www.byzcath.org Forums General Discussions Town Hall A World Wide Food Shortage ?

Very interesting and frightening article from the New York Sun http://nysun.com/news/food-rationing-confronts-breadbasket-world World food prices have gone up 40 pct since the middle of 2007 and on ABC's World News Tonight it was reported that those convicted of rice hoarding in the Philippines could be sentenced to life imprisonment. Perhaps the Black Horse is upon us.

I am very sorry for the rest of the world, but for all of us in the U.S. who have been enjoying cheap food prices to the point of unprecedented gluttonous excess, a food shortage and more expensive food costs may be a good thing for our collective health and for our health care system.

One thing the Orthodox fast teaches you is that eating alot less food, but more healthful and balanced food, will certainly not kill you.

On the other hand, junk food, fast food, many restaurant foods, and processed food will.

Alice

Well it is rediculous when they take food to make gasoline for cars. When they started talking about this, I always asked who was going to feed the people. They say that the grain it takes to make gas for one fill up of an SUV and feed one person for a year.

Careful PR, we may need to start examining our consumption of corn-fed beef in this nation...

Understand it also does not follow that the fields put into corn production for fuel usage would otherwise have been used to grow corn for food...

I understand that some existing corn fields have been alloted to fuel, so yes, food was taken away to make gasoline. The government probably subsides fuel corn more...

If you read the article carefully, you'll notice a lot of shoddy reporting and no "world-wide foot shortage". The whole article is based on anecdotal evidence, not any hard statistics. It says things like:

• �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.�
• �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.
• 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.

No exactly "hard" reporting. However, I do agree with Alice - our country is so extremely gluttonous that we think not "super-sizing" our McDonald's is healthy! We could all stand to eat less, and eat more healthy.

I'd say it's more than just rumors. Today the BBC is reporting that the price of rice in Asia went from $460 a ton on March 3, to more than $1000 7 weeks later, and the global price of wheat and maize have nearly doubled in the last year.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7360485.stm

I have strong belief that both the land and the sea can provide plenty of food for the mankind. God created this world and He offered to us so many richness.

On the other hand, the world is very unbalanced. It seems that our modern and civilized world, i.e. Europe and North America, is not so smart. Too much trash food and supermarkets full with futile things.

Regarding the gasoline, it began to be beyond my possibilities...here a gallon (I calculated correctly) of Diesel gas for a car costs no more no less than 7.25 $.

However, we must a change in the global thought and politics, more balanced.

In Christ, Marian+

Food shortage? What food shortage?
What is meant that there is no shortage of greed.
There is plenty of availability of food if the market wants.
The US alone could feed the entire world and what shall we say of Europe. I remember back in the 70's - 80's when they would dump out tons of milk to control the price.
California alone could produce more than enough food for the entire nation were it not for the fact of ecological maniacs gone amuck.

Sorry Alice, I agree in theory with what you say about healthy and moderate eating, but food should be inexpensive, because it is a necessity of life. Inexpensive for EVERYONE even the poor.
The poor do not have such luxury afforded them.

It is in our power to eat moderately if we so choose.
Stephanos I

I have no problem whatsoever with America feeding the rest of the world if it's done exclusively through charitable efforts. But if people suggest that the resources of one nation somehow belong to the whole world I have a major problem with that.

Imagine what would think a soul from Sub-Sahara if would step into a big supermarket from the USA or Occident.

He or she would feel a shock. People!, there are souls who have not a bowl with rice or drinkable water, zero or little meds etc.

If they threw the milk, this tell something about the quality of our civilization, right? Food must NOT be thrown at all!

However, from my very experience, I know how is to live with one or less than a $ per day. It is a nightmare, a pain from day to the next.

"On the other hand, the world is very unbalanced. It seems that our modern and civilized world, i.e. Europe and North America, is not so smart. Too much trash food and supermarkets full with futile things."

What is trash food? If you are speaking of the processed foods and junk food like potato chips then I'd have to agree. The "American diet" is imbalanced to foods with too much sugar and salt.

Terry

Let's not forget that it is junk food that is cheap. Not meat or produce. Prices go up--more junk will be consumed.

I don't know if the correlation is so simple. American consumers spend far less of their income on food than other countries where food takes a good percentage of the budget. If it comes down to a movie and dinner or a meal of vegetables cooked at home there will be those out there who would prefer the movie and eating out, but others who would see the movie and dinner as a luxury.

Terry

Putting on my economist's hat, I'll make a couple of observations:

1) Fuel costs are a significant fractoin of the cost of food production. When oil goes up, so does food.

2) Ethanol (corn alcohol gas substitute) in the US today exists *SOLELY* due to the federal subsidy. It makes no sense, but ADM gets a check for every gallon. That aside, corn is a particularly poor choice for the fermentables for alcohol fuel; there are other crops requiring less resources to produce that themselves yield a multiple per acre of what corn does (hemp, kudzu, and I think rapeseed, just to start). I don't know if it's still true, but as of a couple of years ago, producing a gallon of ethanol consumed more fuel in production than it replaced!

3) I may be up to two years out of date on this, but I'd doubt it. There is not a single country in the world today that does not have enough food to feed it's population--yet there are countries in which people are dying of starvation. In *every* case it is a matter of distribution, not presence in the country. This includes oppressive governments, corrupt governments, rebels obstructing/seizing, and so forth.

hawk, using his doc