Era of "cheap food" ending?

blacbird · Jan 30, 2011

http://www.http://www.msnbc.msn.com...msnbc.msn.com/id/41311106/ns/business-retail/

Pay attention to the share prices of major agribusiness corporations. You don't think Monsanto execs aren't sitting in their Italian leather-upholstered desk thrones just rubbing their hands with glee at this development? I'm sure we'll be happy to send tens of thousands of military troops anywhere they want in order to protect their foreign commercial interests, too. At your and my expense.

jennontheisland · Jan 30, 2011

Americans pay substantially less for food than Canadians, and I imagine than other countries as well. I spend 3-4 times in Winnipeg what I'd have to spend in Texas to feed myself for a week. And I budget. And I mean budget.

Welcome to what the rest of us deal with.

ETA: Your link is messed.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/41311106

Don · Jan 30, 2011

blacbird said:
http://www.http://www.msnbc.msn.com...msnbc.msn.com/id/41311106/ns/business-retail/

Pay attention to the share prices of major agribusiness corporations. You don't think Monsanto execs aren't sitting in their Italian leather-upholstered desk thrones just rubbing their hands with glee at this development? I'm sure we'll be happy to send tens of thousands of military troops anywhere they want in order to protect their foreign commercial interests, too. At your and my expense.

We'll have no choice. Monsanto is "too big to fail."

LOG · Jan 30, 2011

I can survive for a whole year on a single drop of dew and the energy of the universe.
So, hah!

Cranky · Jan 30, 2011

Um, your link isn't working for me, blacbird.

Don · Jan 30, 2011

Jenn's works, Cranky.

Deleted member 42 · Jan 30, 2011

Monsanto is a force for evil.

Not that I'm biased, or anything.

Also? Their corn and tomatoes suck.

Go heirloom. Go archaic breed.

Don · Jan 30, 2011

Medievalist said:
Monsanto is a force for evil.

Not that I'm biased, or anything.

Also? Their corn and tomatoes suck.

Go heirloom. Go archaic breed.

What Medi said. Protect our heritage and our children's future.

mario_c · Jan 30, 2011

I've joked that organic helps you lose weight...by making it impossible to afford food. But it's looking like a more serious situation when you look at how all these staples and many more are becoming more costly to grow and distribute at the demand we want.

Dommo · Jan 30, 2011

In my opinion, there's nothing wrong with GM crops, but I do have a problem with the companies that develop them.

Monsanto operates like the mob, and routinely extorts farmers who's crops get crosspollinated by Monsanto's GM plants. They've also utilized some other less than ethical means to interfere with the way that farmers use their land.

Don · Jan 30, 2011

mario_c said:
I've joked that organic helps you lose weight...by making it impossible to afford food. But it's looking like a more serious situation when you look at how all these staples and many more are becoming more costly to grow and distribute at the demand we want.

Simple living, local markets, gardening and other efforts at self-sufficiency -- not just for survivalists anymore.

veinglory · Jan 30, 2011

The article is about how crop failures have led to shortage and higher prices. This is as true in the US as in any other country with corn prices at an all time high, and pork prices rising as a result (because pigs eat corn).

The is plenty to talk about re: GM and vertically-intergrated farming but if there is a link from this link to that discussion I am not sure what it is.

2Wheels · Jan 30, 2011

GMO crops are not the answer to food shortages because they're inherently subject to full-out destruction by any new blight/soil problem that shows up for which they have not been engineered. Bio-diversity allows for at least some members of a crop to have the necessary resistance, to survive and go on to make the next generation.

Don · Jan 30, 2011

2Wheels said:
GMO crops are not the answer to food shortages because they're inherently subject to full-out destruction by any new blight/soil problem that shows up for which they have not been engineered. Bio-diversity allows for at least some members of a crop to have the necessary resistance, to survive and go on to make the next generation.

Right there's the basis for one hell of a novel about biowarfare. Or a nightmare, if you prefer. What happens if terrorists gengineer that blight?

Diversification: It's not just for evolution anymore.

billythrilly7th · Jan 30, 2011

Food will stay the same price with normal increase rates.

The era of cheap food is not ending.

You heard it here first.

Manuel Royal · Jan 30, 2011

Well, I've always expected that if I lived long enough I'd see our population explosion curbed by vast famines and wars related to the most basic resources -- food and water. We may look back fondly to when we fought wars because of oil.

As noted, biodiversity isn't just a feel-good idea. There used to be hundreds of different varieties of wheat grown in the U.S., not to mention potatoes and all the other food crops.

dmytryp · Jan 30, 2011

The battle to feed all of humanity is over. In the 1970s and 1980s hundreds of millions of people will starve to death in spite of any crash programs embarked upon now. At this late date nothing can prevent a substantial increase in the world death rate...[2]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Population_Bomb

Zoombie · Jan 30, 2011

Dommo said:
In my opinion, there's nothing wrong with GM crops, but I do have a problem with the companies that develop them.

Monsanto operates like the mob, and routinely extorts farmers who's crops get crosspollinated by Monsanto's GM plants. They've also utilized some other less than ethical means to interfere with the way that farmers use their land.

This!

blacbird · Jan 30, 2011

Cranky said:
Um, your link isn't working for me, blacbird.

Apologies. Have no idea why. Lots of other things don't work for me, too. But Jenn's link does, so go there.

billythrilly7th · Jan 30, 2011

Manuel Royal said:
Well, I've always expected that if I lived long enough I'd see our population explosion curbed by vast famines and wars related to the most basic resources -- food and water. We may look back fondly to when we fought wars because of oil.

s.

You will live the rest of your life here in the U.S. with plenty of food and water available. There will never be a famine related to food and water in your lifetime unless we have a nuclear war. I promise you.

How an article about little bit higher prices this year do to a few issues gets turned into THE END OF LOW FOOD PRICES and U.S. Famine I will never understand.

Thank you.

blacbird · Jan 31, 2011

Trilzy, if you actually read the article, it wasn't so much about higher food prices in the U.S. as it was about what happens when food prices (and availability) diminish in places elsewhere, where people are just barely getting along as it is. A huge part of what is happening in Egypt right now is rooted in the abject poverty much of the population lives in. You can substitute any number of nation names for "Egypt" in that preceding sentence; try "Mexico", for instance.

There are a whole bunch of people living elsewhere in the world than in the United States of America. Find a globe and take a good look at it.

LOG · Jan 31, 2011

Amartya Sen won the Nobel prize (in part) for showing that famines don't happen in democracies.
Starvation has been known to happen from time to time, but mass deaths from a lack of food across whole nations just doesn't happen in democracies, traditionally.
It's one reason people may want to change to democratic systems of government, they don't have to worry about their own body potentially eating them.

The end of cheap food availability doesn't precursor an end to food availability, this isn't oil.

Don · Jan 31, 2011

billythrilly7th said:
You will live the rest of your life here in the U.S. with plenty of food and water available. There will never be a famine related to food and water in your lifetime unless we have a nuclear war. I promise you.

I think you're right, billy... If Manuel is a very, very old man with one foot on a banana peel and the other in the grave. If he's Zoombie's age, not so much.

Bird of Prey · Jan 31, 2011

As Cranky said, the link doesn't work. Anybody got an alternative link??

Don · Jan 31, 2011

Bird of Prey said:
As Cranky said, the link doesn't work. Anybody got an alternative link??

The link in post #2 works.

Era of "cheap food" ending?

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