What If One Day There Is
Could we really run out of food?
…The very idea that the modern world could run out of food seems ludicrous, but that is the flip side, or cause, of the tremendous recent increase in the cost of raw wheat, corn, rice, oats and soybeans. Food prices are not escalating because speculators have run them up for sport and profit, but because accelerating demand in developing nations, biofuel production and poor harvests in some areas have made basic foodstuffs truly scarce.
…Most unusual about this phenomenon, according to BMO Financial Group strategist Don Coxe, is that until now, food crises in world history were regional concerns that arose from crop failures, war or pests. Once global trade of grains got going in the 19th century in a major way, food shortages in one country were ameliorated by imports, he said. What’s happening now is a lack of supply everywhere at once.
Hungry people are cranky people.
And then they get desperate.
World Stuff | tree hugging sister | 
April 21, 2008 11:20 am
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The only liquid biofuel we should be producing is booze.
That’s frightening in many ways. We might see a resurgence of the home garden……and hopefully a reduction in biofuel production. If not, then probably an increase in ammunition sales.
Hungry people can get very desperate.
Amazing. We sit on vast oceans of petroleum yet we’ll starve to death because we insist on turning our food supply into a third-rate fuel.
And we subsidize turning fields that grew other commodities into more corn for ethanol, thus making the price of all other foodstuffs go up still further. It really is madness.
“Resurgence of the home garden” works great if you live in a climate that’s not too cold/too hot/too dry/too wet/too buggy. AND if you have the time (i.e. are not employed full-time) to tend the thing. And in the long run, it is probably less efficient than letting people who have the tools and education (i.e., farmers) grow the food.
But, I expect that’s going to be the proposed “answer” to people complaining about high food prices – “Either deal with the high prices, or grow your own food.”
I have a garden but I have no illusions of being able to actually feed myself in any kind of long-term way off the thing. Tomatoes for summer salads, yes, survival over the winter, no.