Infinite Unknown

Flashback:

- Former Japanese Government Nuclear Advisor Toshiso Kosako: ‘Come The Harvest Season In The Fall, There Will Be A Chaos’ – Ceiling On Schoolyard Radiation Levels ‘Unacceptable’ – Much More Radiation Threats To Come

- Japan Rice Futures Surge 40%, Trigger Circuit Breaker On Concerns Fukushima Radiation Will Destroy Crops (ZeroHedge, Aug 8, 2011):

70 years after rice futures trading was halted on the Tokyo Grain Exchange, it was finally reopened today… only to be halted immediately. The reason: concerns that Fukushima radiation would destroy rice crops and collapse supply sent the contract price soaring from the reference price of Y13,500 to a ridiculous Y18,500 at which point it was halted. Note the tick chart below which puts any of our own stupid vacuum tube-induced HFT algos to outright shame. That said, the move should not come as a surprise at least to our readers after we predicted the day Fukushima blew up (and even before) that very soon rice prices would surge to record highs. Little by little, that realization is dawning on everyone.

More from Bloomberg:

The exchange listed rice contracts today for the first time since the start of World War II to boost flagging volumes and profit. The resumption comes as fallout from the Fukushima Dai- Ichi power plant may spread after it was found cattle had been fed cesium-tainted rice straw.

Continue reading »

Tags: Economy, Environment, Food, Food Prices, Fukushima, Global News, Radiation, rice

- Worst drought in 60 years hitting Horn of Africa: U.N. (Reuters, June 28, 2011)

GENEVA (Reuters) – The worst drought in 60 years in the Horn of Africa has sparked a severe food crisis and high malnutrition rates, with parts of Kenya and Somalia experiencing pre-famine conditions, the United Nations said on Tuesday.

More than 10 million people are now affected in drought-stricken areas of Djibouti, Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia and Uganda and the situation is deteriorating, it said.

“Two consecutive poor rainy seasons have resulted in one of the driest years since 1950/51 in many pastoral zones,” Elisabeth Byrs, spokeswoman of the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, told a media briefing.

“There is no likelihood of improvement (in the situation)until 2012,” she said.

Food prices have risen substantially in the region, pushing many moderately poor households over the edge, she said.

Continue reading »

Tags: Africa, Djibouti, Drought, Environment, Ethiopia, Food, Food Prices, Global News, Kenya, Somalia, U.N., Uganda

As intended by the elitists.

- Food price explosion ‘will devastate the world’s poor’ (Guardian, June 17, 2011):

After a 40% rise in global prices over the past year, droughts and floods threaten to seriously damage this year’s harvest

Food prices will soar by as much as 30% over the next 10 years, the United Nations and Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development have predicted.

Angel Gurría, secretary-general of the OECD, said that any further increase in global food prices, which have risen by 40% over the past year, will have a “devastating” impact on the world’s poor and is likely to lead to political unrest, famine and starvation. “People are going to be forced either to eat less or find other sources of income.”

The joint UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) and OECD report predicted that the cost of cereals is likely to increase by 20% and the price of meat, particularly chicken, may soar by up to 30%.

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Tags: Economy, Environment, FAO, Food, Food Prices, Global News, Inflation, OECD, U.N.

- Europe Braces for Serious Crop Losses and Blackouts (Scientific American, June 13, 2011):

LONDON — One of the driest spring seasons on record in northern Europe has sucked soils dry and sharply reduced river levels to the point that governments are starting to fear crop losses and France, in particular, is bracing for blackouts as its river-cooled nuclear power plants may be forced to shut down.

French Agriculture Minister Bruno Le Maire warned this week that the warmest and driest spring in half a century could slash wheat yields and might even push up world prices despite the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization’s predicting a bumper global crop due to greater plantings.

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Tags: Agriculture, Earth Changes, Environment, EU, Europe, Food, Food Prices, Weather

- Corn Futures Climb to Three-Year High as USDA Slashes Inventory Estimates (Bloomberg, Jun 9, 2011):

Corn jumped to the highest price in almost three years after the U.S. Department of Agriculture forecast tighter supplies, as adverse weather hurt crops.

U.S. stockpiles before the start of the 2012 harvest may fall to 695 million bushels, the lowest since 1996, even as farmers collect a record crop, the USDA said. World inventories are projected to drop next year to the lowest since 2004. Prices have more than doubled in the past year as global output trailed gains in demand for livestock feed and biofuels.

Continue reading »

Tags: Agriculture, Corn, Department of Agriculture, Food, Food Prices, Global News, USDA

European dry spell and commodities speculation combine to push up average cereal costs by 71% to record levels

The dry riverbed of the Loire near the Anjou-Bretagne bridge in Ancenis, western France. Photograph: Stephane Mahe/REUTERS

Food prices are expected to hit new highs in the coming weeks, tightening the squeeze on UK households and potentially triggering further unrest in developing countries unless there is heavy rainfall across drought-affected Europe, the United Nations has warned.

The average global price of cereals jumped by 71% to a new record in the year to April, more than three times higher than a decade ago, according to latest UN figures, prompting its Food and Agriculture Organisation to warn that Europe faces a pivotal few weeks.

With the dry spell forecast to continue for several weeks across Europe, Abdolreza Abbassian, senior grains economist at the FAO, said: “Europe is entering a very critical month. We can’t do without rain any more. If the current situation continues prices will respond very aggressively.”

“Our fear is that we still haven’t seen the worst of food inflation in vulnerable countries and that could be coming. One way or another, rising food prices bring hardship on their people and you can’t rule out the possibility of further food riots. A lot depends on the next few weeks and it’s impossible to predict how Mother Nature will behave,” Abbassian added.

Continue reading »

Tags: Commodities, Drought, Economy, Environment, Europe, FAO, Food, Food Prices, Food Riots, Global News, Inflation, U.N.

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Added: 21.05.2011

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Added: 21.05.2011

Paul Craig Roberts:

“The west prides itself that it is the standard for the world, that it is a democracy. But nowhere do you see democratic outcomes: not in Greece, not in Ireland, not in the UK, not here, the outcomes are always to punish the innocent and reward the guilty.

And that’s what the Greeks are in the streets, protesting. We see this all over the west.

There is no democracy, there are oligarchies, some of these smaller European countries are not even run by their own governments, they are run by Wall Street… There is probably more democracy in China than there is in the west.

Revolution is the only answer… We are confronted with a curious situation.

Throughout the west we think we have democracy, we hold ourselves up high, we demonize China, we talk about the mafia state of Russia, we talk about the Arabs and so on, but where is the democracy here?”

Tags: Corporations, Deutsche Bank, Dollar, Economy, EU, Europe, Food, Food Prices, Global News, Goldman Sachs, Government, Iceland, Inflation, Ireland, Obama administration, Paul Craig Roberts, Pirelli, Politics, Society, U.S., Wall Street

In case you haven’t noticed, the world is on the verge of a horrific global food crisis.  At some point, this crisis will affect you and your family.  It may not be today, and it may not be tomorrow, but it is going to happen.  Crazy weather and horrifying natural disasters have played havoc with agricultural production in many areas of the globe over the past couple of years.  Meanwhile, the price of oil has begun to skyrocket.  The entire global economy is predicated on the ability to use massive amounts of inexpensive oil to cheaply produce food and other goods and transport them over vast distances.  Without cheap oil the whole game changes.  Topsoil is being depleted at a staggering rate and key aquifers all over the world are being drained at an alarming pace.  Global food prices are already at an all-time high and they continue to move up aggressively.  So what is going to happen to our world when hundreds of millions more people cannot afford to feed themselves?

Most Americans are so accustomed to supermarkets that are absolutely packed to the gills with massive amounts of really inexpensive food that they cannot even imagine that life could be any other way.  Unfortunately, that era is ending.

There are all kinds of indications that we are now entering a time when there will not be nearly enough food for everyone in the world.  As competition for food supplies increases, food prices are going to go up.  In fact, at some point they are going to go way up.

Let’s look at some of the key reasons why an increasing number of people believe that a massive food crisis is on the horizon.

The following are 20 signs that a horrific global food crisis is coming…. Continue reading »

Tags: Corn, Economy, Environment, Food, Food Crisis, Food Prices, Food shortages, Global News, Politics, Society, soybeans, U.S., Water, Water shortages, wheat

Exactly as planned by the elitists.

Apr. 17 (Bloomberg) — World Bank President Robert Zoellick said the global economy is “one shock away” from a crisis in food supplies and prices.

Zoellick estimated 44 million people have fallen into poverty due to rising food prices in the past year, and a 10 percent increase in the food price index would send 10 million more people into poverty. The United Nations FAO Food Price index jumped 25 percent last year, the second-steepest increase since at least 1991, and surged to a record in February.

Food price inflation is “the biggest threat today to the world’s poor,” Zoellick said at a press conference following meetings of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. “We are one shock away from a full-blown crisis.”

“For most commodities, stocks are relatively low,” he said. “You have one other weather event in some of these areas and you really take a danger zone and start to push people over the edge.”

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Tags: Economy, Food, Food Prices, Global News, IMF, Robert Zoellick, World Bank

WASHINGTON (AP) — Wholesale prices jumped last month by the most in nearly two years due to higher energy costs and the steepest rise in food prices in 36 years. Excluding those volatile categories, inflation was tame.

The Labor Department said Wednesday that the Producer Price Index rose a seasonally adjusted 1.6 percent in February — double the 0.8 percent rise in the previous month. Outside of food and energy costs, the core index ticked up 0.2 percent, less than January’s 0.5 percent rise.

Food prices soared 3.9 percent last month, the biggest gain since November 1974. Most of that increase was due to a sharp rise in vegetable costs, which increased nearly 50 percent. That was the most in almost a year. Meat and dairy products also rose.

Energy prices rose 3.3 percent last month, led by a 3.7 percent increase in gasoline costs.

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Tags: Economy, Energy, Food, Food Prices, Global News, Inflation, U.S.