Stuffed and Starved: As Food Riots Break Out Across the Globe, Raj Patel Details "The Hidden Battle for the World Food System"
Global food prices have risen dramatically, adding a new level of danger to the crisis of world hunger. In Africa, food riots have swept across the continent, with recent protests in Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Ivory Coast, Mauritania and Senegal. In most of West Africa, the price of food has risen by 50 percent "¹"¹ in Sierra Leone, 300 percent. In the United States there has been a 41 percent surge in prices for wheat, corn, rice and other cereals over the past six months. We speak with Raj Patel, author of Stuffed and Starved: The Hidden Battle for the World Food System.
Ref. https://www.democracynow.org/2008/4/8/stuff...d_as_food_riots
I have no doubt that food prices are going to increase world wide. We have more and more people and fewer and fewer farm lands. In Canada the Government has utterly destroyed the farmers.
Today you are not a farmer but a business owner who is out to only maximize crop yields, quality is almost a none issue. Pestilence and disease are the major combatants faced.
The lands of once productive high quality beef and vegetables now sit with barns rotting to the ground as the farmer can not make a profit. Some due to low crop prices but also regulation have killed them. You have milk oh no pigs or chickens allowed on your property. Farmers never got rich but survived and sold the farm to retire. They ate from their own lands and depended on diversity to survive.
So I think the governments due need to look at the rules and see what can be done so that places like Ontario can produce enough to feed their own. Also people need to be reeducated on how to work the lands.
Biggest issue I have is that there are too many middlemen involved. The farmer does not see the huge profits but the processing stations do. Cut down their allowable price mark ups, and allow them to sell direct to the public.
Basic necessities should be available and made affordable. You wish to charge 2 million for a tv I have no issue, but the people need food house and heat.
International Level: Senior Politician / Political Participation: 188 18.8%
Dairy farms can have no pigs or chickens up there? I think the dairy farmers should get together and stop giving milk to the dairy processors. Tell them they will start again when they can have their diverse farming back. Most farmers raise cows, pigs, chickens, goats and other animals to have a diverse and pleasing amount of food on their own tables. Usually you will find a nice garden on a farm too. Yes a lot of people need to learn to work the land again. Maybe they will get a better picture of the farmer.
World Food Crisis
IMF head gives food price warning
The head of the IMF, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, warns of mass starvation if world food prices keep rising.
Ref. https://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7344892.stm
World Bank echoes food cost alarm
The rise in food prices could push 100 million people deeper into poverty, says the head of the World Bank.
Ref. https://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7344892.stm
To show you how serious this situation is becoming check out this news report from Egypt where anything related to food is considered National Security:
QUOTE |
As the reporter and his translator left the bakery in the Rod El Faroq neighborhood, they were blocked by a plainclothes security officer. The man demanded the memory card from the reporter's camera, saying the images it contained - of men baking bread - posed "a threat to Egypt's national security." The reporter and his translator were surrounded by at least seven policemen in white uniforms. Some threatened the bakery owner with prison for speaking with a foreign journalist. The journalists were detained for five hours. Egyptian officials said no pictures could be taken in their country without advance government approval. The camera's memory card was returned, damaged. Ref. https://www.usatoday.com/money/world/2008-0...aily%20Briefing |
International Level: International Guru / Political Participation: 3231 100%