Food Crisis to Get Worse
The food crisis is spreading around the world, and it is being caused by rising food prices, declining outputs, decreased resources for agriculture, and biofuels. The crisis is affecting third world countries the hardest, including many women and children.
The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization fears that the crisis will get much worse before if gets any better.
Ann Veneman, executive director of the U.N. children's agency UNICEF, warns that rising prices "will most affect the most vulnerable, including people depending on humanitarian assistance, orphans, those affected by HIV/AIDS, refugees and poor urban families."(-ipsnews.net)
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The Food and Agriculture Organization says that food prices have gone up 83% in the last three years. Rice prices alone have gone up 141% since January of this year alone! The impact of higher food prices ultimately means that more impoverished people will suffer from malnutrition and could starve.
Here in the states, I was watching the CNN and couldn't help but notice that they kept flashing "STOCK UP", on the screen and basically perpetuating a growing food problem. Even though it is true that Sam's Club and Costco are rationing rice to 4 bags of 20 lbs each, friends that work at Costco tell me that as soon as the rice shipments get stocked that its all gone an hour later.
The food crisis in the United States may be a false scare to drive the prices of commodities up, thereby creating record profits for investors in the commodities market. The expense of these profits is the rest of the world suffering from higher food prices.
Localization of food is the only solution to a crisis in any country. Supporting local farms and purchasing produce and food from farmers markets is a great way to support your local community and to support your local farmers. If you live in a house and have a backyard, I strongly urge you to plant a vegetable garden for your home consumption. You can learn techniques on how to store your own food and partially rely on yourself for food. Check out this book: Perennial Vegetables to learn more about easy to grow vegetables. Good luck.
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4 COMMENTS, ADD YOURS HERE:
Thanks for the info….I am trying to put together a list of what celebs are doing to help the environment. Ed Begley Jr. is having a sweepstakes where he flys you to Hollywood and gives you tips on how to go green ( http://www.earthlab.com/life/livingwithed/ ) Pretty crazy stuff. Obviously there are many others. Drop me a link if you have any on the top of your head. Thanks again for the info!
great article, home grown vegetables, good idea to cope with high prices but what can we do with the water scarcity in middle east
Nice article. The solucion seems tobe to easy to be true though.
Good point, but the problem is that the people who least feel the need to change their lifestyles (us) are the ones who need to the most. Starting gardens, buying from farmers markets or even CSAs is a good start, but we also need to address our terrible farm policies in this country, which leave small farmers bankrupt, encourage large farms to grow sub-par crops, and hurt international food economies.
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