Healthy soil and sustainable growing

[Liz <liz@allslash.org>]

At 03:39 AM 4/28/2008, you wrote:

> Much of the news coverage of the world food crisis has focussed on 
> riots in low-income countries, where workers and others cannot cope 
> with skyrocketing costs of staple foods. But there is another side 
> to the story: the big profits that are being made by huge food 
> corporations and investors. Cargill, the world's biggest grain 
> trader, achieved an 86% increase in profits from commodity trading 
> in the first quarter of this year. Bunge, another huge food trader, 
> had a 77% increase in profits during the last quarter of last year. 
> ADM, the second largest grain trader in the world, registered a 67% 
> per cent increase in profits in 2007.

This begins to look an awful lot like Exxon and the other petroleum 
companies, doesn't it. Prices way up, the corporations raking in huge 
profits, and the rest of us barely getting by. Without getting into 
politics, I'd say that was a recipe for political disaster if nothing else.

> Nor are retail giants taking the strain: profits at Tesco, the UK 
> supermarket giant, rose by a record 11.8% last year. Other major 
> retailers, such as France's Carrefour and Wal-Mart of the US, say 
> that food sales are the main sector sustaining their profit 
> increases. Investment funds, running away from sliding stock markets 
> and the credit crunch, are having a heyday on the commodity markets, 
> driving prices out of reach for food importers like Bangladesh and 
> the Philippines.

Even if Walmart and the other big retailers are being sustained by 
increased food prices now, their overall sales will almost certainly 
begin to drop as people have less and less income to spend on other 
things. They will pressure their vendors and distributors even more 
to keep prices down, and I think we can expect to see continued 
recalls of contaminated goods. There's only so far the manufacturer 
can cut prices and stay in business, without beginning to cut 
quality, and that's not even including the people who don't care 
about the quality to begin with.

Liz in SW VA
http://life-as-a-spectator-sport.com