I hate it when I'm right. Because Im a cynic.

[luckytroll]

Some may remember an earlier post That I made regarding a threat to the worlds supplies of high quality wheat - this alarmed me, because our entire civilization is based on eating grass seeds of some kind or another (Potato and Yam farmers excepted) or eating animals that eat those grains. When a major grain is threatened by a non-local non-climate factor, like a virulent bio antagonist (in this case rust fungus), it becomes everyones problem.

My call on the wheat side was that increased demand would raise prices for those who could afford it, force those who couldnt to do with cheaper forms of wheat that werent affected, and force the poorest who had no alternatives to starve.

My quip at the time was "At least we still have rice".  But on the news this week, countries that have in the past been net exporters of rice are now limiting their exports in order to meet local demand. This is predicted to affect global rice markets. Strike two. And we already have half a strike going for corn, because MDCs are gulping up large amounts of it as part of the "green" revolution, and digesting it into Ethanol for consumption by cars.

So Canadians will pay more to feed themselves, and their cars. No biggie. Farmers here might even start to get fair dollar for their products. But the ramifications for the teetering countries could be staggering. A 40 percent increase in food costs for a person who can barely afford the fees to send their kids to school, is a transition into famine. Especially if that someone is one of the billions who has moved to a city this decade, and no longer lives by making food.

In the past, using surplus energy and food to feed people who were unfortunate to live in parts of the world with no tradable resources, and failing agricultural bases was something that was done grudgingly, but at least done. Now the flow is reversing, and food that might have gone to feed people in hellish places now becomes scarce, or at least scarce for them. And they become reservoirs of discontented folks willing to do anything to eat.

Perhaps the "raft" predictions of Snow Crash are not so far off?

Comments

[iambic-cub.livejournal.com]

Luckily, the Irvings, via their "Cavendish Farms" brand, has managed to get the Chinese addicted to french fries. The Chinese won't starve, but instead they'll all weigh 400 pounds.

[travis-w.livejournal.com]

I was reading an article about this just this morning. It would appear to be a combination of increasing oil costs (which translates into increasing fertalizer costs) pushing up the cost of producing grain on the one hand and the push for bio-fuels in western countries which is encouraging farmers to switch to producing corn... reducing the available supply of other grains (and pushing up prices further).

http://www.reason.com/news/show/125883.html

[kiwano.livejournal.com]

Except that the rust fungus isn't the only thing driving up wheat prices. Other factors include a massive drought in Australia, and replanting of wheat fields into corn fields owing to the dramatically increased demand for corn as cattle feed, as well as for biofuels.

The corn-related factors can be significantly reduced by people accepting limits on how much they can drive, and how much beef they can eat. Another thing that we ought to look at cutting back on is feeding grains to ruminants, instead of just grazing them on lands that we'd have no hope of extracting significant amounts of food energy from otherwise. I mean you're sure as hell not going to grow wheat or corn on the canadian shield, but ruminants flourish in that environment nonetheless.