Originally Posted by Lloydy

everything in moderarion (especially moderation)

Originally Posted by http://www.cbc.ca/news/background/food/prices.html

In Depth
Food
Rice riots and empty silos: Is the world running out of food?
Last Updated March 27, 2008
By Robert Sheppard


Gold and oil get all the headlines. But when it comes to suddenly soaring prices, they barely hold a candle to the real staples of human existence today — wheat, corn, soybeans and rice.

As the Scotiabank commodity price index reported recently, Canada No. 1 grade wheat jumped to an extraordinary $798 a tonne in February 2008, which is more than three times the $252 a tonne it was averaging over each of the past two crop years.

This is great news, of course, for western farmers who have been squeezed by three decades of mostly declining prices and higher input costs. But the sudden surge in crop prices over the past year is creating social havoc and other, almost revolutionary, changes all over the world.

For the first time in recent memory, there were food riots last year in a host of countries, ranging from Austria and Hungary to Mexico, Namibia, Zimbabwe, Morocco, Yemen, Mauritania, Senegal and Uzbekistan.

Russia and Pakistan introduced food rationing for the first time in decades (and Pakistani troops have been sent out to guard imported wheat). To conserve dwindling stocks, India has banned the export of rice, except for high-end basmati, and other big rice-eating countries, notably the Philippines, are talking of a "rice crisis" and promoting drastic measures to guarantee supply.

Is the world running out of food? "I don't think so," says Harriet Friedmann, a sociology professor at the University of Toronto's Munk Centre for International Studies and one of the country's foremost experts on the economics of food.

But, she says, we are at the beginnings of a "pretty serious trend" that could "shock the international system" with higher prices and regionalized shortages for some time to come.

According to the UN's World Food Program, the root causes of today's higher prices are rising energy costs, the almost decade-long drought in Australia (an important exporter), and the flourishing middle classes in China and India, who have developed a taste for grain-fed beef, pork and chicken.

Friedmann and others, such as the best-selling author Michael Pollan (The Omnivore's Dilemma), also point to what they call the industrialization of the food system, in which basic commodities like wheat, corn and soy are now simply inputs into everything from bread to animal feed, fast food and biofuels — and available worldwide to the highest bidder.

By some counts, a third of the U.S. corn crop this year will go into the production of ethanol and other related biofuels, a controversial approach to help wean that country from imported oil.

"We've gone from competing with our animals for grain to competing with our cars," says Friedmann.
'The new face of hunger'

World stockpiles

Wheat 110.4 tonnes

Corn 104 tonnes

Rice 75.2 tonnes

Source: U.S. Dept. of Agriculture, March 11, 2008

For Canadians, the rising cost of food is starting to show up at the supermarket and other food outlets. Baked goods, eggs and meat have all gone up in price, though the overall impact has been masked somewhat by a decline in the cost of many imported foods, courtesy of the stronger dollar.

Because of the loonie, the grocery store cost of imported fruits and veggies is down 14 per cent from last winter, Statistics Canada reported recently.

However, for much of the rest of the world, particularly developing countries, the impact has been much more immediate. Officials from the UN's World Food Program made an extraordinary appeal in February, saying they will need an additional $500 million in donor contributions just to meet existing needs, helping feed 73 million extremely malnourished individuals in 78 countries.

They also said that will still only be a drop in the bucket when it comes to world hunger and that they expect food shortages to be more acute in the years ahead, particularly in larger centres of the developing world. The world's poorest people will now have to spend a larger portion of their income on food or do without.

"This is the new face of hunger," WFO head Josette Sheeran told reporters. "There is food on shelves, but people are priced out of the market."

This is exactly the situation — Scarce food among the plenty — that CBC reporter Stephen Puddicombe witnessed on his recent assignment in Pakistan. It seems to be what is behind the food riots that have been springing up all over the globe — for example, protests over the cost of tortillas in Mexico.

With the stockpiles of wheat, rice and corn as low as they have been since the 1970s — in the case of U.S. wheat, as low as they have been since the Second World War — no one expects prices to ease any time soon. And this is putting an extra burden on the big donor nations such as Canada.

The U.S. has already told the UN it might not be able to meet its past commitment on donated foods, at least in tonnage, because there are no surpluses anymore and delivery and other energy-related costs have gone up so much.

Canada was the world's fourth largest food-aid donor last year and is pledged under international conventions to supply 420,000 tonnes of food aid per year to the UN. Because of the higher prices, the 2008 cost looks to be at least 20 per cent higher than last year, the Canadian International Development Agency estimated recently. That would bring it close to $200 million.
Eating like a North American

Droughts, floods and skyrocketing energy costs have all contributed to the perfect storm that is the higher cost of food. But the real underlying reasons, say food system experts like Friedmann, are the hidden environmental and social costs of transporting specific commodities long distances and the fact that everyone now wants to eat like a North American.

For most of history, Friedmann says, humans existed on a variety of locally grown grains and legumes and a smattering of meat. But today, "meat is the new norm, even in countries like India which used to be almost entirely vegetarian."

Grain that used to feed humans is now being grown to feed chickens and animals raised for their meat, a not particularly efficient way for humans to get their dose of protein.

What's more, countries such as Nigeria that grow little wheat on their own have become accustomed to bread because of decades of international grain aid.

But more than crop diversion is at issue here: The commodification of agriculture has led to highly specialized commercial organizations even in the developing world and is pushing small, versatile farmers off their lands and into cities, which may not be capable of coping with everyone's food needs as prices rise or recessions set in.

The world has seen large-scale food shortages and spikes in commodity prices before, says Friedmann, but this time could be different. We have made obtaining food much more income dependent than ever before, she says.

"Even in the Depression in the 1930s, most people tended to know someone on a farm. They could barter for food. Doctors were paid in chickens. That is not the case anymore. If you don't have money, you won't eat well."

Originally Posted by Lloydy

everything in moderarion (especially moderation)

Originally Posted by Lloydy

everything in moderarion (especially moderation)

Originally Posted by Lloydy

everything in moderarion (especially moderation)

Originally Posted by Canuck Wisdom

Would you care to elaborate a bit more on how Codex affected you LPYW?

Does the vid in the OP not work for u guys?

Originally Posted by Terry

Smuggling vitamins across borders eh?

Pretty hardcore.

Originally Posted by Lloydy

everything in moderarion (especially moderation)

Originally Posted by Lloydy

everything in moderarion (especially moderation)

Originally Posted by DubStyle311

So what is your thesis? That vitamins will be made illegal by the FDA and WHO?

Originally Posted by DubStyle311

So what is your thesis? That vitamins will be made illegal by the FDA and WHO?

Originally Posted by Lloydy

everything in moderarion (especially moderation)

Originally Posted by koshiva

Isn't it telling too, how across the world many riot because of rising food prices. So many working class peasants cannot afford bread so they get pissed because a hungry mob is an angry mob. In the media, they say it is because of 'bio-fuel having replaced traditional food crops thsu raising prices. Others say it is just because of increasing demand and less supply. Others though - know...that [B][the 'main reason' that people cannot afford bread or rice is because of rising fuel costs which are central to world commodity prices!!!/B] Now why is oil so expensive you ask? Well...at least in the short to mid term - not because of increasing demand - but because of the Bush regimes invasion and continued occupation of Iraq.

Originally Posted by Lloydy

everything in moderarion (especially moderation)

Originally Posted by Canuck Wisdom

Outstanding post Koshiva

Yep.


Is it all about money? The number of people who will starve in a world of increasing, globalized food prices...?

Puts an interesting spin on it when you think back to Alex Jones' 'End Game' where he talks about the ultra elites plans of eugenics and global population reduction.

Originally Posted by DdC

Starving Babies and Illegal Food
In 1937, Ralph Loziers, general counsel of the National Institute of Oilseed Products, told the Congressional committee studying marijuana prohibition in 1937 that, “Hempseed… is used in all the Oriental nations and also in a part of Russia as food. It is grown in their fields and used as oatmeal. Millions of people every day are using hempseed in the Orient as food. They have been doing this for many generations, especially in periods of famine.”

Cannabis Food

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MATRIX III: Volume One
The Psychosocial, Chemical, Biological and Electromagnetic Manipulation of Humans

"Unless we put medical freedom into the Constitution, the time will come when medicine will organize into an underground dictatorship... To restrict the art of healing to one class of men and deny equal privileges to others will constitute the Bastille of medical science. All such laws are un-American and despotic and have no place in a republic... The Constitution of this republic should make special privilege for medical freedom as well as religious freedom."
--Dr Benjamin Rush -signer of the Declaration of Independence.

Abuse of Police Power and Anti-Constitutional Activities by the FDA

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Anthony Gregory March 24, 2004
There are dozens of similar FDA horror stories. Few people expected these terrifying police raids to arise from FDA regulation of pharmaceuticals. We can’t predict what similarly frightening unintended consequences will arise from a federal surveillance program to spy on you when you go to the doctor.

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Google: Factory Farms

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National Health Federation
Established in 1955, the NHF is an international consumer-education, health-freedom organization working to protect individuals' rights to choose to consume healthy food, take supplements, and use alternative therapies without government restrictions. With consumer members all over the world, and a Board of Governors and Advisory Board containing representatives from 6 different countries, the Federation is unique as being the only consumer health-freedom organization in the world to enjoy official observer status (able to speak out for health freedom) at meetings of the Codex Alimentarius Commission, the highest international body on food standards.

Codex Overview

Health Freedom Foundation



FDA Never Ran a Test on Ganja

Bush & Monsanto: Today's Pelican Brief
Follow the Monsanto connection to George Bush's presidency. This brief will be more convincing than Grisham's Pelican Brief.

FIRST AND MOST IMPORTANT
Monsanto's lawyer was appointed to the Supreme Court by George Bush, Sr. The deciding swing voter gave the election to George, Jr. That justice: Clarence Thomas, Esq.

SECOND
Donald Rumsfeld, Secretary of Defense, was president of Searle Pharmaceuticals, purchased by Monsanto.

THIRD
Ann Veneman, Secretary of Agriculture, was on the board of directors of Calgene Pharmaceuticals, purchased by Monsanto.

FOURTH
Tommy Thompson, Secretary of Health, was a supporter of Monsanto in Wisconsin. He received $50,000 from biotech firms is his election run, and used state funds to set up a $317 million biotech zone in Wisconsin.

Mansonto, Cliarance & Conflicts of Ignorance...

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TARGET AMERICA

Souder Orders to FDA Backfiring! fda/ganja
Follow The Drug War Money By Paul Campos
Source: Rocky Mountain News April 25, 2006 USA
This is the story of two drugs. The first, dexfenfluramine, was the active ingredient in the weight loss drug Redux. Although it was available in the U.S. and Canada for only about 18 months, it killed hundreds of people, and severely injured thousands more. The second is marijuana. Over the past several decades, tens of millions of people across North America have used this drug regularly. It has, as far as anybody knows, killed no one.


nimbinmardigrass