wheat?

[muldoon]

Everyone knows that food has been getting expensive for the past year, and that their are some international shortages food.  Almost a dozen resulting in riots in 3rd world countries.  Someone sent me this link this morning and after thinking about it some I thought I should post it and see what anyone else thought about it. 

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/24361263

Basically I picked up on two comments from the article that I was not aware of,

"nationwide, there is now less wheat in grain bins than at any time since World War II -- only about enough to supply the world for four days. This occurs as developing countries with some of the poorest populations are rapidly increasing their wheat imports."

Four days?  Does that sound low to anyone else -- what about droughts, floods, wheat rust, .. shouldn't the buffer be more?  Hell a trucking delay can be 4 days.  Wow.  I thought those silos all around the country held years (at least months) in reserve?  Are their any farmers out there that could educate us on this? 

"But with 100-pound bags of North Dakota flour now above $50 -- more than double what they were a few months ago"

Something doubling in cost in a few months is not sustainable ever.  Something doesn't jive with the report, but it sure sounds unhealthy for us if it's true.  Anyway, based on the above - I would read this as a foreshadow that wheat is about to get very expensive, and likely inconsistently available - which in turn just adds fuel to a bad situation.   If this downward trend gets anymore legs were going to be in for a hell of a summer. 

Also, I had not heard anything in the news about this before today so I went to look by googling "wheat shortage" in google news.  2552 articles in the last month?  Granted I don't watch cnn all day every day, but I would have thought if this was a severe problem that I would have caught it somewhere... 

http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&um=1&tab=wn&q=wheat+shortage&btnG=Search+News

Anyone else read this differently, am I overreacting?  How is this not a disaster in the making?

[Homegrown Tomatoes]

According to Frances Moore Lappe' (author of Hope's Edge) it is more a problem of distribution than actual food shortage that is the real danger.  I had an ag professor in college who basically said the same thing, and one of his points was the thousands upon thousands of water buffalo and cows that roam around India while people starve to death because they won't eat them... and likewise food shipments to rice-eating countries of things that people don't know how to cook.  In my book, the best we can really do is to try to produce as much of what we eat as we can and support small, local agriculture when we can't grow it ourselves.  The cost of food has gone up tremendously in the last few years, and we as a family have had to depend upon a grocery store far more than ever in the past recently because we are in a rental house temporarily.  I am concerned about food shortages, yes, not only because they'll effect us, but because they'll devastate cities and especially places where people are living paycheck to paycheck.  Another thing to do is to eat seasonally and locally.  My kids and I ground cornmeal from the little patch of corn we planted last year and used it to make bread for several months.  It wasn't a big plot... just an intensively planted raised bed of heirloom corn.  Best cornbread I ever had.  One of these days I want to try similar experiments with wheat, rye, barley, rice, millet and whatever else.  FWIW....

[John_C]

The link you posted brought up over 2500 articles.  Do you have one to the numbers you quoted.

The way you stated them we have, in this country, enough wheat to supply the world for only 4 days.  We only have 4-5% or so of the worlds population.  That would be enough wheat for about 100 days for our population.  Are we the only people storing wheat? Isn't there any wheat in storage silos anywhere else in the world? If the do-do hits the fan and we are the only ones distribution will be even more of an issue. I am NOT saying there isn't a problem but so often these number get presented in a way to make the situation seem more dire than it is.

[Homegrown Tomatoes]

John, that's exactly what the article said... that in THIS country there are only enough reserves to feed the WORLD for 4 days.  It is not the job of the US to feed the entire world, though we'll ship whatever we can wherever we can for a price.  My point is that people don't have a clue these days where their food comes from... I'd love to see some of the fear-mongering of the media turn into a backlash against the status quo and have more people taking an active role in producing and procuring their own food directly from the sources rather than having them rush the grocery store to stockpile staples.  I think it would help in restoring a government by the people... people in the US are so powerless because they give control over their basic needs to people they don't even know....

[glenn kangiser]

Good point, Homegrown.

If not for all the crap we are led to believe we need and money to pay for the system, providing cannon fodder for the elite's wars, we could simply spend our time living and providing for our families.  We would have time for a cow and to know and trade with - assist and look out for our fellow man as they would assist and look out for us.

I suppose someone is going to jump in here and say I am oversimplifying things.

Why should we live our lives to support the money changers and power mongers? hmm

[benevolance]

the money spent in Iraq would convert the USA to 100 renewable green power  3 times over...

So yeah if they spent the war money on ways to treat sewage and used that water to replenish the water table... more water would be available for food production...

In the south east and in the west... you can grow as much food as you want provided you get the water to do so... America can easily double their food production provided they come up with the necessary water for the crops

[benevolance]

I guess I was trying to say that water is the underlying problem that causes many of our other problems.

[Homegrown Tomatoes]

Good point, Homegrown.

If not for all the crap we are led to believe we need and money to pay for the system, providing cannon fodder for the elite's wars, we could simply spend our time living and providing for our families.  We would have time for a cow and to know and trade with - assist and look out for our fellow man as they would assist and look out for us.

I suppose someone is going to jump in here and say I am oversimplifying things.

Why should we live our lives to support the money changers and power mongers? hmm

I think it is a simplification, not an over-simplification, and by gum we need some simplification in this day and age.  I get so sick of people wanting plan and organize and have a "meeting" about stuff when the main point they miss is simply "doing".  Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.  When you buy food, this applies as well.  When you grow food for your own table and have extra to share with friends and neighbors, it also applies, or you can trade your produce for something you need (I once traded five homemade apple pies from our apple tree for a small deep freeze, for example, a good trade that benefitted both parties.)  I absolutely hate the fact that we are, for the moment, not in the position to do and to grow for ourselves (at least not very much though we do have several container gardens going at the moment.)  I feel like I've lost an integral part of my freedom because I don't have as many options.  For now, much of our food is coming from a grocery store...I haven't figured out where the farmer's markets are here yet.  However, I couldn't sleep last night because I was up daydreaming and planning about land I don't yet own.     How much to plant of what stuff, wondering how much government is going to try to interfere, wondering what hoops I'll have to jump through to produce anything for the purpose of selling it, etc., and most of all, how long is it going to be before we can buy the land we hope to have?

[ScottA]

I have theory on all this sudden suposed shortage of just about everything all the sudden. For the past several years a business practice known as "Just in time" has really taken hold. Products are no longer produced and stored until needed. They are not made until someone orders them or they try calculate exactly what they will be able to sell within a very short production cycle. This practice keeps prices up because it reduces or eliminates surplus which drives prices down. This practice has spread from manufacturing to commodities including food and gasoline. By keeping supply just barely enough they are able to keep prices higher. If something unexpected happens it can quickly create a shortage. We never had these problems when there where lots of small operators because they where all trying to produce as much as possible. Now that corperations control everything this organized aproach to supply can be practiced. There are no real oil or food shortages. There is a plan however to drive prices up by keeping production limited. Anyone else think it's strange that so many commoidties have been effected at almost exatly the same time? Wheat, Corn, Rice, Oil, Potash, Nitrogen, Coal, Copper, Cement....the list goes on...all suddenly in short supply in the last couple of years.

[glenn kangiser]

I agree with you both.  Remember that most problem causes can be answered with the statement, "Follow the money."

If it will make the chosen few rich at the expense of the sheeple then there is probably one of their plans behind it.  By them I am not referring to individuals but more to our ever expanding fascist state comprised of big business who pretty much owns the government.  We as a whole, have let it grow into a gigantic uncontrolled beast, and it is in charge of the country, swallowing up and destroying small business, the individual and their rights, and soon, the country.

Do the chosen few care about the little guys?  They (we) are nothing more than an irritating nuisance to them like a bunch of buzzing flies hovering around a bulls bum.  They would be happy if we were not there, hence the plan to lower the population of the world.

I only skimmed this article but it looks like it may fit with some of this.  Sorry -- gotta go to work again.

http://www.radioliberty.com/pca.htm

[Homegrown Tomatoes]

Interesting read, Glenn.  Part of the discussion of Planned Parenthood tied in very well with something I just read recently in a book by Nancy Leigh Demoss... she was talking about how Planned Parenthood first gained cooperation of churches and pastors in accepting birth control, since they would not accept abortion.  Either way, the goal was the same, though.  It was interesting food for thought.