Food Crisis

"The global deep freeze now striking North America, Europe, China and other regions may lead to severe food shortages and price hikes throughout 2010. Right now, rare freezing temperatures are destroying root crops in their ground, wiping out citrus orchards and devastating food producers around the world. The upshot of it all? Expect food shortages and rising food prices throughout 2010.

This global deep freeze is all part of the extreme weather now being unleashed on the planet due to human beings polluting the world and altering the atmosphere. Scientists can't agree on whether the trend is global warming or global cooling, but no one can argue that something's wrong with the weather.

Rainfall and temperature patterns that used to be reliable are now going haywire. Where there were once reliable seasonal rains, there are alternating periods of drought followed by floods. Where temperatures were once mild and predictable, they're now fluctuating out of control, becoming too hot in the summer and too cold in the winter.

All this adds up to escalating crop failures that are now poised to have a real, noticeable impact on the global food supply."

Source:

can we grow our own?

"In 1963, we grew around 30 per cent of our own fruit; now it is closer to 5 per cent. Compare this with France, which in 1963 grew enough fruit to feed 90 per cent of the population and still produces enough to feed 80 per cent; or Italy which produced around 110 per cent of its fruit needs in 1963 and still does today. We may not have Italy’s sun-kissed orange groves, but we could still do better with the land we have. Over the past 13 years, our self-sufficiency in food overall has plummeted from 75 per cent to 60 per cent."

From The Telegraph:

"A new report launched on Tuesday entitled Food 2030 gives a warning that Britain can no longer afford to be complacent. "We need to think differently about food," said Gordon Brown in his foreword to the report, produced by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra). Setting out a new food strategy for the next two decades, the report says that the industry needs to prepare for "sudden shocks" such as natural disasters or price spikes. Britain will need to produce more food, we are told, but will have to do so sustainably, "without damaging the air, soil, water and marine resources, biodiversity and climate that we all depend on".

Tim Lang from City University London said we are 'sleepwalking into a crisis' - the lecture notes are here....

In the End of Food, Paul Roberts says that the global food system could be plunged into crisis in any number of ways... including flu pandemics, rises in oil price, or extreme weather conditions....

Check out this site and the graphic below....

Eric ( EricdeCarbonnel@marketskeptics.com ) writes in an article entitled Financial Armageddon:

"Early in 2009, the supply and demand in agricultural markets went badly out of balance. The world experienced a catastrophic fall in food production as a result of the financial crisis (low commodity prices and lack of credit) and adverse weather on a global scale. Meanwhile, China and other Asian exporters, in an effort to preserve their economic growth, were unleashing domestic consumption long constrained by inflation fears, and demand for raw materials, especially food staples, exploded as Chinese consumers worked their way towards American-style overconsumption, prodded on by a flood of cheap credit and easy loans from the government.

Normally food prices should have already shot higher months ago, leading to lower food consumption and bringing the global food supply/demand situation back into balance. This never happened because the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), instead of adjusting production estimates down to reflect decreased production, adjusted estimates upwards to match increasing demand from china. In this way, the USDA has brought supply and demand back into balance (on paper) and temporarily delayed a rise in food prices by ensuring a catastrophe in 2010."

So - what can be done?

Well....

1. Get used to eating less
2. Get used to eating only healthy unprocessed food - maybe a raw food diet?
3. Grow your own
4. Make soup from all vegetable leftovers
5. Eat chicken - use it all

Here's to the rest of 2010!