Warfare: Food Supply/Access

[Watcher In The Middle]

over food shortages is a complete non-starter:

UN Expert Calls Biofuel 'Crime Against Humanity'
By Edith M. Lederer, Associated Press
posted: 27 October 2007 09:40 pm ET

UNITED NATIONS (AP) -- A U.N. expert on Friday called the growing practice of converting food crops into biofuel "a crime against humanity,'' saying it is creating food shortages and price jumps that cause millions of poor people to go hungry.

Jean Ziegler, who has been the United Nations' independent expert on the right to food since the position was established in 2000, called for a five-year moratorium on biofuel production to halt what he called a growing "catastrophe'' for the poor.

Scientific research is progressing very quickly, he said, ''and in five years it will be possible to make biofuel and biodiesel from agricultural waste'' rather than wheat, corn, sugar cane and other food crops.

Link

Now, think of this "stupidity" from a political viewpoint here in the US (like in the Midwest). Explain to me exactly how you are going to get (a) Max Baucus (D-MT); (b) Tom Harkin (D-IA); Evan Byah (D-IN), or virtually any other US Senator from the Midwest (Democrat or Republican) to advocate working with the UN, and in effect just handing their potential opponents an issue over dissing their farming base of supporters.

You aren't going to get a one of them to support you, because imagine telling a farmer that because they support Ethanol, they are part of committing a "crime against humanity" - just because they FARM for a living.

I mean, how stupid can you get???

Ethanol production from corn just isn't an efficient idea. Ethanol from sugar cane is much better (than corn) from a production standpoint. But talking smack to the farming community is a sure-fire way to make sure you get nowhere fast.

/rant off

[Ron Humphrey]

It brings to mind how often I fail to expand my mental horizon's in considering strategic implication's.


Wonder how those non-state actor's did in counting on this type of thing?

That's going to be a fun set of negotiations to watch. Because truth of the matter is that the most open source of supply for rice right now is the US.

[bourbon]

Wonder how those non-state actor's did in counting on this type of thing?

I firmly of the believe that persons connected to bin Laden, and/or AQ, are profiting handsomely in commodity and financial markets. These are smart people, they've read Paul Kennedy's Rise and Fall of the Great Powers, they know high finance, they know oil. They could have readily anticipated the cascading effects of a surge in oil prices. I think it is likely that they did, and that they consider it a pillar in their strategy of defeating the US by leading it blindly to its fiscal demise.

"We -- with God's help -- call on every Muslim who believes in God and wishes to be rewarded to comply with God's order to kill the Americans and plunder their money wherever and whenever they find it."
- Fatwa Urging Jihad Against Americans, published in Al-Quds al-'Arabi on Febuary 23, 1998

[Watcher In The Middle]

Originally posted by Bourbon:

I firmly of the believe that persons connected to bin Laden, and/or AQ, are profiting handsomely in commodity and financial markets. These are smart people, they've read Paul Kennedy's Rise and Fall of the Great Powers, they know high finance, they know oil. They could have readily anticipated the cascading effects of a surge in oil prices. I think it is likely that they did, and that they consider it a pillar in their strategy of defeating the US by leading it blindly to its fiscal demise.

There's just way too much smart money out there for this to happen. Besides, the last time around where there was cascading oil prices worldwide, the whole ag community took it in the shorts. Not happening this time around. Actually, it's going 180 degrees this time around.

Looking back at the last 12 to 18 months, there were a few people who predicted this, but not many (I mean like a handfull). Most missed big time on the whole ag commodities market (too much time spent on Hedge funds, with all the CDO's and SIV's in the subprime markets).

Truthfully, we here at SWJ did a better job of seeing the effects even before the MSM starting running all their "scare" stories.

If this is their version of our "financial demise", well, they may hit Wall Street (although methinks Wall Street pretty much did it to themselves without a whole lot of outside help), but in the MidWest and the other ag production areas of the US, Main Street is doing pretty well, thank you. Not perfect, but pretty well.

[Stan]

Interesting this Bio Fuel web page and reading what took place just days prior to the St. Petersburg, Russia bio fuels summit last week. Russia's Itera Group just dumped 256 million into a project to produce bioethanol in Clearfield, Pennsylvania and further intend to build yet another plant in Louisiana by 2009

Now the UK will perform the two-step with PM Brown having just addressed the UN on "tackling hunger "a moral challenge" for everyone", he's now set to address pro-bio fuels at the Madrid Summit today. The answer is apparently both calling for an agricultural revolution "involving technology that would help farmers in developing countries grow higher-yielding crops".

[Watcher In The Middle]

All sorts of little pieces out there, goings on..

The Philippines purchases rice through a national government body (NFA; National Food Authority) for imports. They just went out for a tender for 500k metric tons (approx. 2400 lbs per metric ton), due 05.05.2008, and it looks like they only got around 350k out of the requested 500k from the previous tender.

The Philippines is actually looking to change the methods they use to buy rice because of the escalating costs.

Now this next part is just beyond words:

Japan, the world's biggest net food importer, will ask the World Trade Organization as early as next week to introduce rules to stop countries restricting grain exports, Hiroaki Kojima, deputy director for international economic affairs at Japan's Agriculture Ministry, said on April 22.

Persuading the WTO to intervene may be tough for Japan, which protects its agriculture with subsidies and import tariffs as high as 700 percent on farm products. Developing nations are pressing Japan to cut the duties and open its market in the Doha Round of trade talks.

LInk to Article

The really interesting part in the Commodities market is that the futures market is now showing a rise in the dollar against other currencies. It's seemingly having no real effect on base commodity (food) prices, though.

Also, this whole re-thinking of Ethanol subsidies by the political chattering classes is nice, but it's really only going to have an effect on corn and/or soybeans, and that's if any subsidy cutback actually is passed into law (odds are against). Reason is that it's not all of the sudden going to affect either wheat growing areas, or rice growing areas.

If the farming community doesn't plant corn, they rotate and plant soybeans. Crop rotation cycles has more to do with it than ethanol subsidies.

Today, the real fight is a battle over (a) Cut ethanol subsidies back home here so it's more corn/soybeans for food, or (b) Spend our money we allocate for food purchases in foreign markets, instead of here in the US. If we buy here in the US, we support our markets, but then we have to pay higher transportation rates to get the food to it's intended location.

That's the real behind the scenes fight going on right now, and it's a no-holds-barred fight. Funny thing is, if we spend that money in overseas markets, we'll probably end up lowering our commodity food prices here back home, because right now, the federal government purchases are just working as a little extra 'spike' in commodity food prices. In the past, it's been more of a 'floor' - now it's functioning as a jack to raise the ceiling.

The above is a short term 'fix'. We still need to address the whole corn production for Ethanol or for food issue.

Another aspect to this entire discussion is that the big AG operations (Monsanto, Dow AgroScience, Pioneer, Syngenta, Bayer Crop Science, and any number of others) are having a major benefit dropped in their laps, which is a renewed push for increasing acceptance of biotechnology in crop production.

For the Ethanol vrs. food debate, see the NCGA National Corn Growers Assoc. website for their (obviously biased) viewpoint, but they make a very valid point on their website:

“It’s Not Food, It’s Not Fuel, It’s China” (05-02-08)
A change in Chinese meat consumption habits since 1995 is diverting eight billion bushels of grain per year to livestock feed and could empty global grain stocks by September 2010, according to a new study from Biofuels Digest

Link to the article

I guess my biggest problem is with the MSM as they cover the whole "food crisis", which is that they are big into hype and emotion (and with "gotcha journalism" being a requirement), and totally clueless on how to deal with the real underlying issues, much less explain the costs and benefits of the potential solutions.

[Stan]

Senagal's President Abdoulaye Wade dismissed the UN's food agency as a "waste of money" days after the UN announced an emergency plan to bring soaring world food prices under control.

His comments came as Nigeria braced for a national strike by bakers over the cost of flour and sugar.

Some global food prices have nearly doubled in the past three years, provoking riots and other protests in Africa, Asia and Latin America.

Last week the UN unveiled a $200m (£100m) package to boost food production in the worst-affected countries.

Mr Wade said on Senegalese radio and television that the FAO's work was duplicated by other organisations that operated more efficiently.