Healthy soil and sustainable growing

["Tradingpost" <tradingpost@lobo.net>]

a lot of facts but the pace of changes could be the subject of a lot of 
disagreements

20 Signs That A Horrific Global Food Crisis Is Coming
http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/archives/20-signs-that-a-horrific-global-food-crisis-is-coming

In case you haven't noticed, the world is on the verge of a horrific global 
food crisis.  At some point, this crisis will affect you and your family.  It 
may not be today, and it may not be tomorrow, but it is going to happen.  
Crazy weather and horrifying natural disasters have played havoc with 
agricultural production in many areas of the globe over the past couple of 
years.  Meanwhile, the price of oil has begun to skyrocket.  The entire 
global economy is predicated on the ability to use massive amounts of 
inexpensive oil to cheaply produce food and other goods and transport them 
over vast distances.  Without cheap oil the whole game changes.  Topsoil is 
being depleted at a staggering rate and key aquifers all over the world are 
being drained at an alarming pace.  Global food prices are already at an 
all-time high and they continue to move up aggressively.  So what is going to 
happen to our world when hundreds of millions more people cannot afford to 
feed themselves?

Most Americans are so accustomed to supermarkets that are absolutely packed 
to the gills with massive amounts of really inexpensive food that they cannot 
even imagine that life could be any other way.  Unfortunately, that era is 
ending.

There are all kinds of indications that we are now entering a time when there 
will not be nearly enough food for everyone in the world.  As competition for 
food supplies increases, food prices are going to go up.  In fact, at some 
point they are going to go way up.

Let's look at some of the key reasons why an increasing number of people 
believe that a massive food crisis is on the horizon.

The following are 20 signs that a horrific global food crisis is coming....

#1 According to the World Bank, 44 million people around the globe have been 
pushed into extreme poverty since last June because of rising food prices.

#2 The world is losing topsoil at an astounding rate.  In fact, according to 
Lester Brown, "one third of the world's cropland is losing topsoil faster 
than new soil is forming through natural processes".

#3 Due to U.S. ethanol subsidies, almost a third of all corn grown in the 
United States is now used for fuel.  This is putting a lot of stress on the 
price of corn.

#4 Due to a lack of water, some countries in the Middle East find themselves 
forced to almost totally rely on other nations for basic food staples.  For 
example, it is being projected that there will be no more wheat production in 
Saudi Arabia by the year 2012.

#5 Water tables all over the globe are being depleted at an alarming rate due 
to "overpumping".  According to the World Bank, there are 130 million people 
in China and 175 million people in India that are being fed with grain with 
water that is being pumped out of aquifers faster than it can be replaced.  
So what happens once all of that water is gone?

#6 In the United States, the systematic depletion of the Ogallala Aquifer 
could eventually turn "America's Breadbasket" back into the "Dust Bowl".

#7 Diseases such as UG99 wheat rust are wiping out increasingly large 
segments of the world food supply.

#8 The tsunami and subsequent nuclear crisis in Japan have rendered vast 
agricultural areas in that nation unusable.  In fact, there are many that 
believe that eventually a significant portion of northern Japan will be 
considered to be uninhabitable.  Not only that, many are now convinced that 
the Japanese economy, the third largest economy in the world, is likely to 
totally collapse as a result of all this.

#9 The price of oil may be the biggest factor on this list.  The way that we 
produce our food is very heavily dependent on oil.  The way that we transport 
our food is very heavily dependent on oil.  When you have skyrocketing oil 
prices, our entire food production system becomes much more expensive.  If 
the price of oil continues to stay high, we are going to see much higher food 
prices and some forms of food production will no longer make economic sense 
at all.

#10 At some point the world could experience a very serious fertilizer 
shortage.  According to scientists with the Global Phosphorus Research 
Initiative, the world is not going to have enough phosphorous to meet 
agricultural demand in just 30 to 40 years.

#11 Food inflation is already devastating many economies around the globe.  
For example, India is dealing with an annual food inflation rate of 18 
percent.

#12 According to the United Nations, the global price of food reached a new 
all-time high in February.

#13 According to the World Bank, the global price of food has risen 36% over 
the past 12 months.

#14 The commodity price of wheat has approximately doubled since last summer.

#15 The commodity price of corn has also about doubled since last summer.

#16 The commodity price of soybeans is up about 50% since last June.

#17 The commodity price of orange juice has doubled since 2009.

#18 There are about 3 billion people around the globe that live on the 
equivalent of 2 dollars a day or less and the world was already on the verge 
of economic disaster before this year even began.

#19 2011 has already been one of the craziest years since World War 2.  
Revolutions have swept across the Middle East, the United States has gotten 
involved in the civil war in Libya, Europe is on the verge of a financial 
meltdown and the U.S. dollar is dying.  None of this is good news for global 
food production.

#20 There have been persistent rumors of shortages at some of the biggest 
suppliers of emergency food in the United States.  The following is an 
excerpt from a recent "special alert" posted on Raiders News Network....

    Look around you. Read the headlines. See the largest factories of food, 
potassium iodide, and other emergency product manufacturers literally closing 
their online stores and putting up signs like those on Mountain House's 
Official Website and Thyrosafe's Factory Webpage that explain, due to 
overwhelming demand, they are shutting down sales for the time being and hope 
to reopen someday.

So what does all of this mean?

It means that time is short.

For years, many "doom and gloomers" have been yelling and screaming that a 
food crisis is coming.

Well, up to this point there hasn't been much to get alarmed about.  Food 
prices have started to rise, but the truth is that our stores are still 
packed to the rafters will gigantic amounts of relatively cheap food.

However, you would have to be an idiot not to see the warning signs.  Just 
look at what happened in Japan after March 11th.  Store shelves were cleared 
out almost instantly.

It isn't going to happen today, and it probably isn't going to happen 
tomorrow, but at some point a major league food crisis is going to strike.

So what are you and your family going to do then?

You might want to start thinking about that.