Healthy soil and sustainable growing

[Liz <liz@allslash.org>]

At 12:58 PM 10/17/2008, you wrote:

> Financial crash deepens food crisis
> (China Daily)
> Updated: 2008-10-17 06:59
> http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/world/2008-10/17/content_7113789.htm
>
> Nearly 1 billion people went hungry Thursday as the world marked 
> World Food Day.

In many ways, this is a companion piece to your other post, about the 
laid-off Whirlpool workers and the farmer who can't afford to retire. 
World food production is not tied directly to demand but indirectly 
to commodity pricing. If the global commodity market goes flat, it 
doesn't matter whether there is a dire need in a particular 
geographical area--crops won't get planted if the farmer doesn't 
expect to get a good price from them. The 70-year-old guy on the 
tractor has to try to stick it out one more year in the hope of 
making enough of a profit to pay for the machinery, and the people 
who might have bought a new refrigerator from the appliance company 
put that off so they can buy food. I hear the sounds of dominoes 
crashing down . . .

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