

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'T')his USDA table, U.S. wheat exports by selected destinations, shows the destination for US wheat exports, 2000-2008 (note that the 'market' year is June-May). US wheat exports are dominated by Sub-Saharan Africa, Japan, Mexico, Egypt, the EU and more recently, Iraq. A full list of US wheat export destination countries, 1989-2008 available here. The list is extensive.

[dohboi]

I was trying to answer your question:

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'W')hich impoverished 3rd-world country most depends on US agriculture exports?

[AdTheNad]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('dohboi', 'S')o it is mostly subsaharan Africa that will be affected, so the devastation will be mostly ignored or chalked up to 'just another African tragedy.'

[dohboi]

African news outlets are following grain and soy prices carefully:

http://af.reuters.com/article/commoditiesNews/idAFL4E8IT16E20120730

African Reuters:

Soy jumps to 1-week top, new-crop corn hits contract high

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', ' ') SINGAPORE, July 30 (Reuters) - Chicago soybeans jumped 2
percent on Monday to a one-week top, while new-crop corn rose to
a contract high as the worst drought in five decades continued
to threaten crop yields across the U.S. grain belt with little
relief expected this week.

Wheat was up 1.3 percent to its highest since Tuesday,
buoyed by the rally in corn and production concerns in South
America and the Black Sea region....

... "The market needs to ration demand."
Chicago Board of Trade new-crop December corn rose 2
percent to $8.10-1/4 a bushel by 0108 GMT, after touching a high
of $8.13-3/4 a bushel, a contract high. Actively traded November
soy also gained 2 percent to $16.33-1/4 a bushel, the
highest since July 23...