The Mother of All Food Shortages

[glenn kangiser]

http://www.silverbearcafe.com/private/12.08/famine.html

Courtesy Rense.com

[peternap]

That's a good post Glenn.
It makes my point about the perfect storm also. There are a lot of things coming together now, that will cause untold troubles in the very near future. These are things that happen all the time.....but not all at once and without the added burden of a very unstable economic foundation.

The propane shortage doesn't effect Virginia farmers but, we have our own deamons to fight. Loss of farmland to development is a big one and the conversion (or lack thereof) from tobacco to food crops is another.

Crop prices are always a problem.

It's easy for me to talk about problems and solutions because I don't farm for a living. I feel a little like Oliver Douglas on Green Acres sometimes and I feed mostly bears, deer and turkey, not myself or people.

I think that farming in this country is going to have to take a giant step backward to survive or at least for the family farm to survive. Family farmers simply have to quit trying to be large corporate farms. They need to concentrate on a food crop for the family and then a cash crop for items they don't produce on the farm.
They also need to learn (re-learn) to cut their dependence on purchased fertilizers. In short, they have to become self dependent again. I am a state certified master gardener and my specialty was and is composting. I spearheaded the program in this county composting tree debree at the county landfill. It;s a very big operation and  county residents get the compost free. This can also be done on the farm. I haven't seen anyone use a manure spreader for years but they work pretty darn well.

I don't know a single small grain farmer that also raises cattle or hogs or chickens for consumption. They feel it's more cost effective to spend time raising grain and buy the food. That's a good approach as long as all goes well, but a disruption in the business end, such as the Dakota Farmers are facing, can leave aa farm family starving while sitting on an unsellable crop.

While I'm not nearly naive enough to think our current crisis will travel in a straight line, I'm also nort arrogant enough to think I even have a lot of answers. Getting through this is going to take teamwork to develop workable solutions.

[apaknad]

great find glen. i have never seen that site before. i will read more when time permits. as you probably know by now i am very bullish on gold and especially siver.

dan

[apaknad]

i guess i need to explain that the last of the many articles i read on that site had to do w/siver. the grain shortage is alarming and we should be stocking up on storable grains/food.

[muldoon]

Take that company from yesterdays news.  They had obligations to their employees related to severance and vacation pay they were unable to fulfill because their credit liner was pulled wiping out their ability to pay anything.  They had no reserve of cash, one single pay cycle killed them.  It's a common practice these days, nothing is cash based - any available funds collect interest so that your money works for you.  Debt is payed on a rolling term, net 30 in most cases.  Those suppliers in turn must pay their suppliers on net 30 terms. 

Your grocery store does not own the food on their shelves, they accept delivery, sell, then must pay for it within the allotted time - hopefully with the funds they make selling it.  If they lose their line of credit they do not get the next shipment.  That fast - 3 days. 

If the delivery truck cannot get fuel because his fuel card is not accepted the trucks do not move.  If the food piles up on barges in Lousiana because the insurance company cannot insure the transport because they lost their line of credit the same occurs. 

Just in time inventory is going to create some huge shortages in 2009. 

We havent even gotten to the other problems -- like oil at 42 when it may take 60 to get it from some sites.  Like corn at 3.11 a bushel.  Three dollars!  Do you know what a bushel of corn cost in the 70s?  3 dollars.  In June it was 8.  It has been cut in half, how many farmers will this decimate, who is going to be growing next year?  How the hell will they fertilize, how will they buy pesticide?  You cant grow corn for 3 dollars per 56 pound bushel -- and I dont care what the futures market says.  You cant perform tar sand extraction of crude for less then 60 a barrel, you can do deepwater projects for under 50.   Yes there will be shortages because we are going to drive the companies who provide us the things we need (energy and food) out of business. 

[wildbil]

 ???I'm lost...Were doomed if oil goes too high and were doomed if it goes too low? when are we not doomed? I'm starting to believe that peak oil=y2k. still I'm staying with my self sufficiency plan, not taking any chances.

[ScottA]

I figured something like this would happen. Last year the food prices where high and I'm sure alot of farmers went into debt thinking they would be able to make some money on the good prices. Now the prices are below cost. How many will go belly up now? Plenty. The crisis won't last for ever but there could be shortages in the near term.

Oil is another matter. It's cheap now because oil was suposedly dumped on the market by speculators who needed to raise cash. As soon as this surplus is used up the prices will come back in line. I feel the fed is really the one who crashed the oil price to hurt Iran and Russia but plenty of speculators got caught in the storm.

That brings up another point. How much price manipulation is being caused by the fed buying and selling commodities, stocks and bonds? My guess is they can be blamed for most of the wild price flucuations. They have unlimited cash and no worry of getting caught. Now that prices have crashed they can buy up everything dirt cheap. Nice bussiness model.

[glenn kangiser]

I hadn't seen the site before but it looked to be of interest to us here.

I think as a group we are concerned, not only about sensible building, but also trying to stay a step ahead of events that need our attention for improved survival.

[Whitlock]

Why isn't the Gov. bailing this out

[glenn kangiser]

The sheeple are not elite. 

They do not need to eat.

Hey - that rhymes.

[Sonoran]

The sheeple are not elite. 

They do not need to eat.

Without sheeple there can't be lions.   

[glenn kangiser]

That is a good point but do they think about that? hmm

If there are less sheeple then there is more for the lions.

[glenn kangiser]

Look at it as being a cattle rancher - whether your herd is a hundred or a thousand you are still the boss.

[Sonoran]

Look at it as being a cattle rancher - whether your herd is a hundred or a thousand you are still the boss.

But a herd of 100 cows isn't enough to support you.

[muldoon]

I'm going to label this as tinfoil, it may or may not be I don't know.  In general I am not a conspiracy theory kind of person.  While I do believe there are some bad intentioned people I am not convinced of the coordination involved in most theories. 

However, if you google for "cfr population control" you'll find huge amounts of documentation going back decades that detail an agenda to handle population and overshoot conditions.   The idea that the elites need a huge population consuming all the natural resources doesn't exactly jive with that. 

The Council for Foreign Relations has  a very large political support base, in fact nearly every leader in the US is a member in some way.  I think the support is global but I dont know for sure who is and is not so I'll not mis-speak on it and leave it you others to read up if they care.  All of that being said, I don't like to put a lot of stock into it because I think the truth is more like the situation with the masons, while their may indeed be some nefarious dealings at the top (who knows?) the majority of the people involved simply want to benefit their community, and a nearly all of them simply want the connections being involved gives them.  For masons, something along the lines of Masons are always first in line for a job can go pretty far these days. 

[glenn kangiser]

I think the whole point here would be to be prepared in case something goes wrong, but that is a good idea especially with the current state of the world anyway.

[Pox Eclipse]

Oil is another matter. It's cheap now because oil was suposedly dumped on the market by speculators who needed to raise cash. As soon as this surplus is used up the prices will come back in line.

That may have been true at the beginning of the crash in oil prices, but the deepening recession is depressing demand all by itself now:

Total U.S. product demand fell 6.1 percent over the past four weeks against year-ago levels. U.S. gasoline demand is expected to decline more sharply this year and next than in any other two-year period since 1979-1980, the EIA said.

[Jens]

Peter, I like what you had to say about farmers rethinking their operations.  When I run for president in 2015 (I hope I can count on votes from all of you...yes, even you StinkerBell  ), one of my major platforms will be turning to local commerce, and industry.  I think that one of the most dangerous things we have done for employment, and the environment, is to centralize things too much.  I think that agriculture should be locally based, and always organic.  It would create some difficulties, but I think it would solve many more problems than it creates.  Hmmmmm...maybe I'll start a thread on this...