By Lesley Wroughton Reuters - Sunday, April 13 11:57 pmWASHINGTON (Reuters) - Top finance and development officials from around the globe on Sunday called for urgent action to stem rising food prices, warning that social unrest will spread unless the cost of basic staples is contained.
"We have to put our money where our mouth is now, so that we can put food into hungry mouths. It is as stark as that," World Bank President Robert Zoellick said at the end of a meeting of the IMF and World Bank's Development Committee.
Zoellick and British Prime Minister Gordon Brown have said the issue of skyrocketing food prices needs to be front and centre at the highest political levels.
While Brown said he would raise it at an upcoming meeting of the Group of Eight powerful nations, Zoellick said that would be too late. "Frankly speaking, that G8 meeting is in June and we cannot wait," he told a news conference.
Concerns about food costs took on new urgency as senators in Haiti ousted the prime minister after a week of food-related rioting in which at least five people died. There have also been protests in Cameroon, Niger and Burkina Faso in Africa, and in Indonesia and the Philippines.
In just two months, rice prices have shot up around 75 percent, closing in on historic highs. Meanwhile, the cost of wheat has climbed by 120 percent over the past year, more than doubling the price of bread in most poor countries.
The problem is most worrying in developing countries where food represents a larger share of what consumers buy. It threatens to sharply increase malnutrition and hunger, while reversing progress in reducing poverty and debt burdens among the poorest nations.
GLOBAL CONTAGION
Indian Finance Minister Palaniappan Chidambaram said rising food costs threatened to stir more social unrest.
"It is becoming starker by the day that unless we act fast for a global consensus on the price spiral, the social unrest induced by food prices in several countries will conflagrate into a global contagion, leaving no country -- developed or otherwise -- unscathed," he said.
"The global community must collectively deliberate on immediate steps to reverse the unconscionable increases in the price of food, which threatens to negate the benefits to the poor nations from aid, trade and debt relief," he said.
Douglas Alexander, Britain's minister for international development, said his country is willing to work with others to bring prices down. "Now is the time for urgent action to tackle the crisis, which is affecting millions of the poorest people across the globe," he said.
U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson warned that governments should resist the temptation to fight soaring food costs with price controls, which he said would likely backfire.
The World Bank has warned that food prices will remain elevated this year and next, and likely stay above 2004 levels through 2015.
BIOFUELS SQUEEZE
One of the main factors behind the surge in prices is the increased use of crops for biofuels as an alternative energy source. Almost all of the rise in global corn production from 2004 to 2007 went to biofuels in the United States.
Other factors that have contributed to the rise are the growth in demand in Asia and droughts in food-producing nations like Australia.
Climate change also received heightened attention at Sunday's meeting -- one of the few times that finance and development ministers have been drawn into the discussions.
The ministers called on the World Bank to mobilize financing to help the poor deal with the effects of global warming.
In Bali in December, countries agreed on a road map for two years of talks aimed at securing a treaty to succeed the Kyoto Protocol on climate change when it expires in 2012.
Zoellick on Sunday helped convene a meeting he called a "Bali Breakfast" that brought developing countries together to discuss ways to tackle climate change. He said he hoped it would become a regular event.
"The drive to address climate change won't work if it's seen as a rich man's club," Zoellick said.
(Reporting by Lesley Wroughton; editing by Tim Ahmann) _________________ 'Come and see the violence inherent in the system.
Help, help, I'm being repressed!'
“The more you tighten your grip, the more Star Systems will slip through your fingers.”
Food riots are probably a major indicator of the determination of the global elite to implement the Neo-crazy armageddon strategy. Clearly, the explanations of food shortages are *. There is no reason for biofuel planting to lead to shortages as soon as it has. All the reasons given are a cover for food hoarding by hedge funds. But if they are doing this, then it indicates some sort of timetable. It means we may very well see plagues, war and big terror strike.
The Anglo-American Establishment have been opposed by Russia and China. They believe they need massive, global crises to sideline them and implement their power grab.
For some time now, we've been aware of the Anglo-Americans' plans but we've always hoped that they will stay as plans. We now have to start thinking that they are determined to implement these plans.
Around the world, rising food prices have made basic staples like rice and corn unaffordable for many people, pushing the poor to the barricades because they can no longer get enough to eat. But the worst is yet to come.
Fort Dimanche, a former prison in the hills above the Haitian capital Port-au-Prince, is a hell on earth. In the past, it was home to the torture chambers of former dictator "Baby Doc" Duvalier's death squads, the Tontons Macoutes. Today thousands of impoverished Haitians live in the prison's grounds, digging through piles of garbage for food. But even dogs find little to eat there.
On the roof of the former prison, enterprising women prepare something that looks like biscuits and is even called by that name. The key ingredient, yellow clay, is trucked in from the nearby mountains. The clay is combined with salt and vegetable fat to make dough, which is then dried in the sun.
For many Haitians, the mud biscuits are their only food. They taste of fat, suck the moisture out of the mouth and leave behind an aftertaste of dirt. They often cause diarrhea, but they help to numb the pangs of hunger. "I'm hoping one day I'll have enough food to eat, so I can stop eating these," Marie Noël, who survives with her seven children on the dirt cakes, told the Associated Press.
The clay to make 100 of the biscuits costs $5 (€3.15) and has risen by $1.50 (€0.95), or about 40 percent, within one year. The same is true of staple foods. Nevertheless, the same amount of money buys more of the mud cakes than bread or corn tortillas. A daily bowl of rice is almost unaffordable.
Pakistani women buy subsidized flour in Lahore. The price of staple foods and fuel has risen drastically in the country in the last few months. Many people in Pakistan are now dependent on state subsidies.
The shortages triggered revolts in Haiti last week. A crowd of hungry citizens marched through Port-au-Prince, throwing stones and bottles and chanting, "We are hungry!" in front of the presidential palace. Tires were burned, and people died. It was yet another of the rebellions that are beginning to occur with increasing frequency worldwide, but which are still only a harbinger of what is yet to come.
Food is become increasingly scarce and expensive, and it is already unaffordable for many people. The world's 200 wealthiest people have as much money as about 40 percent of the global population, and yet 850 million people have to go to bed hungry every night. This calamity is "one of the worst violations of human dignity," says former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan.
Consequences of the global food crisis
Should we be surprised that despair often turns into violence? The food crisis afflicts the world's poor -- in Africa, South Asia and the Middle East -- like a biblical plague. Prices for staples like rice, corn and wheat, which were relatively stable for years, have skyrocketed by over 180 percent in the last three years. A bottleneck is developing whose consequences are potentially more severe than the global crisis in the financial markets. With nothing left to lose, people on the brink of starvation are more likely to react with boundless fury.
In the wealthier areas, police and UN peacekeepers tried to keep a lid on the violent protests, which were accompanied by looting.
The World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) addressed this global crisis at a joint meeting last weekend. World Bank President Robert Zoellick warned that exploding food prices threaten to cause instability in at least 33 countries, including regional powers like Egypt, Indonesia and Pakistan, where the army has had to be brought in to protect flour transports. The crisis is helping radical Islamic movements gain strength in North Africa. There has been unrest in recent weeks in Mauritania, Mozambique, Senegal, the Ivory Coast and Cameroon, where the violence has already claimed about 100 lives.
A desperate appeal by the country's president could not stop the violence. Gangs armed with stones and clubs tore through the streets, setting tires on fire and erecting street barricades.
There are several reasons for the food crisis:
The world population is growing constantly, while the amount of arable land is declining.
Climate change is causing a loss of agricultural land, irreversible in some cases, as a result of droughts, floods, storms and erosion.
Because of changing eating habits, more and more arable land and virgin forests are being turned into pasture for livestock. The yield per acre in calories of land given over to pasture is substantially lower than that of arable land.
The World Bank wants developing countries to introduce market reforms, including the abolition of protective tariffs, a move that often causes massive damage to local agriculture.
Speculators are driving up the prices of raw materials. The resulting high oil price leads to "energy crops" being cultivated instead of grain for food or animal feed.
Millions of people displaced by civil wars need food, and yet they themselves are no longer capable of producing food.
What we are beginning to face is not just an acute bottleneck, but a worldwide, fundamental food crisis. It affects most of all the poor, who spend a disproportionately large share of their income on food and water. The crisis is so dire that it is obliterating any progress made in recent years in fighting disease and starvation.
With too many people and not enough agricultural land, a struggle for the distribution of the best farmland is taking shape that could turn into a new North-South conflict. "These days you hear a lot about the world financial crisis," wrote US economist Paul Krugman recently in his regular column in the New York Times. "But there’s another world crisis under way -- and it’s hurting a lot more people."
Protesters display placards against the alleged escalating prices of commodities during a protest march in Manila on April 12.
Mexicans were the first to take to the streets, when they protested against higher prices for cornmeal, the basic ingredient in tortillas. Mexico can only cover a portion of its demand with domestic production. It imports the rest, mainly from the United States. Meanwhile, more and more farmers in the US are selling their corn to biofuel producers, who pay a higher price for the grain.
To avert further protests, Mexican President Felipe Calderón decided to increase government subsidies for corn, which were already high to begin with. But only countries that are relatively strong financially can afford this. In other countries, like Haiti, Bolivia, Algeria and Yemen, the lower classes have been hard hit by food-price inflation.
'People Are Dying Before Our Eyes'
In the Middle Eastern country of Yemen, people get by on an average of €1.18 ($1.86) per day. The government faces the challenges of a wave of refugees from Somalia, tribal warfare in the north and the constant threat of terrorism. Since February, wheat prices in Yemen have doubled and the price of rice and cooking oil has increased by a fifth. And since the end of March, people have died in Yemen in unrest over bread prices.
Within the last quarter, food prices have increased by 145 percent in Lebanon and 20 percent in Syria. "Even parsley, for which we paid almost nothing in the past, has suddenly tripled in price," complains one resident of the Syrian capital Damascus.
Iraq and Sudan, once the "bread baskets" of the Arab world, are nowadays dependent on the World Food Programme. More than a million people in Iraq and 2 million in Sudan's Darfur region require food aid. Life in Darfur, Sudan's western province, has always been difficult. The Sahara has shifted southward in the last four decades, while rainfall has declined dramatically. Yields of sorghum, the area's most important grain crop, have dropped by two-thirds.
The civil war in Sudan has made more than 2 million people in refugee camps completely dependent on food aid. Fields in the region have not been farmed for years. "People are dying before our eyes, while the world looks on," says Johan van der Kamp of the German aid organization Deutsche Welthungerhilfe.
Food prices in Haiti are reported to have risen by 50 to 100 per cent in the last year, hitting the vast majority of the population -- who live on less than $2 a day -- particularly hard.
Developing countries faced a similar challenge more than a generation ago, which led to the advent of the so-called Green Revolution. Through the use of fertilizer, pesticides and hybrid seed, farmers in developing countries were able to boost their harvests considerably. Some now believe that it is time to launch a second green revolution. The heads of research at agricultural conglomerates are convinced that genetic engineering could be the answer to the world's food problems. But the question is: how long would it take?
Food shortages have even become an important issue in affluent areas, like Dubai, where supermarkets have pledged not to raise the prices of 20 staple foods for at least one year. The goal, clearly, is to prevent dissatisfaction within the city's legions of Indian and Pakistani construction workers. Without them, the enormous hotels, museums and artificial islands with which Dubai is making such a stir in the world would not exist. Foreign workers are paid their meager wages in the local currency, the dirham, which is tied to the falling dollar.
The beneficiaries of globalization on the Gulf can ill afford food riots in the shadow of their skyscrapers and shopping malls. "The consequences of discontent, anger in the Middle East can be more geo-political than they may be elsewhere," Robin Lodge of the United Nations World Food Programme recently told the news agency Reuters. Nowhere is this truer than in Egypt.
Many observers feel that the Haiti riots are just a foretaste of global food-related unrest to come.
Saad Ibrahim owns a small snack shop in Cairo in a neighborhood behind the Al-Azhar Mosque. He sells dishes like noodles and chickpeas in tomato sauce, and his shop is in a good location. Nevertheless, most of the faithful now walk quickly past his shop after Friday prayers. "I have fewer customers every day," says Ibrahim.
Last fall a ton of noodles cost about 1,500 Egyptian pounds, or a little more than €175 ($276). Since then, prices have tripled. Ibrahim blames the government for the price hike. "As an agricultural country," he says, "we could grow everything ourselves, instead of importing it for a lot of money."
Thirty-two million of Egypt's population of 80 million get by on €1 ($1.58 ) a day, and 16 million on even less. The price of cooking oil alone has risen by 40 percent within the last year. Inflation jumped to above 12 percent in February, and the higher cost of wheat has had an especially adverse impact.
Rising food prices have sparked violent protests around the world. Five people were killed and hundreds injured during recent riots in Port-au-Prince, the capital of Haiti.
"Aish baladi," a soft, round flatbread, is a mainstay of the Egyptian diet. The state has subsidized it for decades, which has helped to preserve calm. But for how much longer can this system function? The lines are getting longer in front of bakeries that sell the subsidized bread, as more and more Egyptians depend on government aid. Riots in recent weeks claimed at least 11 lives after corrupt bakers sold inexpensive, subsidized flour at high prices on the black market, triggering an angry response from the public.
Meanwhile, the government has slated $2.5 billion (€1.58 billion) of its new budget for bread subsidies. But providing cheap bread comes with its own bizarre consequences. Some farmers are already feeding bread to their livestock because of the exorbitant cost of animal feed.
Raising cattle is a profitable business because rising incomes in some developing countries mean that more and more consumers can afford to eat meat. The new middle class in Delhi and Beijing is no longer satisfied with traditional diets high in foods like rice and lentils. But it takes seven kilograms of feed and vast quantities of water to produce just one kilogram of beef, which only drives up prices.
In Jordan, which has a modern system of agriculture, the cost of staple foods has increased by 60 percent within a year. "I can hardly sell my vegetables anymore," says Hussein Bureidi, a vendor who operates a stand near the Grand Mosque in the Jordanian capital Amman. "How can this go on?" King Abdullah fears a return of the 1996 food riots, when angry citizens clashed with police in the city of Karak.
In Algeria, the prices of cooking fat, corn oil, sugar and flour have doubled within six months. With the exception of an inadequate, 15-percent increase in salaries for civil servants, the government has done little to fend off what Radio Algiers called an "attack on our standard of living." Until now, oil and gas revenues have not been used to fund additional food subsidies. If this were the case, the government might find itself no longer able to service its foreign debt on time.
But India has the largest number of underfed people, about 220 million. Aptly enough, two international conferences on the food crisis took place in New Delhi last week. Jacques Diouf, the Senegalese head of the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), blamed the dilemma on rapid growth in demand in both China and India. The crisis, Diouf said, could expand into an unprecedented catastrophe.
China has close to a quarter of the world's population to feed, but only 7 percent of its farmland. A similar situation applies in India. This means that both countries must import food on a large scale, prompting many exporting countries to impose export quotas so that their own citizens are not suddenly forced to go without.
When Haiti's hungry poor went on a rampage last week, the United States closed its embassy there as a precaution. The incidents also alarmed British Prime Gordon Brown, who wrote a letter to his Japanese counterpart, Yasuo Fukuda, the current chairman of the G-8 nations. In the letter, Brown recommended that the international community endeavor to prepare a "fully coordinated response" to rampant hunger.
It would not come a moment too soon.
RÜDIGER FALKSOHN; AMIRA EL AHL, JENS GLÜSING, ALEXANDER JUNG, PADMA RAO, THILO THIELKE, VOLKHARD WINDFUHR, BERNHARD ZAND
Those clever anti-semitic Czarist secret police wrote (Protocol 6):
Quote:
To complete the ruin of the industry of the GOYIM we shall bring to the assistance of speculation the luxury which we have developed among the GOYIM, that greedy demand for luxury which is swallowing up everything. WE SHALL RAISE THE RATE OF WAGES WHICH, HOWEVER, WILL NOT BRING ANY ADVANTAGE TO THE WORKERS, FOR, AT THE SAME TIME, WE SHALL PRODUCE A RISE IN PRICES OF THE FIRST NECESSARIES OF LIFE, ALLEGING THAT IT ARISES FROM THE DECLINE OF AGRICULTURE AND CATTLE-BREEDING: WE SHALL FURTHER UNDERMINE ARTFULLY AND DEEPLY SOURCES OF PRODUCTION, BY ACCUSTOMING THE WORKERS TO ANARCHY AND TO DRUNKENNESS AND SIDE BY SIDE THEREWITH TAKING ALL MEASURE TO EXTIRPATE FROM THE FACE OF THE EARTH ALL THE EDUCATED FORCES OF THE "GOYIM."
_________________ If you want to know who is really in control, ask yourself who you cannot criticise.
"The hunt for 'anti-semites' is a hunt for pockets of resistance to the NWO"-- Israel Shamir
"What we in America call terrorists are really groups of people that reject the international system..." - Heinz "Henry" Kissinger
Food Rationing Confronts Breadbasket of the World
By JOSH GERSTEIN, Staff Reporter of the Sun | April 21, 2008
MOUNTAIN VIEW, CALIF. — MANY PARTS OF AMERICA, LONG CONSIDERED THE BREADBASKET OF THE world, are now confronting a once unthinkable phenomenon: food rationing.
Major retailers in New York, in areas of New England, and on the West Coast are limiting purchases of flour, rice, and cooking oil as demand outstrips supply. There are also anecdotal reports that some consumers are hoarding grain stocks.
At a Costco Warehouse in Mountain View, Calif., yesterday, shoppers grew frustrated and occasionally uttered expletives as they searched in vain for the large sacks of rice they usually buy.
“Where’s the rice?” an engineer from Palo Alto, Calif., Yajun Liu, said. “You should be able to buy something like rice. This is ridiculous.”
The bustling store in the heart of Silicon Valley usually sells four or five varieties of rice to a clientele largely of Asian immigrants, but only about half a pallet of Indian-grown Basmati rice was left in stock. A 20-pound bag was selling for $15.99.
“You can’t eat this every day. It’s too heavy,” a health care executive from Palo Alto, Sharad Patel, grumbled as his son loaded two sacks of the Basmati into a shopping cart. “We only need one bag but I’m getting two in case a neighbor or a friend needs it,” the elder man said.
The Patels seemed headed for disappointment, as most Costco members were being allowed to buy only one bag. Moments earlier, a clerk dropped two sacks back on the stack after taking them from another customer who tried to exceed the one-bag cap.
“Due to the limited availability of rice, we are limiting rice purchases based on your prior purchasing history,” a sign above the dwindling supply said.
Shoppers said the limits had been in place for a few days, and that rice supplies had been spotty for a few weeks. A store manager referred questions to officials at Costco headquarters near Seattle, who did not return calls or e-mail messages yesterday.
An employee at the Costco store in Queens said there were no restrictions on rice buying, but limits were being imposed on purchases of oil and flour. Internet postings attributed some of the shortage at the retail level to bakery owners who flocked to warehouse stores when the price of flour from commercial suppliers doubled.
The curbs and shortages are being tracked with concern by survivalists who view the phenomenon as a harbinger of more serious trouble to come.
“It’s sporadic. It’s not every store, but it’s becoming more commonplace,” the editor of SurvivalBlog.com, James Rawles, said. “The number of reports I’ve been getting from readers who have seen signs posted with limits has increased almost exponentially, I’d say in the last three to five weeks.”
Spiking food prices have led to riots in recent weeks in Haiti, Indonesia, and several African nations. India recently banned export of all but the highest quality rice, and Vietnam blocked the signing of new contract for foreign rice sales.
“I’m surprised the Bush administration hasn’t slapped export controls on wheat,” Mr. Rawles said. “The Asian countries are here buying every kind of wheat.”
Mr. Rawles said it is hard to know how much of the shortages are due to lagging supply and how much is caused by consumers hedging against future price hikes or a total lack of product.
“There have been so many stories about worldwide shortages that it encourages people to stock up. What most people don’t realize is that supply chains have changed, so inventories are very short,” Mr. Rawles, a former Army intelligence officer, said. “Even if people increased their purchasing by 20%, all the store shelves would be wiped out.”
At the moment, large chain retailers seem more prone to shortages and limits than do smaller chains and mom-and-pop stores, perhaps because store managers at the larger companies have less discretion to increase prices locally.
Mr. Rawles said the spot shortages seemed to be most frequent in the Northeast and all the way along the West Coast. He said he had heard reports of buying limits at Sam’s Club warehouses, which are owned by Wal-Mart Stores, but a spokesman for the company, Kory Lundberg, said he was not aware of any shortages or limits.
An anonymous high-tech professional writing on an investment Web site, Seeking Alpha, said he recently bought 10 50-pound bags of rice at Costco. “I am concerned that when the news of rice shortage spreads, there will be panic buying and the shelves will be empty in no time. I do not intend to cause a panic, and I am not speculating on rice to make profit. I am just hoarding some for my own consumption,” he wrote.
For now, rice is available at Asian markets in California, though consumers have fewer choices when buying the largest bags. “At our neighborhood store, it’s very expensive, more than $30” for a 25-pound bag, a housewife from Mountain View, Theresa Esquerra, said. “I’m not going to pay $30. Maybe we’ll just eat bread.”
At UN forum on indigenous issues, Bolivian president calls for global economic overhaul 10 hours ago.
President Evo Morales outlined a plan at the UN on Tuesday to rescue the world from environmental degradation and injustice. Drawing connections between free-market economics, excessive consumption, environmental problems and social injustice, the Bolivian leader urged the world to “put an end to the exploitation of human beings and the pillage of natural resources” by rejecting free-market theory and reallocating the money spent on war to fighting environmental and climate problems.
Top retailer Wal-Mart's Sam's Club unit said Wednesday it is limiting the amount of rice individual shoppers could buy at one time, as rice prices hit new records around the world.
Sam's Club said it had temporarily placed limits of four 20-pound (nine-kilogram) bags a person for jasmine, basmati, and other long-grain white rice types.
"We currently have plenty of rice for Sam's Club Members," the company said in a statement.
"However, like our competitors, we're just taking the precautionary step of limiting sales of the very large 20 pound bags" of imported white rice, it said.
Sam's Club, a members-only bulk retailer chain owned by Wal-Mart, the world's largest retailer, said smaller-sized bags of rice were not affected by the restrictions; nor did they extend to Wal-Mart stores.
Rationing of rice hits Britain’s Chinese and curry restaurants
Carl Mortished
Rice is being rationed in Britain as shopkeepers limit supplies to their customers to prevent hoarding. Restrictions on sales in Asian neighbourhoods are reported as emergency measures are taken by governments worldwide to combat the soaring cost of rice and prevent outbreaks of food rioting.
Tilda, the biggest importer of basmati rice, said that its buyers had resorted to restricting their customers to two bags per person.
“It is happening in the cash and carries,” said Jona-than Calland, of Tilda.
“It’s to stop people from hoarding. I heard from our salesforce that one lady went into a cash and carry and tried to buy eight 20kg bags.”
According to Mr Calland, the retailers, who sell to the curry and Chinese restaurant trade as well as to families, are rationing their customers to two to four bags during the current fear over rice shortages.
Us retailers are also rationing rice, including Sam’s Club, the warehouse club operator that is part of Wal-Mart.
_________________ "The conflict between corporations and activists is that of narcolepsy versus remembrance. The corporations have money, power and influence. Our sole influence is public outrage. Extract from "Cloud Atlas (page 125) by David Mitchell.
i dont understand whats going on
i used to buy a loaf of bread for around 70-80p a year ago now its £1.20 at least
is all food rising by 20 ish percent a year
why whats going on to do that
i could understand food going up by a couple of pence a year above inflation but such a big rise feels like somone is behind it
Joined: 13 Sep 2006 Posts: 2258 Location: One breath from Glory
Posted: Tue Apr 29, 2008 9:42 pm Post subject:
"Let them eat cake"
Gotta get revenue for the war somehow or other _________________ JO911B.
"for we wrestle not against flesh and blood but against principalities, against powers, against rulers of the darkness of this world, against wicked spirits in high places " Eph.6 v 12
i dont understand whats going on
i used to buy a loaf of bread for around 70-80p a year ago now its £1.20 at least
is all food rising by 20 ish percent a year
why whats going on to do that
i could understand food going up by a couple of pence a year above inflation but such a big rise feels like somone is behind it
Several factors:
Price of oil is now above $110/barrel and has increased well above inflation over the past year. 4 years ago it was $40/barrel and considering food is made using oil from growing (pesticides) to packaging and transported using lorries running on diesel then it's not hard to realize why prices are rising so fast.
As for bread prices, there has been a problem with the global supply of wheat during the last year with stocks at their lowest levels for 30 years hence high prices. Google 'wheat prices' and you'll get your answer.
Also, there has been an enormous demand in farmers growing biofuel crops such as rapeseed. Effectively this is taking land required to grow food crops.
I don't believe there is a mass conspiracy going on since the global market is made up of millions of independent suppliers.
Well actually James C, there are not millions of food producers out there. There are millions of very small, and in the context of a global food crisis, not relevant suppliers and there are the real food producers and controllers of food production.
Food production and processing is handled by a very small number of vertically integrated global (mostly US) businesses, including Cargill, Continental Grain, Bunge and ADM. And something like 40% of all seed, especially maize and rice is GM. Again, the supply of these is controlled by a very small number of global businesses.
We've plunged into a world food crisis-- soaring crop prices sowing inflation and squeezing households round the world, 100 million more facing starvation and food riots flaring from Egypt to Bangladesh. In Sierra Leone alone rice prices have doubled, leaving 90% of the country unable to provide food for their family--so we're joining with their foreign minister Zainab Bangura (right) to press world leaders to act.
Both rapid emergency action and fundamental reform are needed to end this crisis, so we'll deliver the campaign in the coming days and weeks to a string of key political meetings and summits--add your name urgently to the petition below, then watch Zainab's video message and spread the word:
http://www.avaaz.org/en/world_food_crisis/ _________________ "Talk sense to a fool and he calls you foolish." - Euripides
"No problem can be solved from the same level of consciousness that created it." - Albert Einstein
"To find yourself, think for yourself" - Socrates
Joined: 02 Oct 2006 Posts: 577 Location: Yorkshire
Posted: Thu May 01, 2008 2:53 am Post subject: NWO agenda
zimboy69 wrote:
I don't believe there is a mass conspiracy going on since the global market is made up of millions of independent suppliers.
Who controls the monetary system then? The Banks. Money is printed with interest and the banks and political structures are hand in hand.
Bush's war efforts which has killed many people directly, is only one part of an agenda to reduce the world's population and to bring in a NWO.
Do some research or at least see Endgame or part three of Zietgeist for some clues
http://www.zeitgeistmovie.com/ http://video.google.com.au/videoplay?docid=1070329053600562261 _________________ "Talk sense to a fool and he calls you foolish." - Euripides
"No problem can be solved from the same level of consciousness that created it." - Albert Einstein
"To find yourself, think for yourself" - Socrates
Last edited by truthseeker john on Thu May 01, 2008 3:15 am; edited 1 time in total
Joined: 02 Oct 2006 Posts: 577 Location: Yorkshire
Posted: Thu May 01, 2008 3:08 am Post subject:
Rory Winter wrote:
Quote:
theyre going to starve us to death
When peoples' bellies are empty then there's talk of revolution. Maybe it takes a lotta empty bellies before the message is hammered home:
END CAPITALISM NOW!
By the way, the Communist system was introduced and paid for by Capitalists _________________ "Talk sense to a fool and he calls you foolish." - Euripides
"No problem can be solved from the same level of consciousness that created it." - Albert Einstein
"To find yourself, think for yourself" - Socrates
Joined: 02 Oct 2006 Posts: 577 Location: Yorkshire
Posted: Thu May 01, 2008 3:29 am Post subject: Money
http://www.nineeleven.co.uk/board/viewtopic.php?t=14506 _________________ "Talk sense to a fool and he calls you foolish." - Euripides
"No problem can be solved from the same level of consciousness that created it." - Albert Einstein
"To find yourself, think for yourself" - Socrates
Well actually James C, there are not millions of food producers out there. There are millions of very small, and in the context of a global food crisis, not relevant suppliers and there are the real food producers and controllers of food production.
Food production and processing is handled by a very small number of vertically integrated global (mostly US) businesses, including Cargill, Continental Grain, Bunge and ADM. And something like 40% of all seed, especially maize and rice is GM. Again, the supply of these is controlled by a very small number of global businesses.
And none of their shareholders are going hungry!
Can you prove a conspiracy?
And the world's farmers are irrelevant are they? No doubt they are taking back handers to meddle with the market. Get a grip, they produce the food that we eat everyday, not the GM companies, and they are just like you and me. Sure these producers sell to the big groups but usually the groups then sell on cheaply and in bulk to maintain a competitive edge; just look at Tesco and ask any farmer how they are being swindled so that Tesco can pile high and sell cheap. The massive rise in farmer's markets is proof positive that farmers are fighting back although they sell at higher prices than those on the supermarket shelves simply because they don't sell the same volume. In other words, their price reflects the real cost of food, after all in real terms, food prices have been dropping over the last thirty years which makes a mockery of people's assertion that we are 'all being controlled'. We are simply seeing a readjustment for years of cheap fuel helping to lower prices across the board.
And vertical integration is just a fancy word for a hierarchical business structure as used in the oil industry, motor industry, computer industry, electrical industry, travel industry, in fact just about any industry. There will always be big companies and they will have a certain control over the smaller ones. Sadly, that's life but it doesn't mean there is a conspiracy to kill people off. Food shortages and price increases maybe due to poor management but there is no proof for conspiracy.
If there was a plan to use food as a way of population control then surely it would be better to poison us all rather than cause mass rioting because of food prices. But then again, the big boys can't since they rely upon millions of independent suppliers who have no desire to poison or con anyone. And without their producers and customers they'd have a hard time increasing the size of their shareholders wallets.
I find it amazing that you assert the real food producers are the big multinational companies when you reside in France. If there's ever a country which promotes local and regional food production then France is it.
Well actually, I never mentioned conspiracy; you did. And as for the rest of your arguments, I seem to have lost the thread, however I will try and clarify what I said originally.
First, Tesco and the a country of 60 million is not really a good example in the context of a global crises. However, we all know that when a very few, very large companies control a major part of any market, it is open to manipulation by individual companies or cartels. On a global basis, the production and distribution of basic foodstuffs is clearly prone to manipulation.
In the case of the GM companies, they are in the same strong position, controlling the raw inputs to the staple foods of most of the third world, rice and maize. Now I don't know if they abuse their near monopoly positions or not, but I do believe that climate change and the weak dollar can't completely explain the sudden crises. In the same vein, I can see that a 'food crises' can only be to the benefit of the major food producers.
Something is very wrong with world trade - it's filling the pockets of the rich while ripping off the world's poorest people. Why is this happening? What can we do? Read on to find out why MakePovertyHistory is calling for Trade Justice.
Millions of people are stuck in the trade trap. No matter how hard they work, they earn less every year. The situation is so dismal, half the world's population now lives on less than US$2 a day - roughly the cost of a burger.
Why are people cheated of a proper living?
Trade rules
You may not be aware of them, but trade rules control how countries do business with each other. They are agreed at international level, and are supposed to make sure nations compete openly and fairly.
In reality they don't.
That's because the rules are rigged - loaded in favour of the wealthiest countries and their business interests.
So no matter how hard people work in the developing world, or how much their countries produce, trade relationships benefit the rich world most.
The result is misery for hundreds of millions of people who just want the chance to make a living, feed themselves, send their kids to school and create a better future for the next generation.
So who's behind these unfair trade rules?
A handful of big international organisations set the rules and policies controlling the way we trade.
The problem is policies aren't decided democratically, but on the basis of who has the most economic clout. While paying lip-service to fairness, the richest countries, with their almost limitless resources, steer decision-making in their interests.
Poor countries lose out time and again.
Meet the big boys
Three main bodies combine to write the rules of trade:
World Trade Organisation (WTO)
World Bank
International Monetary Fund (IMF)
All three are dominated by the world's richest nations. _________________ "Talk sense to a fool and he calls you foolish." - Euripides
"No problem can be solved from the same level of consciousness that created it." - Albert Einstein
"To find yourself, think for yourself" - Socrates
Secret report: biofuel caused food crisis Internal World Bank study delivers blow to plant energy drive
Aditya Chakrabortty The Guardian, Friday July 4, 2008
Biofuels have forced global food prices up by 75% - far more than previously estimated - according to a confidential World Bank report obtained by the Guardian.
The damning unpublished assessment is based on the most detailed analysis of the crisis so far, carried out by an internationally-respected economist at global financial body.
The figure emphatically contradicts the US government's claims that plant-derived fuels contribute less than 3% to food-price rises. It will add to pressure on governments in Washington and across Europe, which have turned to plant-derived fuels to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases and reduce their dependence on imported oil.
Senior development sources believe the report, completed in April, has not been published to avoid embarrassing President George Bush.
"It would put the World Bank in a political hot-spot with the White House," said one yesterday.
The news comes at a critical point in the world's negotiations on biofuels policy. Leaders of the G8 industrialised countries meet next week in Hokkaido, Japan, where they will discuss the food crisis and come under intense lobbying from campaigners calling for a moratorium on the use of plant-derived fuels.
It will also put pressure on the British government, which is due to release its own report on the impact of biofuels, the Gallagher Report. The Guardian has previously reported that the British study will state that plant fuels have played a "significant" part in pushing up food prices to record levels. Although it was expected last week, the report has still not been released.
"Political leaders seem intent on suppressing and ignoring the strong evidence that biofuels are a major factor in recent food price rises," said Robert Bailey, policy adviser at Oxfam. "It is imperative that we have the full picture. While politicians concentrate on keeping industry lobbies happy, people in poor countries cannot afford enough to eat."
Rising food prices have pushed 100m people worldwide below the poverty line, estimates the World Bank, and have sparked riots from Bangladesh to Egypt. Government ministers here have described higher food and fuel prices as "the first real economic crisis of globalisation".
President Bush has linked higher food prices to higher demand from India and China, but the leaked World Bank study disputes that: "Rapid income growth in developing countries has not led to large increases in global grain consumption and was not a major factor responsible for the large price increases."
Even successive droughts in Australia, calculates the report, have had a marginal impact. Instead, it argues that the EU and US drive for biofuels has had by far the biggest impact on food supply and prices.
Since April, all petrol and diesel in Britain has had to include 2.5% from biofuels. The EU has been considering raising that target to 10% by 2020, but is faced with mounting evidence that that will only push food prices higher.
"Without the increase in biofuels, global wheat and maize stocks would not have declined appreciably and price increases due to other factors would have been moderate," says the report. The basket of food prices examined in the study rose by 140% between 2002 and this February. The report estimates that higher energy and fertiliser prices accounted for an increase of only 15%, while biofuels have been responsible for a 75% jump over that period.
It argues that production of biofuels has distorted food markets in three main ways. First, it has diverted grain away from food for fuel, with over a third of US corn now used to produce ethanol and about half of vegetable oils in the EU going towards the production of biodiesel. Second, farmers have been encouraged to set land aside for biofuel production. Third, it has sparked financial speculation in grains, driving prices up higher.
Other reviews of the food crisis looked at it over a much longer period, or have not linked these three factors, and so arrived at smaller estimates of the impact from biofuels. But the report author, Don Mitchell, is a senior economist at the Bank and has done a detailed, month-by-month analysis of the surge in food prices, which allows much closer examination of the link between biofuels and food supply.
The report points out biofuels derived from sugarcane, which Brazil specializes in, have not had such a dramatic impact.
Supporters of biofuels argue that they are a greener alternative to relying on oil and other fossil fuels, but even that claim has been disputed by some experts, who argue that it does not apply to US production of ethanol from plants.
"It is clear that some biofuels have huge impacts on food prices," said Dr David King, the government's former chief scientific adviser, last night. "All we are doing by supporting these is subsidising higher food prices, while doing nothing to tackle climate change."
_________________ "The conflict between corporations and activists is that of narcolepsy versus remembrance. The corporations have money, power and influence. Our sole influence is public outrage. Extract from "Cloud Atlas (page 125) by David Mitchell.
This only stands up as a credible argument if the amount of crops/land used for bio-fuel is significant. I've never actually seen anyone provide any actual stats or percentages for that.
There are many reasons why there is a food crisis right now, the world economy has gone to *, the Chinese and Indians just won't stop breeding,eating and making money, been quite a bit of droughts, floods and bad crop seasons in the last few years. And quite a lot of the world has always been starving and so to accredit those to anything now when they have occurred throughout history is pushing it.
Is bio-fuel contributing to a food shortage? Well anything that takes crops and food and uses them for something other than food will obviously reduce the amount of food in supply.
Is there a food shortage? Yes but there always has been, the third world has been starving for all of living memory. And the population of these third world countries is expanding (bizarre how starving people still fing the time for copulation) and some of them are becoming richer and so able to buy even more food.
This was always going to happen, it could be argued that we have never produced enough food to feed everyone, now more people can afford more of it and so the rest of us can afford less.
And while contributing to global famine and poverty may not be a nice thing we need bio-fuels. The world keeps whining about how much co2 is being outputted and bio-fuels help reduce that, if we stopped using them the environmentalists would soon get back on their high horse and tell us to stop destroying the planet, now we just have the humanitarians whining at us. You can't pleas everyone, it's a lose-lose situation.
But are there not alternative forms of energy? What about wind power and the like? Well yes those are perfectly good for everything else except for transport. That would be fine if we all moved to electric cars, but that just ain't gonna happen.
So we're stuck with bio-fuels and I won't be convinced of their humanitarian impact until someone shows me some hard figures.
Brazil achieves a ratio of up to ten times anergy gained versus energy input from growing ethanol crops. The USA is less than double!!! The USA is the biggest producer in the world nonetheless. I wonder what the yield from hemp would be?
With recent reports downplaying the possibility of biofuels as a solution to climate change, Giulio Sica wonders why there has been no mention of hemp as an alternative crop
January 28, 2008 4:03 PM
The Royal Society, the European Commission and the UK government have all managed, in the last few days, to take the wind out of the sails of the biofuel industry, publishing reports that suggest biofuels could be causing more harm than good, the crops not being as environmentally friendly as first thought, with the Commons environmental audit committee calling for a moratorium on biofuel targets until more research can be done.
What struck me as astonishing about these reports is that they all managed to ignore the one crop which has been successfully used for many years to create bioethanol and biodiesel, is environmentally friendlier to produce than sugar beet, palm oil, corn or any of the crops mentioned in the report and can grow in practically any temperate to hot climate leaving the ground in better condition than when it was planted.
That plant is hemp.
Last year, the Conservative MP David Maclean tabled a question to the then environment secretary, Ian Pearson, asking what assessment had been made about the potential to grow hemp as a biofuel crop in England. Pearson responded:
Research into the potential of hemp as a biofuel crop suggests it is not currently competitive compared to other sources of biomass. However, hemp does have a number of high-value end uses. For example, as a fibre crop it is used in car panels, construction and as horse bedding. In addition, hempseed oil is used in food, cosmetics and various industrial applications. As a result, there is little interest in this country at present in growing it for biofuel production.
So the government cannot point to ignorance of hemp's uses, which makes hemp's omission from any of the recent reports even more perplexing.
The fact that hemp does not need to have land cleared to grow it, grows faster than any of the crops currently used and leaves the ground in a better state when it is harvested should surely be enough for it to be considered a perfect crop to offset the carbon currently produced by fossil fuels and by the less efficient biofuels currently being so roundly criticised by the various official research bodies.
The influential Biodiesel magazine reported last year on the cultivation of hemp as a biofuel and it too could only point to its lack of economic competitiveness (due to its minimal production) as a reason for not seeing it as a viable biofuel. But surely if it was mass-produced, this one drawback could be overcome and its many benefits as an efficient biofuel could be harnessed.
As far as research and implementation of hemp for biofuel, the US is way ahead of Europe and there are a range of websites dedicated to the use of hemp as a fuel for cars.
In the UK, companies such as Hemp Global Solutions have been set up very much with climate change and the reduction of carbon emissions in mind, but there is little, if any, research in this country that has looked into the viability of the hemp plant as a fuel for cars.
So why was there not a single mention of this miracle crop, that, in addition to being able to be used as fuel, can also be used as paper, cloth, converted into plastic and is a rich food source containing high levels of protein?
http://hempmuseum.org/index.htm _________________ "The conflict between corporations and activists is that of narcolepsy versus remembrance. The corporations have money, power and influence. Our sole influence is public outrage. Extract from "Cloud Atlas (page 125) by David Mitchell.
Joined: 27 Mar 2006 Posts: 486 Location: Manchester
Posted: Fri Jul 18, 2008 2:27 pm Post subject:
The following comes from a poster in response to Hugh Fearnley-Whittingtons question "
Quote:
As we appear to be on the brink of a global food crisis, is it time to rethink farming methods? How?
Given that we appear to be on the brink of a global food crisis, should we be making the world's farms even bigger and more efficient, or should we be making them smaller? Is it time to dismantle the industrial food machine, or should we be cranking it up to the next level?
found here;http://uk.answers.yahoo.com/question/index;_ylt=AjgGjaPuQ3JBuYM7t KbKQq4gBgx.;_ylv=3?qid=20080716023212AA2930M
I'm not vouching for the information but is is better sourced than many comments from that dire argument. It went largely ignored but I feel it is probably closer to the truth than the idea that we struggle globally to produce enough food to feed everyone. Admittedly the references are old and thus are they now relevant?
Here is what the poster had to say;
Quote:
Farming methods have nothing to do with the level of hunger in the world. We already create more than enough food for every single person on this mudball to stuff themselves until they drop dead from overeating. The U.N.'s Population Reference Bureau is quite clear that the main cause of hunger in the world today is poverty. In their landmark study on hunger, “Population, Food, and Nutrition” they don’t even consider increased food production as a possible solution to the hunger problem. Hunger still exists because many poor people around the world lack the resources to buy enough food. In other words, people are starving to death (more correctly, being starved to death) through poverty, not though lack of food. It's pointless trying to work out why poverty exists in the world, but considering the money thrown at the problem – the G8 summit increased aid to Africa from $25 billion to $50 billion US in 2005 – it is certainly an intractable one. What desperate sinkhole of poverty couldn’t be cured by fifty billion dollars?
The fact remains that we produce enough food to supply all six billion people on this planet with a massive excess left over. There is so much food available, in fact, that everyone who can afford it has a plentiful supply. This is what the United Nations has to say on the subject:
“... Despite the dire predictions that the world’s population would soon outstrip food production, it has been the other way around: food production has risen a full 16 per cent above population growth. The American Association for the Advancement of Science has noted that 78 per cent of the world’s malnourished children live in countries with food surpluses. Clearly, this condition indicates a need for a keener social conscience and better political leadership ....There is enough food to go around now and for at least the next half-century. The world is not going to run out of food for all.” (http://www.goveg.com/worldhunger)
It is not a matter of making more food. We don’t need to. We already make more than enough. The problem is with food distribution. Food surpluses in Europe and the United States are either suppressed by subsidies to farmers who agree not to grow certain crops during periods of overproduction, or they are destroyed. They are not loaded into bulk grain carriers and shipped to areas of the world blighted by famine. If they were the problem might be solved. Might.
How can we have a net surplus of food in the world while a significant proportion of the human population is not merely undernourished but starving to death en masse? Given that it is true that "Due to advances in agriculture of many countries, there is now a substantial world surplus of food" (Abelson, P.H. (1972). World Food. Science, 236,9.) how is it that “more people than ever before are undernourished or malnourished”. (Curtain, M.E. (1985 July). Development and food. Inter-American Development Bank News, p. 3.)
The standard economic definition of surplus is not just ‘too much’, as you would think it might be. Economists can make anything more complex than it needs to be, that’s why they have a Nobel Prize just for them. “Surplus” is defined as a supply situation where buyers do not exhaust available supply while still paying a unit price acceptable to sellers. Right. Glad we got that sorted out. Used in connection with world population and their food requirements, the words "food surplus" are worse than misleading. Only from food producers' point of view is there surplus. From many potential customers, there is shortage. There is widespread famine even in countries that are net exporters of food. (Poleman, T.T. (1969). World food: A perspective. Science, 173, 510-518) There is surplus largely because millions of people in these countries simply don’t have the financial clout to create an economic demand sufficient to interest suppliers. (Wortman, S. (1980). World food and nutrition: The scientific and technological base. Science, 209, 157- 164.)
For example in India the National Institute of Nutrition estimated that as many as 50% of rural households and 55% of urban slum households do not have enough food to meet daily energy requirements. Yet India exports massive amounts of food and makes huge export income as a result. The food has been distributed out of the country and away from starving people because they cannot afford to buy it, and consumers in other countries can. India exports rice, wheat, sugarcane, tea, cotton, jute, cashews, coffee, spices, “other vegetables”, melons, sorghum, millet, corn, barley, chickpeas, bananas, and mangoes, all of which are desperately needed by their indigent, underfed people, none of whom can afford to pay the prices we Westerners can.
We make enough food for the entire population of the world. Food shortages are caused by poverty and inequitable distribution of food, not the lack of food supplies.
* 2 days ago
Is this total bunkum or does this chap have his facts straight despite the age of the references? _________________ The Peoples United Collective TPUC.ORG
Mexico loses 80-100% of crops to freeze, US prices to skyrocket
+
Houston - The cold weather experienced across much of the US in early February made its way deep into Mexico and early reports estimate 80-100 percent crop losses which are having an immediate impact on prices at US grocery stores with more volatility to come.
Wholesale food suppliers have already sent notices to supermarket retailers describing the produce losses in Mexico and the impact shoppers can expect. Sysco sent out a release(pdf) this week stating the early February freeze reached as far south as Los Mochis and south of Culiacan, both located in the state of Sinaloa, along the Gulf of California. The freezing temperatures were the worst the region has seen since 1957.
According to Sysco’s notice sent out this week:
“The early reports are still coming in but most are showing losses of crops in the range of 80 to 100%. Even shade house product was hit by the extremely cold temps. It will take 7-10 days to have a clearer picture from growers and field supervisors, but these growing regions haven’t had cold like this in over half a century.”
At this time of year, Mexico is a major supplier to the US and Canada for green beans, cucumbers, squash, eggplant, asparagus, peppers and round and Roma tomatoes. Compounding the problem is the freezing cold that hit Florida in December and January.
Sysco continued with its dire report:
“Florida normally is a major supplier for these items as well but they have already been struck with severe freeze damage in December and January and up until now have had to purchase product out of Mexico to fill their commitments, that is no longer an option.”
Validating that statement, The Packer released a statement at the end of December stating:
“Freeze damage to Florida crops could increase demand for Mexican vegetables for the rest of winter, grower-shippers say.”
That December report noted Florida’s cold temperatures and crop loss but was optimistic over Mexico’s produce, even if prices were climbing. “My gut feeling tells me the Mexican deal is going to be very active,” said Ken Maples, sales manager for Plantation Produce in Mission, Texas, according to The Packer.
“Green beans in Florida were seriously hurt. Romas that are $10 or $10.95 today in 25-pound bulk, I look for it to be in the mid-teens,” Maples added.
But that was December. On Wednesday, The Packer reported that:
“Supplies of tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers and other vegetables from Mexico will be severely limited until at least March following an early February freeze.”
Wholesale prices for many crops have already begun climbing, doubling and almost tripling what they were at the beginning of February.
The Packer notes that the short-term, mid-term and long-term outlook for some crops is “devastating” and using this week’s pricing as a gauge of what is in store for consumers noted:
“On Feb. 8, the U.S. Department of Agriculture reported prices of $22.95-24.95 for two-layer cartons of 4x4, 5x5 and 5x6 vine-ripe field-grown tomatoes from Mexico, up from $6.95-9.95 the week before and $5.95-7.95 the year before.”
Jerry Wagner, sales and marketing director for Farmer’s Best, based in Nogales, AZ, said: “The end of February and the first half of March, there will be even worse shortages of product” than during the first part of February, The Packer reports.
Wagner called it “a miracle” if 20 percent of the cucumber crop survives. Yellow, green and grey squash took the biggest hit. “Some plants will come back but the vast majority is lost,” Wagner added.
Sysco called the Mexico freeze an “unprecedented disaster” and noted the volatility of the matter in its release:
“With the series of weather disasters that has occurred in both of these major growing areas we will experience immediate volatile prices, expected limited availability, and mediocre quality at best.”
Mike Alton, marketing director for Prime Time International LLC based in Coachella, CA said: “We’re in for a long, tough haul,” according to The Packer.
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