[paimei01]

http://larouchepub.com/other/2006/3342w ... plies.html
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'I')n the 1990s, the UN Food and Agriculture Organization figured that world grain stocks should be well above 20-25% of annual grain consumption. By FAO calculations, the world reaches a danger point when grain stocks fall below 17-18% of a year's average consumption. For 2006, stocks of grain are 319 mmt—barely 16% of today's annual use of 2,043 mmt.

However, this dangerous grain gap coheres with the the dictates of globalization, namely that no nation shall be allowed to retain food reserves, nor to intervene to build up its national farm production potential, to counter occasional bad crop years. The free-trade idea is that nations are supposed to rely on global "sourcing" and so-called "market forces," and somehow, these mystical conditions are supposed to even out any crop problems.

The banning of national grain reserves was made explicit in the 1995 World Trade Organization tenets, and before that, was part of the years-long talks by the GATT (UN General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade), on how to "reform" world agriculture. The sophism used was that, citizens of every nation had a "right" to access their food on world markets, and not rely on developing their own national food and farm systems. Only Japan has defied this WTO globaloney, and still maintains a "ricebowl reserve."

[Revi]

You should read Mike Davis's book Late Victorian Holocausts. He talks about how China and India had grain reserves in every province to guard against starvation if they had a bad crop. All were monetized and shipped out to England.

China has always been the world's largest wheat producer. They can swamp the world's wheat market and buy up every extra bushel. They need to, if they want to keep everybody fed.

Lester Brown talked about this a couple of years ago, to congress:

http://www.celsias.com/2007/06/14/leste ... s-blunder/

We are at the point where there is no extra wheat around, and we're a ways from a harvest.

I expect that the price of bread could go up enough that a lot of people won't be able to afford it. There is a rust that is affecting a lot of the wheat crop this year as well.

I'm sure that these high prices have farmers planning on planting a lot of wheat, but it may be a tight market until then.

[FourOfSwords]

If you like that, read this:http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7293326.stm
and then see how banning wheat reserves will dovetail nicely with this wheat disease.
Alex(going out to buy a loaf of bread while I can still afford it )