Two days of unrest in Maputo, Mozambique, left seven people dead and 280 injured after the government decided to raise bread prices by 30%
Wheat prices rose further on Friday in the wake of Russia’s decision
to extend its grain export ban by 12 months, raising fears about a
return to the food shortages and riots of 2007-08.
In Mozambique,
where a 30 per cent rise in bread prices triggered riots on Wednesday
and Thursday, the government said seven people had been killed and 288
wounded.
Record-shattering heatwaves all over the world, massive wildfires in Russia, truly historic flooding in Pakistan and China and devastating droughts in many other areas are playing havoc with harvests all over the globe. This is leading many analysts to predict a sharp rise in food prices for the rest of 2010, and there are even whispers that 2011 could see the outbreak of global food riots that are even worse than what we witnessed back in 2008. The truth is that things are starting to get more than a bit frightening out there. One quarter of Russia’s grain crops have already been wiped out by the unprecedented heatwave and the massive wildfires that have been ravaging that nation. In fact, the Russian government has announced that they have banned all grain exports for the rest of this year. This has caused a dramatic surge in the price of wheat on world markets. Unfortunately, Russia is far from alone in dealing with bad harvests this year. So what happens when global food prices go so high that the hundreds of millions of people existing on the edge of poverty around the world can’t afford to buy food any longer?
That is a very sobering question.
Will The Bizarre Weather Of 2010 Set The Stage For A Major Global Food Shortage In 2011?.
The United States by every measure is hanging on by a thread to its First World status. Saddled by debt, engaged in wars on multiple fronts with a rising police state at home, declining economic productivity, and wild currency fluctuations all threaten America’s future.
The general designations of the ranking system for world status date back to the 1950s, and have included countries at various stages of economic development. Since the Cold War, the definition has come to be synonymous with repressive countries where a wealthy class of ruling elites segment society into the haves and have-nots, many times capitalizing on the conditions that follow an economic crisis or war.
via Activist Post: 10 Signs The U.S. is Becoming a Third World Country.
NaturalNews) A growing reliance on imported food and other necessities is making First World nations such as the United Kingdom increasingly vulnerable to social collapse, warns Andrew Simms, policy director of the “think-and-do tank” of the New Economic Foundation, writing in The Guardian.
“Events are revealing that many of the things we take for granted, like bank accounts, fuel and food, are vulnerable,” he writes. “If we value civilization, the litmus test for economic success should not be short-term profitability, but resilience in the face of climatic extremes and resource shortages.”
Simms notes that the assumptions of the free market have led to an economic system focused on producing the greatest cost savings rather than the greatest sustainability. This has led many First World countries to turn away from producing food domestically in favor of cheaper (and more profitable) imports.
via Nine meals from anarchy: What the coming food collapse means for civilization.
The mutant strains of the fungus, called Ug99, originated in Africa but are likely to spread into Asia and beyond, said the Borlaug Global Rust Initiative (BGRI), a US-based advocacy group focusing on wheat contagions.
“The new mutations — identified last year in South Africa — will make wheat crops more vulnerable as pathogens now will find new wind trajectories for migration,” BGRI said in a statement announcing the new research.
via AFP: Mutant fungus threatens global wheat supply: scientists.
(Reuters) – Nearly 40 million Americans received food stamps — the latest in an ever-higher string of record enrollment that dates from December 2008 and the U.S. recession, according to a government update.
Food stamps are the primary federal anti-hunger program, helping poor people buy food. Enrollment is highest during times of economic distress. The jobless rate was 9.9 percent, the government said on Friday.
The Agriculture Department said 39.68 million people, or 1 in 8 Americans, were enrolled for food stamps during February, an increase of 260,000 from January. USDA updated its figures on Wednesday.
via Food-stamp tally nears 40 million, sets record | Reuters.
What is devastating the world’s honeybees?
In what appears to be a honeybee mystery of Armageddon proportions that has baffled scientists and beekeepers, more than one-third of the nation’s commercial honeybee population is mysteriously disappearing – and researchers warn the unexplained phenomenon threatens one-third of the American diet.
Entire colonies of honeybees are abandoning hives and food stores, including honey and pollen. In collapsed colonies, adult bees mysteriously disappear, and there is no accumulation of dead bees. Even hive pests such as wax moths and hive beetles are nowhere to be found around affected colonies. Likewise, other honeybees are reluctant or unwilling to rob the abandoned hives of honey.
Only days before a honeybee colony collapses, according to Bee Culture Magazine, the colony appears to be strong and fully functional.
Then, it explains, the affliction travels like a wave through a beeyard.
The food business is far and away the most important
business in the world. Everything else is a luxury.
Food is what you need to sustain life every day.
Dwayne Andreas
When a large segment of the population is facing a drastic cut in income in the face of escalating food prices we have a catastrophic problem in the making. Today we have the simultaneous events of income deflation and food inflation; two high-speed express trains coming down that tracks at each other, a financial crisis colliding with staggering crop losses, which are cutting deeply into available planetary food reserves. Prices of food are again beginning to soar again just as millions are losing the ability to afford a reasonable diet, though little of this is being observed or reported. But soon even the blind will see.
From corn to crude, prices for a wide range of commodities are
on the rise across the globe. In recent months, global food prices
have been growing at a rate that rivals some of the wildest months
of 2008, when food riots erupted across the developing world.
January 9th Wall Street Journal
Worst Drought in a Millenium Creates Severe Food Shortages
Beijing News has reported that drought has now seriously impacted the provinces of Guangxi, Sichuan, Guizhou, Yunnan, the city of Chongqing, and the surrounding areas, affecting 61.3 million people, according to a disaster briefing released by the Chinese Ministry of Civil Affairs on March 23.
The drinking water supply for 18 million people, and water for 11.7 million large livestock and five million hectares (12.5 million acres) of farmland are compromised. More than 1.15 million hectares (2.9 million acres) of farmland is already decimated.
Epoch Times – Worst Drought in a Millenium Creates Severe Food Shortages.
NEWCASTLE, Wyo. - Grasshopper infestations
have taken on mythic tones here on the arid prairie of northeastern Wyoming — they blanket highways, eat T-shirts off clotheslines and devour nearly every scrap of vegetation on ranches and farms.
The myth may come closer to reality this summer than at any time in decades in several states in the West and the Plains.
Grasshopper invasion feared in some states – Life- msnbc.com
By Matt Joyce
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/
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