Skip to Content.
Sympa Menu

livingontheland - Re: [Livingontheland] AGRICULTURAL APOCALYPSE, 2010

livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org

Subject: Healthy soil and sustainable growing

List archive

Chronological Thread  
  • From: <pbunch@cox.net>
  • To: Healthy soil and sustainable growing <livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [Livingontheland] AGRICULTURAL APOCALYPSE, 2010
  • Date: Fri, 9 Apr 2010 5:50:35 -0700

Hear, hear!

---- Aliza Vanderlip <songbird97520@yahoo.com> wrote:
> We have drought off and on all the time here in southern oregon and the
> difference can be just a few miles.  I get my alfalfa hay from a guy in
> Klamath Falls - about 60 miles away.  They are being told (and rightly so
> in my opinion) that they wont have any irrigation water this year because
> there is no snow pack on their side of the hill and not enough water stored
> for both them and the salmon and the fish come first.  We on the other
> hand, while we had a very dry fall, have made up for it somewhat this
> spring and have an almost normal snow pack so wont be seeing as much water
> restriction and just a few miles down the road in Mt Shasta they are way
> over their snow pack and in water heaven - they have gotten a few extreme
> storms this late winter/early spring.  I guess it is time to plan to use
> water well.  We all should be thinking about helping our soil retain more
> moisture if it be by using fixed beds, or animal mob grazing
> techniques..etc....
>
> I really dont think the extreme language is helpful.  Being panicked isnt a
> resource state.  The types of solutions we need wont come from panic but
> instead from inspiration to create excellence.  Local food sourcing is the
> answer and the best local food source is your own garden!
>
> Aliza
>
> Blessings,
>

>
Aliza
>
www.eftashland.com
>

>

>
“Don’t ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it.
Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.” Howard Thurman
>
> --- On Wed, 4/7/10, Kate Spinner <kespinner@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> From: Kate Spinner <kespinner@gmail.com>
> Subject: Re: [Livingontheland] AGRICULTURAL APOCALYPSE, 2010
> To: "Healthy soil and sustainable growing"
> <livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org>
> Date: Wednesday, April 7, 2010, 9:48 PM
>
> Not to say a food crisis isn't imminent, because it very well may be, 
> but a lot of the crop failures this year in Florida and across the 
> globe had to do with bizarre weather.
>
> It was and still is an El Niño year, in which warmer than normal 
> tropical sea surface temperatures in the Pacific create drastic and 
> disrupting climate changes across the globe. The last big El Niño 
> occurred in 1997-1998. There were problems that year as well. And in 
> years before that.
>
> Florida froze. Canada melted. The mid-Atlantic got Buffalo's snow. 
> Other similar strange events happened in Europe.
>
> So, the threat of food shortages now and in the future are an 
> environmental problem, an economic problem and a political problem.
>
> - Kate
>
> On Apr 8, 2010, at 1:22 AM, Tradingpost wrote:
>
> >
> > I hope catastrophic or “mass starvation” in places is too strong a 
> > word, but there is evidence I find credible, for what it's worth, 
> > which is why I passed it on. There have been reports of many growers 
> > running into a credit crunch from lenders to finance their current 
> > season. Winter vegetables have been decimated by U.S. weather. Just 
> > today we saw a fast food sign about tomatoes only on request if 
> > available. We know the biofuels boondoggle has driven up the cost of 
> > corn which goes into thousands of processed foods. And could our 
> > USDA put out a demonstrably false and contradictory report for 
> > political reasons? You tell me.
> >
> > I'm starting extra tomatoes and peppers now.
> >
> > paul tradingpost@lobo.net
> >
> > *********** REPLY SEPARATOR  ***********
> >
> > On 4/7/2010 at 10:09 PM Tradingpost wrote:
> >
> >> AGRICULTURAL APOCALYPSE, 2010
> >> Wednesday, 07 April 2010
> >> http://agriculture.imva.info/?p=12
> >> Dwayne Andreas
> >>
> >> The food business is far and away the most important business in the
> >> world. Everything else is a luxury. Food is what you need to 
> >> sustain life
> >> every day.
> >>
> >> When a large segment of the population is facing a drastic cut in 
> >> income
> >> in the face of escalating food prices we have a catastrophic 
> >> problem in
> >> the making. Today we have the simultaneous events of income 
> >> deflation and
> >> food inflation; two high-speed express trains coming down that 
> >> tracks at
> >> each other, a financial crisis colliding with staggering crop losses,
> >> which are cutting deeply into available planetary food reserves. 
> >> Prices of
> >> food are again beginning to soar again just as millions are losing 
> >> the
> >> ability to afford a reasonable diet, though little of this is being
> >> observed or reported. But soon even the blind will see.
> >>
> >>> From corn to crude, prices for a wide range of commodities are
> >> on the rise across the globe. In recent months, global food prices
> >> have been growing at a rate that rivals some of the wildest months
> >> of 2008, when food riots erupted across the developing world.
> >> [January 9th Wall Street Journal]
> >>
> >> The cold is again freezing oranges in Florida. Temperatures in Miami
> >> dropped to 36F; beating the record 37F set in 1938.  Officials are 
> >> saying
> >> that hundreds of millions of dollars of food perished. Vegetables 
> >> were
> >> among the hardest hit. At least one major tomato grower, Ag-Mart 
> >> Produce,
> >> has already declared that most of its Florida crop is “useless due 
> >> to the
> >> freeze.” Other vegetable farms were expected to lose their entire 
> >> crop,
> >> and wholesale prices have already increased. “Tomatoes were down 
> >> around
> >> $14 for a 25-pound box; now they are up over $20,” said Gene 
> >> McAvoy, an
> >> agriculture expert with the University Florida, who predicted $100 
> >> million
> >> in vegetable losses. “Peppers — just after New Year’s they were $8 
> >> a box;
> >> now they’re up around $18.”
> >>
> >> White sugar climbed to the highest price in at least two decades
> >> in London on speculation that India, Pakistan and other importers
> >> will purchase more of the sweetener as a supply deficit looms.
> >> Excess rains in Brazil and a weak monsoon in India hurt
> >> sugar-cane output from the world’s two biggest growers.
> >> [January 20, 2010]
> >>
> >> The world faces “mass starvation” following North America’s next 
> >> major
> >> crop failure. And it could even happen before year’s end. So says
> >> Chicago-based Don Coxe, who is one of the world’s leading experts on
> >> agricultural commodities, so much so that Canada’s renowned BMO 
> >> Financial
> >> Group named the fund after him. A crop failure in North America 
> >> will have
> >> particularly dire consequences for major overseas markets that are 
> >> highly
> >> reliant on U.S. crop imports.
> >>
> >> Scientists in England are warning that a “perfect storm” of food 
> >> shortages
> >> and water scarcity now threatens to unleash public unrest and 
> >> conflict,
> >> the government’s chief scientist, Professor John Beddington, has
> >> warned.[i] “People do not quite realise the scale of the issue,” said
> >> Professor Mike Bevan. “This is one of the most serious problems that
> >> science has ever faced.” In Britain the lives of hundreds of 
> >> thousands of
> >> people will be threatened by food shortages. The repercussions of 
> >> food
> >> shortages for any society are devastating. The world faces “mass
> >> starvation” following more major crop failures in the United States 
> >> and
> >> other places around the globe. According to Chicago-based Don Coxe, 
> >> who is
> >> one of the world’s leading experts on agricultural commodities, so 
> >> much so
> >> that Canada’s renowned BMO Financial Group named the fund after 
> >> him, this
> >> mind boggling event could happen before year’s end.
> >>
> >> We are facing a problem that literally has never been faced in human
> >> history. Surging population and food demand, food inflation, 
> >> diminishing
> >> world food stocks, drought, flooding, cold, diminished credit,
> >> infestations, soil erosion, industrial farming, factory farm 
> >> pollution,
> >> aquifers/wells going dry, relocation of produce for energy 
> >> production are
> >> all slamming into a global financial and economic crisis. And in some
> >> places like the United States they don’t have enough farmers. Then 
> >> on top
> >> of everything else we have desertification, which is one of the 
> >> world’s
> >> most pressing environmental issues. New deserts are growing at a 
> >> rate of
> >> 20,000 square miles (51,800 square kilometers) a year. 
> >> Desertification
> >> leads to famine, mass starvation and human migration.
> >>
> >> According to Eric de Carbonnel, “There is overwhelming, undeniable
> >> evidence that the world will run out of food next year. The 2010 Food
> >> Crisis is going to be different. It is the crisis that will make all
> >> doomsday scenarios come true. Early in 2009, the supply and demand in
> >> agricultural markets went badly out of balance. The world 
> >> experienced a
> >> catastrophic fall in food production as a result of the financial 
> >> crisis
> >> (low commodity prices and lack of credit) and adverse weather on a 
> >> global
> >> scale. Normally food prices should have already shot higher months 
> >> ago,
> >> leading to lower food consumption and bringing the global food
> >> supply/demand situation back into balance. This never happened 
> >> because the
> >> United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), instead of adjusting
> >> production estimates down to reflect decreased production, adjusted
> >> estimates upwards to match increasing demand from china. In this 
> >> way, the
> >> USDA has brought supply and demand back into balance (on paper) and
> >> temporarily delayed a rise in food prices by ensuring a catastrophe 
> >> in
> >> 2010.”[ii]
> >>
> >> According to the United States Department of Agriculture U.S. farmers
> >> produced the largest corn and soybean crops on record in 2009. And 
> >> there
> >> are people who believe that anyone who believes government figures on
> >> anything concerning the economy or anything else is a total moron.
> >>
> >> Very few people in the US have given any serious consideration to the
> >> question of food security. This essay should convince people that 
> >> its time
> >> to start. For the most part, we’re not aware of the problem but if 
> >> we look
> >> hard at the ‘hidden’ news we see that the handwriting is on the 
> >> wall for
> >> an unimaginable crisis that will come on us as early as this year.
> >>
> >> More than 2.1 million hectares of grain have been destroyed
> >> by drought in 2009 in Russia, Agriculture Minister Yelena
> >> Skrynnik said. A total of 616,000 hectares have been
> >> destroyed in the region, or 70% of the total amount planted.[iii]
> >>
> >> “The world is blissfully unaware that the greatest economic, 
> >> financial and
> >> political crisis ever is a few months away. It takes only the 
> >> tiniest bit
> >> of research to realize something is going critically wrong in the
> >> agricultural market. All someone needs to do to know the world is 
> >> headed
> >> for food crisis is to stop reading USDA’s crop reports predicting a 
> >> record
> >> soybean and corn harvests and listen to what else the USDA is saying.
> >> Specifically, the USDA has declared half the counties in the 
> >> Midwest to be
> >> primary disaster areas, including 274 counties in the last 30 days 
> >> alone.
> >> These designations are based on the criteria of a minimum of 30 
> >> percent
> >> loss in the value of at least one crop in the county,” continues de
> >> Carbonnel.
> >>
> >> [i]
> >> http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2009/dec/13/britain-faces-food-shortage
> >> [ii]
> >> http://www.marketskeptics.com/2009/12/2010-food-crisis-for-dummies.html
> >> [iii] http://www.kyivpost.com/news/world/detail/44653/
> >>
> >>
> >
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > Livingontheland mailing list
> > Livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org
> > http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/livingontheland
>
> _______________________________________________
> Livingontheland mailing list
> Livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org
> http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/livingontheland
>








Archive powered by MHonArc 2.6.24.

Top of Page