Panicked Food Buying by Govts.

[traelin0]

As usual, governments generally act after it hits the fan, and this time is no exception.

According to a recent report out of Islamabad, governments across the world have finally realized that the rise in essential food commodities, coupled with an ever increasing global population and decreased production related to weather and climate, may be the single most dangerous catalyst for political uprisings:

Governments in Asia, the Middle East and North Africa have recently made large food purchases on the open market in the wake of unrest in Tunisia which deposed president Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali.

Resentment at food shortages and high prices, as well as repression and corruption, drove the popular uprising which swept away his government.

…

Algeria purchased 800,000 tonnes of milling wheat on Wednesday and Saudi Arabia has said it will purchase enough wheat for a 12 month reserve.

Egypt, which has seen several days of unrest in part provoked by high food prices, is expected to follow.

Bangladesh has tripled its rice import target and Indonesia this week bought 820,000 tonnes of Thai rice.

Throughout history, governments have used food as a weapon - but when those governments can’t acquire the food they use to control the people, their very existence is threatened.

As trend forecaster Gerald Celente has oft repeated, when the people are broke and hungry and lose everything, and they have nothing left to lose, they lose it. This is the effect that’s sweeping the Middle East today. And, if Western governments don’t figure out a way to get prices under control, we’ll see food riots and political uprisings spread to Europe (again) and the United States.

www.shtfplan.com/headline-news/panic-buying-governments-in-asia-mid-east-and-africa-stocking-up-on-food-reserves-as-prices-rise-riots-rage_02012011

[ed1066]

Interesting story, but that's a great website, Trae! Thanks for hooking me up with it.

[traelin0]

No problem, and yes, it's a great website.

[Savoir Faire-Demogague in NJ]

And the US is one of the largest food producers in the world. We should be using this as a weapon, much like radical oil producing nations use oil against us.

[workpublic]

food for oil. or peg the price of food grains to a barrel of oil for oil producing countries.

[Savoir Faire-Demogague in NJ]

food for oil. or peg the price of food grains to a barrel of oil for oil producing countries.

We need people like you making these decisions in govt.
Too many bleeding hearts in our fed govt, who are unable to come up with outside the box thinking such as this.

[BeenThere...DoneThat...]

...imo, this is reminiscent of the book, "Days of Hunger, Days of Chaos," which included political discussions intermixed with his Christian thoughts...

[floridayankee]

Feb 2, 2011 7:47:40 GMT -5 workpublic said:

food for oil. or peg the price of food grains to a barrel of oil for oil producing countries.

The problem with that is the oil producing country would simply buy food from a non oil producing country for a slight premium over what they bought it from us for.

[workpublic]

Sav,

how are the sidewalks down in the canyon?

Breaking News from CBS2. tragedy in NY. Minutes ago someone slipped on ice in NYC. more as it comes in. Stay tuned to CBS for up to the minute coverage of this major tragedy facing our nation. we don't know if this is an isolated incident or if there is a pattern Homeland Security is keeping tight lipped.

[fairlycrazy23]

I don't think we are anywhere near peak food production even with all the global calamities.

We probably need to return land for bio fuel production back to food production, and dramatically increase our domestic energy production.

[floridayankee]

Feb 2, 2011 10:55:25 GMT -5 fairlycrazy23 said:

We probably need to return land for bio fuel production back to food production, and dramatically increase our domestic energy production.

Or quit paying farmers not to farm. DW's mother and brother inherited 140 acres (or maybe 140 acres is just my MIL's portion...dont' know for sure) in IA that they have in CRP.

[fairlycrazy23]

I wonder how much idle land is tied up in CRP, I don't think people have a clue how much meddling the Federal Government does.

Many of these plans/acts/laws whatever are somewhat good natured, but when Government is involved it almost always go way beyond the initial intent and scope and has bureaucratic creep.

Stick this in here as this will undoubtedly effect milk prices:

www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2011/02/01/spilled_milk_108727.html

May also reduce the supply of milk, if a producer doesn't think it is worth the effort

[Savoir Faire-Demogague in NJ]

The problem with that is the oil producing country would simply buy food from a non oil producing country for a slight premium over what they bought it from us for.

The wild card is that transaction takes place in US dollars.

We also are the top producers in nearly every category as show in the following link, which has data only as late as 2005. I cannot vouch for the site or the data...but the US holds all the Aces as well as the wild cards.

www.fao.org/es/ess/top/topproduction.html?lang=en&country=231&year=2005

[floridayankee]

Feb 2, 2011 11:19:06 GMT -5 fairlycrazy23 said:

I wonder how much idle land is tied up in CRP, I don't think people have a clue how much meddling the Federal Government does.

Many of these plans/acts/laws whatever are somewhat good natured, but when Government is involved it almost always go way beyond the initial intent and scope and has bureaucratic creep.

Nationally, the CRP program lost 4.5 million acres at the end of September 2010 due to expiring CRP contracts. The program is enrolling 4.3 million acres as a result of the 2010 general signup. That will bring total U.S. enrollment in CRP to 31.2 million acres, which is enough to get close to the program's 32-million acre cap while leaving room for additional acres of especially sensitive land to be added to the program.

According to another website, "An acre of U.S. corn yields about 7,110 pounds of corn for processing into 328 gallons of ethanol."
31.2 million acres CRP land producing 7,110 pounds of corn has the potential to produce enough corn for either food or approximately 10,233,600,000 gallons of ethanol.

[workpublic]

many of "foreign food suppliers" are not exporting anymore. especially rice producing nations.