Food Price Riots Popping Up Around The World

[ribozyme]

When the Lamb opened the third seal, I heard the third living creature say, “Come!” I looked, and there before me was a black horse! Its rider was holding a pair of scales in his hand.
Then I heard what sounded like a voice among the four living creatures, saying, “A quart of wheat for a day’s wages, and three quarts of barley for a day’s wages, and do not damage the oil and the wine!” - Revelation 6:5-6
biblegateway.com/passage/?book_id=73&chapter=6

Maybe the Iraq War is the second seal… I don’t know what the first one is. Maybe it is Bush. Now back the third seal…

Bangkok, Thailand - - Rice farmers here are staying awake in shifts at night to guard their fields from thieves. In Peru, shortages of wheat flour are prompting the military to make bread with potato flour, a native crop. In Egypt, Cameroon, and Burkina Faso food riots have broken out in the past week.

Around the world, governments and aid groups are grappling with the escalating cost of basic grains. In December, 37 countries faced a food crisis, reports the UN Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO), and 20 nations had imposed some form of food-price controls.

In Asia, where rice is on every plate, prices are shooting up almost daily. Premium Thai fragrant rice now costs $900 per ton, a nearly 30 percent rise from a month ago.

Exporters say the price could eclipse $1,000 per ton by June. Similarly, prices of white rice have climbed about 50 percent since January to $600 per ton and are projected to jump another 40 percent to $800 per ton in April.

csmonitor.com/2008/0327/p01s02-woap.html

“It’s not likely that prices will go back to as low as we’re used to,” said Abdolreza Abbassian, economist and secretary of the Intergovernmental Group for Grains for the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). “Currently if you’re in Haiti, unless the government is subsidizing consumers, consumers have no choice but to cut consumption. It’s a very brutal scenario, but that’s what it is.”

No one knows that better than Eugene Thermilon, 30, a Haitian day laborer who can no longer afford pasta to feed his wife and four children since the price nearly doubled to the local equivalent of US$0.57 (€.37) a bag. Their only meal on a recent day was two cans of corn grits.

“Their stomachs were not even full,” Thermilon said, walking toward his pink concrete house on the precipice of a garbage-filled ravine. By noon the next day, he still had nothing to feed them for dinner.

iht.com/articles/ap/2008/03/25/business/LA-FEA-FIN-Mexico-Fighting-for-Food.php

Courtesy of Randall Parker:
parapundit.com/archives/005093.html

I am afraid, I think peak oil will exacerbate this problem. I also found this article about Malthusianism in the WSJ:

online.wsj.com/public/article_print/SB120613138379155707.html

 

[BamaRider]

And the point is?

I ain’t buying the world is ending Ribo. In fact couple days ago I was at the all ya can eat local Chinese Buffet. Had 2 big ole plates full of stuff for 5.99, add a 1.99 for bottomless Mountain Dew and I left pretty full for about 8 bucks.

Tomorrow I might just do CiCi’s pizza and pasta. They got all ya can eat buffets for like 4.99???

The only food riots we have in Alabama is when the weather guessers say a hurricane is coming in or its gonna be a cold snap with half inch of snow. Then we all run down to the grocery store and loot the shelves of milk and bread. Is a hurricane saliin to Thailand or Peru? What’s the matter with those people?

Only thing those places need is a healthy dose of capitalism, then maybe they’ll be able to put the oxen to rest, and farm with a TRACTOR and increase productivity.

I don’t wanna give ya a hard time, but I’m thinking you NEED to get OFF the puter and go have some FUN, isn’t that what most 18years old do?? Why ya always ONLINE trying to find stuff to tell us how bad the world is? LOL.

When I was 18 the biggest worry I had was how I was gonna get up enough money to take my girl out for the weekend. But I’m thinkin you’re spending your weekends immersed in a bunch of gobbly goop from the Brookings Asylum I mean Institute.

 

[Adonis33]

And the point is?

I ain’t buying the world is ending Ribo. In fact couple days ago I was at the all ya can eat local Chinese Buffet. Had 2 big ole plates full of stuff for 5.99, add a 1.99 for bottomless Mountain Dew and I left pretty full for about 8 bucks.

Tomorrow I might just do CiCi’s pizza and pasta. They got all ya can eat buffets for like 4.99???

The only food riots we have in Alabama is when the weather guessers say a hurricane is coming in or its gonna be a cold snap with half inch of snow. Then we all run down to the grocery store and loot the shelves of milk and bread. Is a hurricane saliin to Thailand or Peru? What’s the matter with those people?

Only thing those places need is a healthy dose of capitalism, then maybe they’ll be able to put the oxen to rest, and farm with a TRACTOR and increase productivity.

I don’t wanna give ya a hard time, but I’m thinking you NEED to get OFF the puter and go have some FUN, isn’t that what most 18years old do?? Why ya always ONLINE trying to find stuff to tell us how bad the world is? LOL.

When I was 18 the biggest worry I had was how I was gonna get up enough money to take my girl out for the weekend. But I’m thinkin you’re spending your weekends immersed in a bunch of gobbly goop from the Brookings Asylum I mean Institute.

I think he may be on to something - $4.99??? I remember when CiCi’s buffett was $2.99.

You must have a stomach of Iron if you can go to CiCi’s.

 

[BamaRider]

Adonsis saidi-

I think he may be on to something - $4.99??? I remember when CiCi’s buffett was $2.99.

You must have a stomach of Iron if you can go to CiCi’s.

They just opened a store here, so I dunno, it’s not good? And they use to be 2.99? I’m going down there right now and storm the building.like the folks in Peru. How dare they jack up the prices when they come to MY town, while they charge the Texans 2.99!

Man we are going to you know where in a handbasket. Ribo how bout checkin with the Brookings Aslyum and find out what the current status on the all ya can eat buffets in America. Are they gonna be in peril soon?

 

[hasikelee]

I think he may be on to something - $4.99??? I remember when CiCi’s buffett was $2.99.

You must have a stomach of Iron if you can go to CiCi’s.

Yeah, we stopped going there when the kids started begging not to go. That’s when you know it’s bad.

 

[BamaRider]

Hasi sez-

Yeah, we stopped going there when the kids started begging not to go. That’s when you know it’s bad.

---

Don’t reckon I’ll be goin to CiCi’s then. I’ll stay with Pizza Hut lunch buffets, get what ya pay for huh?

 

[gam197]

Received an email from someone working overseas and he confirmed there is a famine going on in Bangladesh. Groups are involved trying to prevent further problems. This is one reason…

“This sounds kind of crazy, but the famine comes every few decades due to the bamboo flowering. When the bamboo flowers every 40 years, it attracts rats. These rats eat the flowers, proliferate, and then eat all the rice, vegetables and other crops.”

Here is an article…

The rat breeding out-paces the bamboo flower growth, and soon the animals turn to ravaging rice stalks and vegetables in the affected region. Northeastern India has been similarly hit after bamboo forests in Mizoram began blossoming in 2007. Local authorities declared the area a disaster zone but the Indian government has not yet announced plans to combat this bi-century rat storm.

n the shorter term, prices can spike as natural disasters ranging from severe drought and floods cause havoc on agriculture. The recent three-week snow storms in China caused $7.5 billion in damages, according to early government estimates, including destruction of winter crops leading to a $700 million relief package for farmers.

atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/JB14Df02.html

 

[love4mary]

Is the world coming to an end?,.,Only God knows the when of that

Will there be a food shortage in the U.S.A.? probably not…

But one thing IS for certain. With an increase in fuel costs, its a short hop to higher prices at the grocery store. I will be planting a huge garden this year, not because of food rioting or the country running out of food, but to avoid paying such high prices for produce that I can grow myself, WITHOUT pesticides.

Even thinken bout raises some chickens:thumbsup:

 

[KathleenElsie]

Yeah, we stopped going there when the kids started begging not to go. That’s when you know it’s bad.

Yep when the five boys ages 5 to 11 said “no thank you” to a trip for pizza I scratched them off of my list.

 

[gam197]

From article posted by ribozyme…

We’re living in an era where the technologies that have empowered high living standards and 80-year life expectancies in the rich world are now for almost everybody," says economist Jeffrey Sachs, director of Columbia University’s Earth Institute, which focuses on sustainable development with an emphasis on the world’s poor.

Growing numbers of China’s 1.3 billion people and India’s 1.1 billion are stepping up to the middle class, adopting the high-protein diets, gasoline-fueled transport and electric gadgets that developed nations enjoy.

online.wsj.com/public/article_print/SB120613138379155707.htm

We have finally achieved something we have tried to achieve for many years, raised the standard of living and granted old age to everyone not just those in the U.S.

We should be rejoicing instead here come the doom and gloom people telling us because we have finally accomplished this, the sky is falling.

 

[rlg94086]

Received an email from someone working overseas and he confirmed there is a famine going on in Bangladesh. Groups are involved trying to prevent further problems. This is one reason…

“This sounds kind of crazy, but the famine comes every few decades due to the bamboo flowering. When the bamboo flowers every 40 years, it attracts rats. These rats eat the flowers, proliferate, and then eat all the rice, vegetables and other crops.”

Here is an article…

atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/JB14Df02.html

Hmm…so, the world is coming to an end there…every 40 years.

 

[seekerz]

Actually the problem is quite complex and is affecting not just third world countries. Some of the price hikes are the result of increasing corn prices due to the drive for biofuels. Another cause is the growing middle class in some countries like China - they can afford to buy more, but that raises prices making basic food less available to those still poor.

The sky may not be falling but these problems are real and potentially serious. Would that the powers that be in the arena of trade and economics formulate some kind of action plan before we have another Ethiopia. The warning signs then and before the Sudan famine were largely ignored until crisis struck. Now world food assistance is at a low ebb, so responding to multiple crises may not be as easy as singing “We are the World”.

 

[Adonis33]

Actually the problem is quite complex and is affecting not just third world countries. Some of the price hikes are the result of increasing corn prices due to the drive for biofuels. Another cause is the growing middle class in some countries like China - they can afford to buy more, but that raises prices making basic food less available to those still poor.

The sky may not be falling but these problems are real and potentially serious. Would that the powers that be in the arena of trade and economics formulate some kind of action plan before we have another Ethiopia. The warning signs then and before the Sudan famine were largely ignored until crisis struck. Now world food assistance is at a low ebb, so responding to multiple crises may not be as easy as singing “We are the World”.

Maybe we could send a CiCi’s to China.

 

[Neil_Anthony]

This is being caused in part by the use of cropland for biofuels. We all need to focus on reducing our use of fuel and reduce our eating (especially of meat) so that the world’s poor will have enough to eat.

 

[whatevergirl]

My kids liked CiCi’s…but, it reminded me personally of a Chuck E Cheese for adults–ugh, the noise!

Their pizza wasn’t horrible, but you get what you pay for…

 

[BamaRider]

Neil sez-

This is being caused in part by the use of cropland for biofuels. We all need to focus on reducing our use of fuel and reduce our eating (especially of meat) so that the world’s poor will have enough to eat.

Dang Neil, now y’all are telling me I’m doin wrong for driving a big SUV to thr Chinese Buffet and diving out? Youi liberal need to lighten up and have some FUN!

Look, if gas prices go to 10 a gallon I ain’t changing anything. I gotta have it. I have a lot of places to ride, friends to see again, and its a big cournty.

But closing down the uniquely American, all you can eat buffets for 8 dollars, is going too FAR! If I go up to the local Golden Corral buffet center and see a bunch of pinheads standing out front with signs protesting I’m gonna be hacked off.

I’m thinkin Adonsis has a good idea. We can send them CICi’s PIzza, they can eat alot cheaply, and we pay em back for all those lead painted toys, Oakely and Polo shirt rip offs they’ve been sending over here.

 

[MrS]

Try reading the OP’s bio… without laughing

It explains a LOT

Date of Birth:
November 2, 1989 Age:18
Biography:
Is Paul Krugman the only sane person around here? George Soros is my hero!!
Location:
EPI/CBPP/CAP (the holy trinity)
Religion:
George Soros is God
Interests:
molecular evolution, biochemistry, public policy
Occupation:
Negative/Rule Utilitarian

.

 

[BamaRider]

Try reading the OP’s bio… without laughing

It explains a LOT

Date of Birth:
November 2, 1989 Age:18
Biography:
Is Paul Krugman the only sane person around here? George Soros is my hero!!
Location:
EPI/CBPP/CAP (the holy trinity)
Religion:
George Soros is God
Interests:
molecular evolution, biochemistry, public policy
Occupation:
Negative/Rule Utilitarian

.

MrS-you mean to tell us you DON’T think George Soros is god?

 

[Neil_Anthony]

Dang Neil, now y’all are telling me I’m doin wrong for driving a big SUV to thr Chinese Buffet and diving out? Youi liberal need to lighten up and have some FUN!

It’s just a suggestion. But don’t start dieting and sacrificing today, because we’re still celebrating Easter all week. I’ll try to have some fun and eat too much and waste fuel until Monday.

 

[peregrinus_WA]

This is being caused in part by the use of cropland for biofuels. We all need to focus on reducing our use of fuel and reduce our eating (especially of meat) so that the world’s poor will have enough to eat.

There is a push and the technology is almost there that will use other biomass for biofuels. They are starting to use the non-food parts of crops (i.e. stalks, cobs, etc), weed treed, and grasses (switchgrass) for materials for biofuels. Other sources could be sewage, and garbage dumps.