When I cook, I guarantee flavor. Been that way for thirty years, ain't stopping now.http://forums.equipped.org/images/icons/default/wink.gif

Of course, free market capitalism and open markets will solve all the issues associated with food and food production. Or not.

http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2011/04/27/how_goldman_sachs_created_the_food_crisis

http://developeconomies.com/development-...-goldman-sachs/

http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/com...on-2016088.html

None of them are very sympathetic to the poor, struggling capitalists as they scrimp and save to keep bread on their tables. I found it interesting to compare an contrast the different articles and how they use the same basic matrix of facts.

As quietly as it's kept, we are fighting aggressively over oil right now.

Ah. Important snag there. Increased production isn't always possible. There is a limited supply of land suitable to grow wheat on. That supply of land isn't magically getting bigger when they prices are ricing. There is also a limit to how much you can produce on that piece of land.

BTW - I'm not saying anything about if it is possible to increase today's production or not. My point is that there will be a very hard and real limit to the production of any specific agricultural product - and no economic price/demand mantra will be able to raise that limit.

The classical price-demand-production-supply relationship is a wonderful mechanism when it works and a real [censored] when it doesn't.

Has anybody made the soylent green comment yet? If so, nevermind.

Speaking of wheat, why don't they invest in easy to grow plants like Quinoa? Far more nutrient dense and healthy than wheat anyway.

It's very likely we are going to see food crises, and possibly food riots, in some third world countries in the next decade. In fact, there's a good argument that some of the uprisings recently in the Arab world are partly spurred on by the fact that many people are struggling to survive. The relative cost of food in those countries (as a percentage of the typical family budget) is much higher than it is in the USA. I expect to see some marginal countries (esp. in places like Africa) become lawless states run by warlords i.e. more countries like Somalia.

It seems to me that there are a lot of creative things that can be done to boost food production. But I'm not sure the investment $$ are really there to make the major changes necessary.

We'll see.

Pete #2

Easy answer?? It doesn't sell.

Pragmatic answer? Perhaps it doesn't store or transport as well. It's all well and good if, for example, the US can produce 50% of the world's Miracle Grain #1, but it rots in a week - half the world will never see it.

My best friend's wife has a myriad of health problems (some are probably self-induced, but I digress). Anyway, they live on a variety of odd grains - corn is probably the most normal of they food staples they eat. But it's very hard for them to find non-wheat, non-rice foods. Maybe in downtown LA it wouldn't be so difficult, but up in eastern WA, it's a hassle.

Driving as I do regularly through Minnesota, WI, and IA farm country, I noticed a lot of new galvanized large grain storage bins popping up recently on farms everywhere. Some big co-ops have also added capacity. In some cases, they cut the bin in the middle, raise the top, and insert another steel section to increase its capacity. I am even seeing shiney new domes on top of old traditional masonery silos. The grain industry seems to be gearing up for something. There are so many of them, that I have to believe that the newly-increased ability to store grains will, while good for farmers, drive up the overall cost of food and ethanol at the consumer level.

I wasn't sure if my impressions were correct, so I looked up grain storage. Even though the graph does not show 2010-2011, the trnd is apparent and confirms my hunch...IA farmers have recently added millions of bushels of increased grain storage capacity.

Of course, not all farmers agree on the tactic of storing grain for market. In fact, all of this troubles farmer I.M. Slakinov, an old-country social-ist. Old Ivan has two pigs and six chickens that forage for themselves in his weed-covered farm lot.

Even though social-ism is the most thoroughly tested and soundly disproven social idea ever devised by humankind, and capitalism has produced the highest standard of living for the most participants in human history, Old Ivan still feels that if there is all this extra grain around, the gov't should take it away from the greedy farmers who produced it and put it in his empty bin. After all, he's poor.


Mods: my apologies, but why isn't 'capitalist' censored when PHRASECENSOREDPOSTERSHOULDKNOWBETTER. (social-ist) is?