Today’s world is plagued by hunger, and despite all our technological advancement we are unable to control many of the aspects that cause it.
With climate change, the earth’s climate has changed drastically, influencing the seasons and thus crop growth around the globe. While the climate is contributing on one end to the ever-increasing food prices, another major contributor to this issue is oil.
The fossil fuels are undergoing fast depletion with excessive usage, and as the stock continues to decline or become ever harder to extract, the prices increase steadily.
Fertilizers are one of the by-products of oil refining. Increases in fuel costs directly affect the cost of fertilizers. Then of course, an increase in fertilizer prices, leads to increased food pricing.
Fuel is also required for the transportation of food from farms to the local markets, or for export.
We also need to examine the new trend in biofuel. Several crops today, including corn and sugar cane, are mostly grown for biofuel, leaving less food for people to eat!
While maize is the staple food of Africa, it the most widely used biofuel in America. As much as food is important, fuel is also important, and the nations are torn between attempts to attain a balance between both.
Will 2011 be the year that we point to as the beginning of the great global food crisis? Food prices are soaring, supplies are very tight and already we have seen some very intense food protests flare up around the globe this year.
When people don’t have enough to eat, they tend to become very desperate, and unfortunately it looks like the global food situation is not going to improve much any time soon.
Right now the world is really struggling to feed itself, and with each passing day there are even more mouths to feed.
It is being projected that the population of the world will reach 9 billion people by the year 2050. A worrying factor given the planet can only support 2 million of us living as we currently do and maintain a healthy balance!
There are already way too many people starving to death around the globe, and unfortunately starvation is only going to become more rampant as food supplies get even tighter.
Some of the key food producing provinces in China are facing their worst drought in 200 years.
Flooding has absolutely devastated agricultural production in Australia and Brazil this winter.
Russia is still trying to recover from the horrific drought of last summer.
Global weather patterns have gone haywire over the past 12 months, and this is putting immense pressure on a global food system that was already on the verge of a major breakdown.
Food stockpiles all over the world are disturbingly low at this point. If a major global famine broke out not even the United States would be able to last for long. The U.S. government is supposed to be keeping a lot of food stockpiled in the event of an emergency, but that is just not happening, not in the US or anywhere else.
The following are 14 facts that make you wonder if the coming global food shortage has already begun….
#1 According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, U.S. corn reserves will drop to a 15 year low by the end of 2011.
#2 The United Nations says that the global price of food hit another new all-time high in the month of January.
#3 The price of corn has doubled in the past six months.
#4 The price of wheat has roughly doubled since the middle of 2010.
#5 According to Forbes, the price of soybeans is up about 50% since last June.
#6 The United Nations is projecting that the global price of food will increase by another 30 percent by the end of 2011.
#7 Due to all of the unprecedented flooding, the winter wheat crop in Australia has been absolutely devastated.
#8 This winter Brazil was hit by some of the worst flooding that nation has ever seen. This has substantially hampered food production in that country.
#9 Russia, one of the largest wheat producers on the entire globe, is still feeling the effects of last summer’s scorching temperatures. In fact, Russia is actually importing wheat this winter to sustain its cattle herds.
#10 China is busy preparing for a “severe, long-lasting drought” that is projected to have a huge impact on several provinces. In fact, Chinese state media says that the eastern province of Shandong is dealing with the worst drought it has seen in 200 years. The provinces being affected by this severe drought grow approximately two-thirds of the wheat in China. The following is a very short video news report about the horrible drought that China is going through right now….
#11 It appears that Chinese imports of corn will be about 9 times larger than the U.S. Department of Agriculture originally projected them to be for 2011.
#12 Approximately 1 billion people around the world go to bed hungry each night.
#13 Somewhere in the world someone starves to death every 3.6 seconds, and 75 percent of those are children under the age of five.
#14 As food has become increasingly scarce around the world, many companies have started using whatever kinds of “fillers” that they can think of in their “food” products. For example, Raw Story is reporting that some companies in China have actually been mass producing “fake rice” that is made partly of plastic. According to one Chinese Restaurant Association official, eating three bowls of this fake rice is the equivalent of consuming an entire plastic bag.
Growing your own food is more important than ever. The shortages may not have hit you, but the rising costs of everything associated with food have, look at what you are paying for those groceries and compare it even to even 6 months ago.
By starting your home garden now, you are putting those skills on a learning curve. By the time you really need to be growing much of what you eat you will be well versed in growing foods, your own climate and how it works on your food and you will have a stockpile of preserved goodies......
Think about it:)
2 Responses:
It's all very scary. And us humans aren't known for are generosity and understanding when we are forced to do without.
The amount of natural disasters that have hit the planet is worrying, you can't help wonder if it's leading up to something bigger.
That we aren't Nev, and I suspect yes, there is more to come, and it wont leave until we learn to work in harmony:(
Post a Comment