[frankthetank]

So the super plants they develop will just require MORE water and MORE fertilizer.

The HUGE problem here guys is the fact we are devoting all these acres to grow this corn and soybean crap to feed cows/pigs/etc and then we eat the meat... We are at some point going to have to revert back to less meat (less calories all together) and more greens/fruits/whole grains...

[mos6507]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('frankthetank', '
')The HUGE problem here guys is the fact we are devoting all these acres to grow this corn and soybean crap to feed cows/pigs/etc and then we eat the meat... We are at some point going to have to revert back to less meat (less calories all together) and more greens/fruits/whole grains...

[jdmartin]

Thanks for the links. Disturbing, deeply disturbing. And good catch, Caffeine, on the Monsanto "advertisement" in the NG article. How convenient that the other side of the argument against GM seed was left out. I'm sure it was an accident

[RedStateGreen]

You know, it's amazing how dire need will inspire all kinds of creativity.

The Green Revolution was the worst thing to happen to the planet, and exporting it was paternalism at its highest. If those people had been left alone they would eventually have figured out how to deal with their own problems. Now we have billions of new mouths asking for handouts and a world running out of fossil fuels to feed them.

And the answer "we need another Green Revolution" is the ultimate in stupidity and obliviousness to the damage that's already been done.

[ForlornHope]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('mos6507', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('frankthetank', '
')The HUGE problem here guys is the fact we are devoting all these acres to grow this corn and soybean crap to feed cows/pigs/etc and then we eat the meat... We are at some point going to have to revert back to less meat (less calories all together) and more greens/fruits/whole grains...

[ForlornHope]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('RedStateGreen', 'Y')ou know, it's amazing how dire need will inspire all kinds of creativity.

The Green Revolution was the worst thing to happen to the planet, and exporting it was paternalism at its highest. If those people had been left alone they would eventually have figured out how to deal with their own problems. Now we have billions of new mouths asking for handouts and a world running out of fossil fuels to feed them.

And the answer "we need another Green Revolution" is the ultimate in stupidity and obliviousness to the damage that's already been done.

[Ludi]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('ForlornHope', '
')As an individual I wish to remain compassionate,

[wisconsin_cur]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'T')he United Nation’s World Food Programme is cutting food aid rations and shutting down some operations as donor countries that face a fiscal crunch at home slash contributions to its funding.

In recent weeks the WFP has quietly started reducing rations and closing down distribution operations to conserve cash. It reduced emergency food aid rations in Rwanda, for example, from 420 grammes to 320g of cereals per person a day.

The UN agency also suspended food distribution to 600,000 people in northern Uganda as the result of its lack of funding, and has reduced its operations in Ethiopia and North Korea. It is also on the verge of cutting rations to 3.5m drought victims in Kenya.

The agency, the world’s leading hunger fighter, had less than $1.5bn (€1.1bn, £907m) at the end of last week, out of a required budget of $6.4bn. With almost half the year gone, officials in donor countries said, it was unlikely that the WFP would receive the money it says it needs to prevent hunger in many poor countries.

[bodigami]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Arsenal', '(')...)
What kills me is that without the health department or some other org stopping these outbreaks, people would still eat it. If things do go down the sh!(#ter, people will eat just about anything because they can't recognize bad food or the symptoms of bad food.

[Arsenal]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('bodigami', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Arsenal', '(')...)
What kills me is that without the health department or some other org stopping these outbreaks, people would still eat it. If things do go down the sh!(#ter, people will eat just about anything because they can't recognize bad food or the symptoms of bad food.

Time for another Cornucopian interlude!

In spite of a very slow start to the monsoon season, the world's 2nd-largest wheat grower is expecting another record wheat crop!

>>> LINK <<<
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', '[')b]Drought-Struck India May Have Record Wheat Crop for Second Year
By Bibhudatta Pradhan

Sept. 25 (Bloomberg) -- India, the world’s second-biggest wheat grower, expects to harvest a record crop for a second year as a revival in monsoon over the past month raises water levels in major reservoirs, a government official said.

Output may be 2 million metric tons more than the record 80.6 million tons gathered last year, Agriculture Commissioner N.B. Singh told reporters today. Winter-sown rice harvest may be higher by 3.5 million tons from a year ago, he said.

Almost half of India, the world’s largest producer of rice, wheat and sugar, is reeling from a drought caused by the driest monsoon in at least seven years. Rains have returned in the past month, increasing soil moisture and benefiting early winter crop growth, the farm ministry said last week.

[...]

[Rod_Cloutier]

I saw this in the news today:

http://english.aljazeera.net/news/asia/ ... 16439.html

If the internet rumors of a government cover up of a world crop failure are true, as this report might indicate, we could be in for a repeat of 2008 with food crisises all over the third world.

I think that the longer the world delays the inevitable collapse that is comming, with green shoots, the 2010 economic recovery ect, the harder the comming collapse will be. The longer the world keeps trotting along on an unsustainable path; the collapse, when it does occur, will be more severe, last longer, effect more people, and impair any hopes for recovery afterwards.

[Ludi]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Repent', '
')I think that the longer the world delays the inevitable collapse that is comming, with green shoots, the 2010 economic recovery ect, the harder the comming collapse will be. The longer the world keeps trotting along on an unsustainable path; the collapse, when it does occur, will be more severe, last longer, effect more people, and impair any hopes for recovery afterwards.

[Novus]

There was a much larger thread on this a month back or so. If there was a world crop failure last fall we would be feeling it by now.

I believe this the patient zero for this spreading conspiracy.

[Novus]

Also if it is not happening in February it won't happen this year. February is the only month with no major crop harvests with the exception of Brazil. The harvest season is about to begin in many parts of the world.

[Rod_Cloutier]

I received the following automated message from the Earth policy institute today:

www.earthpolicy.org/index.php?/book_byt ... b4ch01_ss3

In it, it describes how after the food riots in 2008 countries started negotiating land and water rights in food growing nations to ensure supplies. Bizarre land deals between such far flung places as between South Korea and Sudan, between China and Zambia, Libya and the Ukraine, in a desperate search to secure long term food import supplies.

The land deals involving big players that don't invite the people actually living in these food producing regions to the table for negotiations. Some of these land deals have already led to revolts in places like Madagascar and the Phillipines.

Just reading the article, I had a chill run up my back thinking about the geopolitical upheavals in store once food, water and fuel really start to diminish in supplies. This article reads like a run up to a resource World War III scenario. Very scary!

[Ayoob]

These are valid and real concerns.

How anyone aware of these concerns can champion any immigration at all... I simply cannot understand it whatsoever. We are going to run short of oil, coal, fresh water, meat, and space. Why the fuck would you want to BRING MORE PEOPLE???

If anything, it's time to sharpen the cutlass and look South for more land.

[Pops]

I posted this in another thread about oil but it is really about food:
...
For a couple of years it's been plain to me that investors moved from tanking real estate to commodities inducing the big runups in '07 and '08 in everything from food to metals - and oil. This guy puts the story together well (sorry for the long snip but the story is worth a read):

Johann Hari: How Goldman gambled on starvation
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'I')t starts with an apparent mystery. At the end of 2006, food prices across the world started to rise, suddenly and stratospherically. Within a year, the price of wheat had shot up by 80 per cent, maize by 90 per cent, rice by 320 per cent. In a global jolt of hunger, 200 million people – mostly children – couldn't afford to get food any more, and sank into malnutrition or starvation. There were riots in more than 30 countries, and at least one government was violently overthrown. Then, in spring 2008, prices just as mysteriously fell back to their previous level. Jean Ziegler, the UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food, calls it "a silent mass murder", entirely due to "man-made actions."

...
For over a century, farmers in wealthy countries have been able to engage in a process where they protect themselves against risk. Farmer Giles can agree in January to sell his crop to a trader in August at a fixed price. If he has a great summer, he'll lose some cash, but if there's a lousy summer or the global price collapses, he'll do well from the deal. When this process was tightly regulated and only companies with a direct interest in the field could get involved, it worked.

Then, through the 1990s, Goldman Sachs and others lobbied hard and the regulations were abolished. Suddenly, these contracts were turned into "derivatives" that could be bought and sold among traders who had nothing to do with agriculture. A market in "food speculation" was born.

...
Here's how it happened. In 2006, financial speculators like Goldmans pulled out of the collapsing US real estate market. They reckoned food prices would stay steady or rise while the rest of the economy tanked, so they switched their funds there. Suddenly, the world's frightened investors stampeded on to this ground.

So while the supply and demand of food stayed pretty much the same, the supply and demand for derivatives based on food massively rose – which meant the all-rolled-into-one price shot up, and the starvation began. The bubble only burst in March 2008 when the situation got so bad in the US that the speculators had to slash their spending to cover their losses back home.

[Newfie]

Pops,

Didn't I hear that the new financial overhaul bill just passed actually came out of one of the agriculture committees because they were the ones who controlled commodities and thus derivatives trading?