24-Sep-10 News -- UN meets to discuss surging food prices

[John]

24-Sep-10 News -- UN meets to discuss surging food prices

Wheat prices have risen by 60% in the last 12 months.

** 24-Sep-10 News -- UN meets to discuss surging food prices
** http://www.generationaldynamics.com/cgi ... 24#e100924

Contents:
"United Nations schedules emergency meeting over surging food prices"

[xakzen]

In David Hackett Fischer's "The Great Wave" which tracks food & commodities prices from the 14th Century to the end of the 20th, he talks about as the population growth it puts more pressure on the available land. The people attempt to cultivate more and more marginal land which is not as productive. This only increases the food inflation as productivity collapses. I know that Fischer's cycles are much longer than GD predicts, but is it possible that more of the less productive lands in the Black Sea region have been brought back into cultivation and that is causing the disruptions. Likewise I remember natural science teachers in the 80's telling us that the suburban sprawl in this country was removing some of the most productive land from cultivation, but it's never talked about today. Certainly the sprawl here in Arizona is not productive, but it does put a great deal of pressure on the water resources. Like the LA aqueduct effectively destroying the Owens Valley from productive use.

[The Grey Badger]

Fischer's cycles seem to be what I'm calling Megacycles. The last one peaked right after the end of the 18th Century mega-Crisis and leveled off in the 19th Century Mega-High. The slow climb upwards began at the start of the 20th Century Mega-Awakening and is peaking with the early 21st Century Mega-Unraveling. There are threads on Fourth Turning about Mega Cycles.

[boqueronman]

"population grows faster than the food supply..."

From Douglas Southgate at the Electronic Journal of Sustainable Development:

"During the second half of the twentieth century, human numbers and food demand grew at an unprecedented pace, yet food supplies increased even faster. Demographic expansion is now slackening, due to dramatic reductions in human fertility in Asia, Latin America, and other parts of the world. However, demand for edible goods will continue to go up, mainly because improved living standards are causing per-capita consumption to rise. To avoid mounting food scarcity, the geographic expansion of agriculture at the expense of forests and other habitats, or both, effective investment in research and development, especially in agricultural biotechnology, is needed so that per-hectare yields can continue increasing."

"[C]ommodity prices have recently been rising again – and this may continue for some time (though the very high prices of 2008 were probably driven in large part by the excessive supply of money and speculative purchases). One reason is that demand for food is continuing to grow, in large part because of improved living standards and diets. In light of demand growth, greater support for technological improvement, which has been the main reason why food supplies have increased faster than demand, is absolutely essential. Sadly, this support has been sorely lacking for many years. Barring a renewed commitment to technological improvement, including the widest possible use of agricultural biotechnology, there is little chance that food prices will return to the low levels which were taken for granted just a few years ago. As a result, food insecurity could well worsen south of the Sahara and in other impoverished settings."

Conclusions:

1. World fertility rates are falling, allowing agriculture yields to exceed world population growth;
2. Demand for edible foodstuffs will continue to rise, reflecting a shift from basic foodstuffs to animal protein as the world middle class grows;
3. There are existing means of forestalling any real world-wide food crisis - expansion of cultivated land and advancing bio-technology.
4. As I have said before every single regional/national famine in the post WWII world (see particularly Mao's China, Ethiopia, and Mozambique) has been caused by governmental interference in markets.

Now since it's clear that any implication that the world's population is growing faster than the food supply has been falsified, what are the real problems facing world food production. Beyond question to ensure that the positive world food trend continues, the scientists, politicians, and the general public must reverse the influence of the radical environmental community on government and international institution agricultural policies. The radical environmentalists have demonstrated repeatedly that they can create "threatened species" and stop agricultural production. Furthermore, they have succeeded in blocking implementation of Norman Borlaug's "Green Revolution" in Africa that moved India from the world's largest food aid recipient in the 1950s to stable and self-sufficient agriculture now. Along these same lines, they have blocked access to European import markets for GMA food products produced in Africa and the rest of the developing world by such Luddite techniques as labeling them "Frankenfoods."

The task at hand is clear. The radical environmentalists, who are already responsible for the deaths of millions of Africans resulting from their successful campaign, with no scientific justification, to ban DDT, must be shown for what they are, dedicated to the reduction of the world's human population be whatever means necessary.

[vincecate]

Sovereign wealth funds from the Mid-East, as well as state-entities from China, the Pacific Rim, and even India are trying to lock up chunks of the world's future food supply [...]

Some of us believe they are doing this because they realize that the value of the US paper dollars will be going down in the near future. They are also buying up oil production, gold mines, any resources. Farm land is just one of many types of resources they are buying. They want to spend some of their huge supply of dollars while they can still buy something of real value.

Amazingly, while this is going on, there are still all kinds of people who insist that when China has a trade surplus all they can do is buy treasury bonds. China has reduced their treasury holdings by $100 billion over the last year and bought up huge parts of Australia and Africa, and people still insist that the only thing China can do with the dollars they get is buy bonds. Facts don't phase them, so far.

There are no reserves backing the dollar. The only thing holding up the value is that other countries still like to hold it as a reserve currency, so far.

When the US was printing dollars and buying stuff from China, and then China was sending the dollars back to buy Treasury bonds, there was not much inflation. As China takes the new dollars they get and spends them, they will drive up the price of oil, gold, land, rice, iron, copper, etc. With time the US will start to notice real price inflation. Then all the bond holders getting 1% interest will look at 6% and rising inflation and bail out of bonds. They will go into resources or commodities. Then inflation will go up more, then ...

[John]

> During the second half of the twentieth century, human numbers and
> food demand grew at an unprecedented pace, yet food supplies
> increased even faster.

This is true, but totally irrelevant. I've written about this
subject many times over the years

The Green Revolution was wonderful, but it petered out in the 1990s.
The innovations that the Silent Generation implemented in the 1960s
were great, but the Boomers and Generation-Xers came to power in the
1990s have let everything slide. The farmland in India that responded
well to fertilizers and insecticides in the 1960s are now saturated
and unresponsive (Law of Diminishing Returns). The equipment that was
so modern in the 1960s and 1970s is broken down today. The Green
Revolution is over.

It's only since the year 2000 that the Malthus Effect (my name for the
phenomenon that population grows faster than the food supply) has
really taken effect. Any statistics from years prior to 2000 are
irrelevant.

> Demographic expansion is now slackening, due to dramatic
> reductions in human fertility in Asia, Latin America, and other
> parts of the world.

This is a weird United Nations fantasy which they use to justify
their fund raising appeals.

I posted the following table a while ago, but it's worth repeating:

Population Growth Rate

Western countries:

United States 0.97%
United Kingdom 0.28%
France 0.53%
Germany -0.06%
Israel 1.63%
Spain 0.05%
South Africa -0.05%
Japan -0.24%

Other non-Muslim countries:

Russia -0.47%
Vietnam 1.10%
China 0.49%
Thailand 0.60%
India 1.38%
Mongolia 1.50%
Korea, North 0.39%
Korea, South 0.26%
Iran 0.94% (Shia Muslim)


Sunni Muslim (especially Arab) countries:

Indonesia 1.10%
Uzbekistan 0.94%
Turkmenistan 1.14%
Syria 1.95%
Saudi Arabia 1.75%
Iraq 2.45%
Libya 2.12%
Egypt 2.00%
West Bank 2.13%
Gaza Strip 3.29%
Pakistan 1.51%
Kuwait 3.50%
United Arab Emirates 3.56%
Yemen 2.71%

https://www.cia.gov/library/publication ... 2rank.html

Note: For comparison purposes, my rough calculation is that the food
supply has a growth rate of about 0.96%.

The imbalances in population growth in Sunni Muslim countries will
have the effect of food shortages because of distribution issues. Even
if there's enough food in the world to feed everyone, it's meaningless
unless the food can be distributed to everyone, and that's
becoming more and more difficult.

** UN expert calls biofuels a 'crime against humanity'
** http://www.generationaldynamics.com/cgi ... 07#e071107

> 4. As I have said before every single regional/national famine in
> the post WWII world (see particularly Mao's China, Ethiopia, and
> Mozambique) has been caused by governmental interference in
> markets.

And as I've said before, the Malthus Effect does not cause famines.
It causes wars, and there have been plenty of those.

> Now since it's clear that any implication that the world's
> population is growing faster than the food supply has been
> falsified,

Bullshit.

John

[John]

Dear Vince,

> John wrote:Sovereign wealth funds from the Mid-East, as well as
> state-entities from China, the Pacific Rim, and even India are
> trying to lock up chunks of the world's future food supply [...]

> Some of us believe they are doing this because they realize that
> the value of the US paper dollars will be going down in the near
> future. They are also buying up oil production, gold mines, any
> resources. Farm land is just one of many types of resources they
> are buying. They want to spend some of their huge supply of
> dollars while they can still buy something of real value.

It's nice that you always find a way to stay on message, Vince. If
you ever tire of being a gold salesman, you should consider politics.
Have you considered asking the Queen to appoint you the Governor of
Anguilla?

John

[vincecate]

It's nice that you always find a way to stay on message, Vince. If you ever tire of being a gold salesman, you should consider politics. Have you considered asking the Queen to appoint you the Governor of Anguilla?

I am not by nature a good salesman. I am much more the engineer type where being exactly truthful is more important than making a sale. Also, I am not nearly good enough with names and faces to make it in politics. However, given that I really believe in the product, selling gold is ok for me.

But, for the record, I wrote most of my document on the economic mess and the US dollar before I started my gold business. It is because of what I think will happen to the dollar and my wanting to have some kind of business that would still be able to make money even if the dollar failed that I started my gold business. It is not that I am saying these things to try to sell gold.

http://pair.offshore.ai/38yearcycle/

[OLD1953]

It's always worth keeping in mind that a large percentage of the grain supply is eaten or spoiled by vermin each year.

[xakzen]

It's always worth keeping in mind that a large percentage of the grain supply is eaten or spoiled by vermin each year.

Who u calling vermin ?