Infinite Unknown

Yes, the elite will stage a global food crisis, which is why I have told you to prepare for it a long time ago.

Vladimir Putin has announced Russia will not lift a ban on grain exports before next year’s harvest, extending the embargo for another year, sparking fears over a global food shortage.

A combine harvests on a field in a village 50km south of Moscow. The drought in Russia has led to rising world grain prices Photo: GETTY

The Russian prime minister said that it was “necessary to note that we will only be able to consider lifting the grain export ban after next year’s harvest … and we have clarity on the balances”.

His announcement came after deadly protests in Mozambique and the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation calling an emergency meeting to discuss the shortages.

The export ban is aimed at keeping the Russian domestic market well supplied with grain after Russia, which the world’s third largest wheat exporter last year when it sold 21.4 million tonnes of grain, after the country suffered a record drought which destroyed a quarter of its harvest.

Forest and brush fires flared up again on Thursday, killing two people and burning down more than 160 houses and buildings. Mr Putin is keen to avoid any signs of social unrest ahead of elections due in 2012.

The export ban from such a key global exporter sent wheat prices to 231.5 euros a tonne, just short of last month’s two-year high of 236 euros, sparking worries of a crisis in global food supplies.

A rise in the price of state-controlled food, water and electricity prices have sparked protests in Mozambique where seven people have been killed and hundreds left injured after clashes with police. The price of a loaf of bread is due to rise by 25 per cent on September 6.

The Rome-based FAO said that their emergency meeting was called due to “an enormous number” of inquiries over concerns “about a possible repeat of the 2007-08 food crisis”

Abdolreza Abbassian, of the FAO, said: “This is quite serious. Two years in a row without Russian exports creates quite a disturbance”.

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Tags: Economy, Food, Food Prices, Food shortages, Global News, Government, Politics, Russia, Vladimir Putin

Related article:

- Bank of England Governor Mervyn King warns that Britons face higher inflation for longer

Shoppers are paying up to 58 per cent more for basic grocery items than they were three years ago, according to figures published today.

The price of tea has shot up by 30 per cent while the cost of staple foods such as bread and eggs have risen by 18 per cent since 2007.

But the biggest increase has been in the price of rice and pulses such as lentils or beans, which have risen by 58 per cent.

The cost of staple foods such as bread and eggs have risen by 18 per cent since 2007. The soaring prices are in contrast to the overall inflation rate

Figures compiled by the price comparison website mySupermarket.co.uk show that parents with young children are also being hit particularly hard.

The cost of baby wipes, creams and bath wash has risen by 38 per cent. Baby food and snacks have gone up by 21 per cent while baby milk and drinks have increased by 29 per cent.

Even pets are proving to be an increasing drain on families, with dog food up by 20 per cent and cat food rising by 13 per cent.

The soaring prices are in contrast to the overall inflation rate, which is currently 3.2 per cent a year.

Britain’s high food prices are also at odds with many of our European neighbours, who have seen their grocery bills fall steadily over the past year.

The mySupermarket research does not quote prices for individual items. Instead, the researchers selected a basket of supermarket items for each food category from Tesco.

Continue reading »

Tags: Economy, Food, Food Prices, U.K.

See also:

- Russia Declares State Of Emergy Emergency As Forest Fires Rage

- Russia: Worst drought in a decade, high temperatures damaged 32 percent of land under cultivation, grain prices may double

WINNIPEG Manitoba (Reuters) - Chicago wheat markets jumped 8 percent to near two-year highs on Thursday, twice triggering trading curbs to restore order before easing back after Russia said it would temporarily halt grain exports.

Russia’s worst drought on record has devastated crops in parts of the country and sent international grain prices soaring as markets placed bets that without shipments from one of the world’s leading exporters, global supplies would be restricted.

Wheat has risen seven of the past eight days at the Chicago Board of Trade and buying by funds and traders spilled across the grain markets. Corn and soybeans were 2 and 0.5 percent higher, respectively.

Prime Minister Vladimir Putin signed an order banning grain and flour exports from August 15 to December 31, with a spokesman saying this would apply to contracts that had been already signed. Continue reading »

Tags: Dmitry Medvedev, Drought, Environment, Food, Food Prices, Global News, Government, Grain, Grain prices, Russia, Vladimir Putin

Chris Etherington, chief executive of wholesaler P&H, said: “I think this could be the beginning of the double-dip recession. This is really scary stuff.”

Again: This is the Greatest Depression! Prepare yourself now.

See also: Bank of England’s Mervyn King Warns Over High Inflation

The cost of food is likely to jump by up to 10 per cent before Christmas after dry weather drastically reduced the amount of winter feed that farmers could harvest, experts said.

Wheat: expensive. (Getty Images)

The price of milk, cheese, chicken, beef and pork and associated products are all expected to rise because the industry has been hit by soaring animal feed prices, a shortage of silage and poor harvests.

Food inflation is closely linked to overall inflation and some in the industry have warned it could push the economy towards a “double-dip” recession.

BOCM Pauls, Britain’s biggest animal feed supplier, has reported a 20 per cent increase in the price of raw material feed on last year

The cost of wheat used as animal feed has also jumped by 30 per cent.

The company warned that the price at which it sells feed to dairy, poultry, beef and pig farmers would have to increase by the same amount over the next three months, trade magazine The Grocer said.

It is possible that such a margin could be passed on to consumers, however, it is unlikely to be passed on in full. Instead, prices are likely to go up while producers’ and retailers’ profit margins are also squeezed.

The National Farmers’ Union said the dry weather had added to its members’ problems by slashing the yields of silage for winter feed by up to 50 per cent.

Food producers are already suffering from the high cost of common ingredients such as palm oil, cocoa and soya oil, which have risen by 39 per cent, 23 per cent and 14 per cent respectively since last year, according to Mintec figures.

Continue reading »

Tags: Economy, Food, Food Prices, Global News, Inflation, Recession, U.K.

I expect food prices to rise over 100% in the not too distant future.

Growing demand from emerging markets and for biofuel production will send prices soaring, according to the OECD and the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation

Somalis protest over high food prices during the spike of 2008. (Getty Images)

Food prices are set to rise as much as 40% over the coming decade amid growing demand from emerging markets and for biofuel production, according to a United Nations report today which warns of rising hunger and food insecurity.

Farm commodity prices have fallen from their record peaks of two years ago but are set to pick up again and are unlikely to drop back to their average levels of the past decade, according to the annual joint report from Paris-based thinktank the OECD and the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO).

The forecasts are for wheat and coarse grain prices over the next 10 years to be between 15% and 40% higher in real terms, once adjusted for inflation, than their average levels during the 1997-2006 period, the decade before the price spike of 2007-08. Real prices for vegetable oils are expected to be more than 40% higher and dairy prices are projected to be between 16-45% higher. But rises in livestock prices are expected to be less marked, although world demand for meat is climbing faster than for other farm commodities on the back of rising wealth for some sections of the population in emerging economies.

Although the report sees production increasing to meet demand, it warns that recent price spikes and the economic crisis have contributed to a rise in hunger and food insecurity. About 1 billion people are now estimated to be undernourished, it said.

Fairtrade campaigners said the predictions of sharply rising prices provided a “stark warning” to international policymakers.

“Investment to encourage the 1 billion people whose livelihoods rely on smallholder agriculture is vital. Not only will this increase yields but will go a long way to increase prosperity in poverty stricken regions,” said Barbara Crowther, director of communications at the Fairtrade Foundation.

“At the same time, the promise of increased agriculture commodity prices could spark a new surge in land grabbing by sovereign wealth funds and other powerful investors which risks marginalising further rural communities who must be included in solutions to secure and maintain food supplies.” Continue reading »

Tags: agriculture, Environment, Food, Food Prices, Global News, OECD, U.N.

Got food & water supplies?

- The Food Crisis of 2010: USDA vs Reality

The artificial rain through cloud-seeding is like poison.

Severe drought in Southwestern China is driving up food prices and heightening concerns about the availability of drinking water.

- Price of rice rises in south China (China Daily):

Huang Weijuan, a Guangzhou housewife, said she spent 55 yuan ($8) to buy a bag of rice in Taojin agricultural bazaar in the city’s Yuexiu district over the weekend.

“But the price for the same bag of rice, which weighs 20 kg, was about 50 yuan a month ago,” Huang said.

And the price of courgette, a vegetable which mainly grows in Yunnan province, is now selling at 5 yuan per kg in the bazaar, up 0.5 yuan from last month, Huang said.

“The price of many foods and vegetables have gone up in the past month and I worry that prices will keep increasing,” she said.

The government is rushing to help in order to alleviate the potential for social tension. In some of the hardest hit provinces, the government has been forced to provide emergency supplies of drinking water to 18 million people. They’ve also resorted to creating artificial rain through cloud-seeding. Over 3,200 artillery pieces bombarded the sky with chemicals across 77 counties, forcing moderate rain to fall.

“It was the first rain I have seen since last October, but it only lasted for about three hours from 3 am to 6 am this morning,” Bu Lupiao, a farmer of Bapiao village in Jinghong county, Xishuangbanna Dai autonomous prefecture.

Since October… That’s one heck of a drought. Yet the farmer above was lucky. In Chuxiong Yi prefecture, over 100 cloud seeding guns failed to create rain. Cloud seeding isn’t a long-term solution, thus the natural rain better come soon else there could be more pressure on living standards in drought-hit regions. Continue reading »

Tags: Chemicals, China, cloud seeding, Drought, Environment, Food, Food Prices, Government, Politics, Water, Water shortages

Loooong article!

See also:
- The No.1 Trend Forecaster Gerald Celente: The Terror And The Crash of 2010

Soybean field

If you read any economic, financial, or political analysis for 2010 that doesn’t mention the food shortage looming next year, throw it in the trash, as it is worthless. There is overwhelming, undeniable evidence that the world will run out of food next year. When this happens, the resulting triple digit food inflation will lead panicking central banks around the world to dump their foreign reserves to appreciate their currencies and lower the cost of food imports, causing the collapse of the dollar, the treasury market, derivative markets, and the global financial system. The US will experience economic disintegration.

The 2010 Food Crisis Means Financial Armageddon

Over the last two years, the world has faced a series of unprecedented financial crises: the collapse of the housing market, the freezing of the credit markets, the failure of Wall Street brokerage firms (Bear Stearns/Lehman Brothers), the failure of Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, the failure of AIG, Iceland’s economic collapse, the bankruptcy of the major auto manufacturers (General Motors, Ford, and Chrysler), etc… In the face of all these challenges, the demise of the dollar, derivative markets, and the modern international system of credit has been repeatedly forecasted and feared. However, all these doomsday scenarios have so far been proved false, and, despite tremendous chaos and losses, the global financial system has held together.

The 2010 Food Crisis is different. It is THE CRISIS. The one that makes all doomsday scenarios come true. The government bailouts and central bank interventions, which have held the financial world together during the last two years, will be powerless to prevent the 2010 Food Crisis from bringing the global financial system to its knees.

Financial crisis will kick into high gear

So far the crisis has been driven by the slow and steady increase in defaults on mortgages and other loans. This is about to change. What will drive the financial crisis in 2010 will be panic about food supplies and the dollar’s plunging value. Things will start moving fast.

Dynamics Behind 2010 Food Crisis

Early in 2009, the supply and demand in agricultural markets went badly out of balance. The world experienced a catastrophic fall in food production as a result of the financial crisis (low commodity prices and lack of credit) and adverse weather on a global scale. Meanwhile, China and other Asian exporters, in an effort to preserve their economic growth, were unleashing domestic consumption long constrained by inflation fears, and demand for raw materials, especially food staples, exploded as Chinese consumers worked their way towards American-style overconsumption, prodded on by a flood of cheap credit and easy loans from the government.

Normally food prices should have already shot higher months ago, leading to lower food consumption and bringing the global food supply/demand situation back into balance. This never happened because the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), instead of adjusting production estimates down to reflect decreased production, adjusted estimates upwards to match increasing demand from china. In this way, the USDA has brought supply and demand back into balance (on paper) and temporarily delayed a rise in food prices by ensuring a catastrophe in 2010. Continue reading »

Tags: Commodities, Debt, Dollar, Economy, Environment, Farmers, Fertilizer, Financial Crisis, Food, Food Crisis, Food Prices, Gold, harvest, Society, U.S., USDA, Weather

- UN agency sees severe food shortage in North Korea (Washington Post)

North Korean won plunges 96 percent against the US dollar

Dec. 9 (Bloomberg) — The North Korean won has plummeted 96 percent against the dollar after the government revalued the currency last week, according to reports by Yonhap News Agency and a South Korean aid group.

A North Korean bank in Sinuiju, near the border with China, offered to buy dollars for 35 won on Dec. 7, Good Friends, a Seoul-based rights group, said today on its Web site. Before the currency revaluation, the official rate was about 140 won, and as much as 3,500 won in the black market, Yonhap said.

North Korea’s regime ordered citizens to exchange 1,000-won notes for a new 10-won bill, the country’s first currency reform in 17 years, Yonhap reported on Dec. 1. The move has raised speculation that the government’s grip on power has been loosened by allowing limited free-market activities, such as trading food and goods.

“Once North Koreans realized that they could progress in society by their own economic effort, this created an alternative to advancing only politically through the ranks of state organizations,” Rudiger Frank, professor of East Asian economy and society at the University of Vienna, wrote on the Web site of the Nautilus Institute this month.

The government placed a cap on the amount of money people could exchange for the new notes, effectively wiping out savings.

Following the revaluation, rice prices have more than doubled, Good Friends said. One kilogram (2.2 pounds) of rice cost 50 won as of Dec. 5, compared with 16 won to 17 won on Dec. 2, the group, which obtains information through contacts within North Korea, said in its newsletter yesterday.

One in four school children were absent due to hunger on Dec. 3, indicating how widespread the struggle to find food had become, the group said, without saying how it derived the number. Continue reading »

Tags: Children, Dictatorship, Economy, Food, Food Prices, Global News, Government, North Korea, Politics, Society

Some grocery prices have almost doubled in the past year, despite the Retail Price Index falling to zero.

• See the whole table (pdf)

Anyone shopping at their supermarket today will be tempted to scoff at the revelation that prices have not risen at all over the past year, according to the Retail Price Index (RPI).

Some foods have almost doubled in price since this time last year, figures from The Telegraph’s Real Cost of Living Index (RCLI) show. Cucumber portions, for example, have risen by 88pc, while staples such as mince beef (up by 48pc) and Basmati rice (43pc higher) have also become much more expensive.

Other foodstuffs to have risen sharply in price include strawberry jam (up by 34pc), baked beans (32pc), Golden Delicious apples (29pc) and bolognese sauce (27pc), according to the index.

But the RCLI overall shows that the cost of living has fallen by 4.3pc since this time last year. The difference is explained by the other constituents of the index, household bills and transport costs, which fell by 8pc and 11pc on average over the same period.

Continue reading »

Tags: Economy, Food Prices, U.K.

“Global food Catastrophe”

“The world is heading for a drop in agricultural production of 20 to 40 percent, depending on the severity and length of the current global droughts. Food producing nations are imposing food export restrictions. Food prices will soar, and, in poor countries with food deficits, millions will starve.”

This article is a must-read.

After reading about the droughts in two major agricultural countries, China and Argentina, I decided to research the extent other food producing nations were also experiencing droughts. This project ended up taking a lot longer than I thought. 2009 looks to be a humanitarian disaster around much of the world

To understand the depth of the food Catastrophe that faces the world this year, consider the graphic below depicting countries by USD value of their agricultural output, as of 2006.

Now, consider the same graphic with the countries experiencing droughts highlighted.

The countries that make up two thirds of the world’s agricultural output are experiencing drought conditions. Whether you watch a video of the drought in China, Australia, Africa, South America, or the US, the scene will be the same: misery, ruined crop, and dying cattle.

China

The drought in Northern China, the worst in 50 years, is worsening, and summer harvest is now threatened. The area of affected crops has expanded to 161 million mu (was 141 million last week), and 4.37 million people and 2.1 million livestock are facing drinking water shortage. The scarcity of rain in some parts of the north and central provinces is the worst in recorded history.

Continue reading »

Tags: Afghanistan, Argentina, Australia, Bolivia, California, Chile, China, Dollar, Drought, Environment, Food, Food Crisis, Food Prices, Food shortages, Iraq, Jordan, Kenya, La Nina, Paraguay, South Africa, Syria, Texas, U.S., Uganda, Unrest