Re: Food prices could double within 20 years, warns Ox...

[Guest guest]

I think it is going to happen faster than in 20 years. The article says that wheat is already up 70% over last year and the price of corn has doubled. Other prices will go up because of droughts and failures of farms.

In the US, severe droughts are still hitting the South and East. At the same time, some 2 million acres of Texas have burned while the drought is killing crops and animals in Texas and surrounding states. Water is going to become a serious issue in the US in the next 20 years or so. If the droughts continue that will be part of the problem, but also in many areas groundwater is being used up far more rapidly that it is being replaced. The great Olagala (sp) aquifer in the Midwest is nearly dry and water is still being pulled out faster than it is being refilled. As the water level continues to drop, then the agriculture it allowed in the region will begin to fail. Since this area was the breadbasket not only for the US but the world, food prices will be greatly affected.

This same thing is happening in other parts of the world where water is being mismanaged. Over the next few years countries like China and India will face major problems as they outstrip their water supply. Other nations, even some in Europe, will face water shortages. Various water reclamation schemes are out there, like extra processing to make waste water drinkable or desalinization, but that would work mainly for drinking water supply and won't help much with agriculture or industry.

The climate is also changing because it always has. The fad now is to blame humanity for the temperature increase but I think that is shortsighted since we've only been record temperatures accurately for about 150 years and much of the modern recording is suspect because of placement of sensor and use of computers to guess at temperatures over large parts of the earth. All that aside, deserts have been expanding around the world for thousands of years and they still are. I think this is probably due to the Earth coming out of the last major ice age since temperatures aren't quite up to the interglacial highs seen in the past. My point here being that all this money being spent blaming humanity for this increase and on "green" energy could be better spent researching better farming practices, real energy alternatives and ditching ethanol (which is an inferior product and is driving the higher food prices), and so on. We can't affect the overall climate, but we can affect how we adjust to its changes and we aren't doing a very good job of it.

In a message dated 5/31/2011 10:27:39 A.M. Eastern Daylight Time, no_reply writes:

Who would have thought???" Also, you can remember that had been predicting the same type of spike for the same kind of reasons listed in this article. He's been predicting this for about five or six years now, but no one has bee listening. Just think, millions of people around the world living on welfare type systems or a dollar a day are now going to be getting half as much for their money. Does anyone think people are going to just sit around and accept the situation?Administrator

[Guest guest]

" I think it is going to happen faster than in 20 years. The article says that

wheat is already up 70% over last year and the price of corn has doubled. Other

prices will go up because of droughts and failures of farms. "

It would be wise for everyone to check the commodity prices to estimate what

they may be paying as time goes on. Also, stores tend to hold sales during

regular schedules to unload stock before the shelf life of the products they

sell expires. Rather than buy meat ad hoc, people should buy when on sale, and

put the meat in the freezer.

In Canada, chicken quarters can cost $2.50 a pound or more normally, but we buy

in bulk when it's $1.00 a pund or less.

Cooking oil is another thing you can buy cheap if you know when to buy.

Hamburger meat might go for $2.99 a pound. We go to " Farm Boy " which sells

mostly meat, and get it for $1.89 a pound. YOu can get good deals there on other

things like bacon, ham, and such as well. I do not think Farm Boy exists in the

states, but similar places do exist.

Administrator