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Thread: Warfare: Food Supply/Access

  1. #121
    Council Member slapout9's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Rick M View Post
    The frigid weather in Mexico has been the most severe in half a century, which prompted Sysco and The Packer to issue alerts a few days ago:
    http://digitaljournal.com/article/303583

    Small stuff compared to larger issues like fish, rice and wheat woes in China & India, but this is something that we North Americans will experience first-hand, if only for a few months.
    Lettuce, a very well known grocery store chain where I live ran out of Lettuce and could NOT get another source for a couple of days. The produce managers explanation was the weather in Mexico which was affecting their main supplier.

  2. #122
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    Quote Originally Posted by Rick M View Post
    This graph was provided this evening by Dave Hughes, Canadian geoscientist and peak oil analyst:
    Attachment 1413

    The implications should be obvious (for both farmers and consumers) if oil price volatility should continue.
    Three questions...

    1. How is the "food" figure generated? What commodities, in what markets?

    2. Did he explain why the 2011 projection disassociates the two lines so dramatically?

    3. What's the basis for projecting $140 oil in 2011? That doesn't seem to be any kind of consensus figure. We're having a spike at the moment, yes, but that looks to involve a risk premium, not supply/demand issues...

  3. #123
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    Default Questions re graph (food & fuel)

    Hi, Steve

    re your questions:
    1. Dave used the International Monetary Fund index of Primary Commodities:
    http://www.imf.org/external/np/res/commod/index.asp
    The year 2005 equals 100 for the index.

    2. The marked dissociation occurs in the latter half of 2010 and only Jan in 2011. Dave and I both presume this is due in large part to climate issues: the ongoing drought in China's wheat-growing provinces and the drought in SE Asia's rice regions:
    http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Southea.../LG02Ae01.html
    Also Russia's brutal summer:
    http://en.rian.ru/analysis/20100920/160654461.html

    India in particular has seen severe food price increases, as have several Arab nations.

    3. I think you confused the two lines: the black line is for food, which corresponds to the Index on the left. Dave correctly has oil at around $90, but when the stats for Feb are in, that line will continue its upward trend.

    By the way, are you still in the Philippines? If so, can you please give us a brief update of things there re food & fuel, political stability, etc.

  4. #124
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    Yes, I read that one backwards, bit too quick a glance.

    Pretty normal here. Politics is as stable as it gets, barring the usual perpetual insurgency. No special price spikes in progress. The Philippines imports a lot of rice, but retail prices don't seem to fluctuate nearly as much as the futures index... possibly long-term deals with Thailand and Vietnam, would have to look into that to say.

    It would be interesting to compare the futures index with a graph of farm prices in exporting countries. I suspect you'd find that middlemen are making the money.

  5. #125
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    Default Food & fuel

    You are correct re middle-men, and that is very much an issue for Canadian family farmers, where net farm income remains at Depression levels in several sectors.
    Should fuel prices continue to escalate, I fear that farmers will be forced to cut back on their activities. This would of course be counter to everyone's need, since food imports would also become more expensive and the market for them could shrink as well.
    I have yet to see a plan for fuel emergencies which has a viable arrangement to ensure that the food supply chain is maintained during a supply/price shock.

    If farmers are not assured that they can recoup their expenses from the marketplace, they will be reluctant/unable to up-front the money. The last time we filled our diesel tank, it was over $1,000. What farmers will do when it costs $2,000 is not clear.
    We need a plan....

  6. #126
    Council Member slapout9's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Rick M View Post
    We need a plan....
    You better believe it .......except in America planning is Communism and we don't do that.

  7. #127
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    The term "global security" often evokes images of guns and nuclear weapons. "We have inherited a definition of security from the last century, which was dominated by two World Wars and the Cold War," Lester Brown, author and president of the Earth Policy Institute told PRI's Here and Now. "What we're now faced with is a need to re-define security."

    The biggest threats to our future aren't coming from invading nations, according to Brown. "It is climate change. It is population growth. It is falling water tables. It is rising food prices. It is failing states."
    http://www.pri.org/world/population-...urity2643.html
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    Default ... and Peak Oil

    Thanks, Adam

    I have been a great fan of Lester Brown/Worldwatch for decades, and of course he is correct.
    But in addition to CC, pop'n, water & food, I would also add fossil fuel depletion. It is central to the other four: it's a major source of GHGs, it's allowed the ongoing population explosion, it is a factor in water supply, and it provides the fertilizer & the bull-work in our 21st Century food supply chain (from field to fork, as they say).

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    Default Philippines rice terraces

    Steve,
    I thought of you this morning while watching BBC.
    They suddenly had a show on the Philippines, and the first 10 mins was on their rice terraces which I'd heard about but never seen.

    They certainly are amazing, but that segment ended on an unhappy note because of two things:
    - the incursion of giant earthworms (which have moved in thanks to nearby deforestation)... their oversized tunnels destabilize the soil.
    - the reluctance of the current generation to do the hand labour that their ancestors have done for millennia.

    The result has been the collapse of various sections, a situation which could quickly snowball if water is allowed to flow full-force down the mountainside.

    This link mentions some of this:
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banaue_Rice_Terraces

  10. #130
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    Considering the headlines in Minitrue's current news cycle, this is appropriate :

    The 1st of September marks the anniversary of the opening of the major stage of Libya's Great Man-Made River Project. This incredibly huge and successful water scheme is virtually unknown in the West, yet it rivals and even surpasses all our greatest development projects. The leader of the so-called advanced countries, the United States of America cannot bring itself to acknowledge Libya's Great Man-Made River. The West refuses to recognize that a small country, with a population no more than four million, can construct anything so large without borrowing a single cent from the international banks.
    http://poorrichards-blog.blogspot.co....html#comments
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  11. #131
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    Default Bread and protests: the return of high food prices

    The title of an IISS Strategic Comment:
    Record food prices have been just one ingredient in the unrest in the Arab world. However, they are causing major concern across the globe for the second time in three years. Structural shifts have led to a tightening of the international food-supply system, magnifying the effect of disruptive events such as weather-related crop failures in 2010. With no quick relief in sight, an era of cheap food appears to be over.
    Link:http://www.iiss.org/publications/str...h-food-prices/

    On a quick read I was intrigued by the links and especially:
    Nomura's Food Vulnerability Index puts Asian countries such as Bangladesh and Sri Lanka at the top of its list.
    Link to the cited index:http://www.nomura.com/research/getpub.aspx?pid=390252
    Last edited by davidbfpo; 06-09-2011 at 09:12 AM. Reason: Spelling error
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  12. #132
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    Default IISS and Birmingham

    Hi, David

    Thanks very much for the IISS study, which I had not seen.

    I presume that you spotted this from your home town (re threat from rising fuel prices):
    http://www.birminghampost.net/birmin...5233-28329533/

  13. #133
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    Default Petrol prices & the UK economy

    Rick,

    I'd not read the B'ham Post (which is not a regular read), but conversation often turns to the cost of petrol. Individuals and families are clearly having to think harder about driving, commuting and long-distances. Motor insurance premiums have shot up, so the pressure is building up. Buying cars is a key economic indicator; reflected in almost nil cost of car loans.

    Peering into the distance regarding fuel security is a rare public topic. Just look at the silence over the falling North Sea oil & gas production.
    davidbfpo

  14. #134
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    Commodity index speculation was up $70 billion last year to around $400 billion; close to 20x what it was before 2003. Structural problems exist, but the speculation is out of hand. This is 2008 all over again, it is sick.

    Quote Originally Posted by Rick M View Post
    We need a plan....
    We can start by establishing position limits on certain commodity derivatives.

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    Quote Originally Posted by bourbon View Post
    Commodity index speculation was up $70 billion last year to around $400 billion; close to 20x what it was before 2003. Structural problems exist, but the speculation is out of hand. This is 2008 all over again, it is sick.


    We can start by establishing position limits on certain commodity derivatives.
    Bourbon, I think you're right here. It's basically another bubble which will pop at some point just like other bubbles including the housing market. The 'global pool of money' has been sloshing around looking for new places to park since 2007-2008. As you point out, some of that money has landed in the commodities market driving up prices. The real question is who gets hurt when the bubble pops. Obviously the poor world round will benefit from cheaper food prices. Farmers will be hurt, of course. Remember the 80s? Farm aid?

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    Default UK decline, speculation

    David
    You are correct re British silence on your post-peak decline. It is surely a watershed moment in UK history, bound to make the history books.
    Energy is not just another commodity to be sold... it provides work, and in the case of oil & gas, very fundamental work (mobility, heating and electricity).

    I agree with comments re speculation... the problem applies not only to food 'commodities' but also to oil & gas... they are much too essential to be a play-thing for speculators.

  17. #137
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    Default Foreign Policy Article

    How Goldman Sachs Created The Food Crisis.

    It took the brilliant minds of Goldman Sachs to realize the simple truth that nothing is more valuable than our daily bread. And where there's value, there's money to be made. In 1991, Goldman bankers, led by their prescient president Gary Cohn, came up with a new kind of investment product, a derivative that tracked 24 raw materials, from precious metals and energy to coffee, cocoa, cattle, corn, hogs, soy, and wheat. They weighted the investment value of each element, blended and commingled the parts into sums, then reduced what had been a complicated collection of real things into a mathematical formula that could be expressed as a single manifestation, to be known henceforth as the Goldman Sachs Commodity Index (GSCI).

  18. #138
    Council Member AdamG's Avatar
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    The most water-stressed nations on Earth are all in the Middle East and North Africa. Add surging populations and food and energy costs, and trouble seems inevitable
    http://www.guardian.co.uk/environmen...climate-change
    Water usage in north Africa and the Middle East is unsustainable and shortages are likely to lead to further instability – unless governments take action to solve the impending crisis
    http://www.guardian.co.uk/environmen...er-running-out
    A scrimmage in a Border Station
    A canter down some dark defile
    Two thousand pounds of education
    Drops to a ten-rupee jezail


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    Default Farming and water: too much & too little

    Hi again, Adam

    This morning CBC Radio had a half-hour thing on droughts: wheat-growing regions of China and Russia still seem to be struggling with their prolonged dry spells.
    And much of the Mississippi Valley and southern Manitoba have too much water.

    But the show's main focus was on the sudden and severe drought in western Europe: France and Germany (#1 & 2 in wheat production) and UK are all in a 90-day drought right at germination time.
    And Texas is really dry.
    What I did not know is that there is a Centre for drought analysis & info in Nebraska.

    http://www.cbc.ca/thecurrent/episode...-france-china/

  20. #140
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    Default Farming & Water: UK

    Rick,

    Yesterday on BBC Radio 4 a farmer was interviewed on the impact of a dry Spring and he estimated that his crop would be halved if not less:http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today...00/9490705.stm

    Not sure what the impact of that will be on global supply.
    davidbfpo

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