"The World Bank has urged other nations not to follow suit, fearing a supply crunch like the one that drove 2008 prices to twice their current levels and prompted food riots in Africa and Asia."

It was not the "supply crunch" that drove food prices to extreme levels in 2008 but amoral financial speculation (made possible by massive deregulation supported by both parties and the market cult ...)

http://frederickkaufman.typepad.com/files/the-food-bubble-pdf.pdf
(see also Democracy Now! on the Harper's article)

"Since the early 1980s coinciding with the onslaught of the debt crisis, the gamut of neoliberal macroeconomic policy reforms have largely contributed to undermining local agriculture. Over the last 25 years, food farming in developing countries has been destabilized and destroyed by the imposition of IMF-World Bank reforms.

Commodity dumping of grain surpluses from the US, Canada and the European Union has led to the demise of food self-sufficiency and the destruction of the local peasant economy. In turn, this process has resulted in multibillion dollar profits for Western agribusiness, resulting from import contracts by developing countries, which are no longer able to produce their own food."

....The reproduction of seeds at the village level in local nurseries has been disrupted by the use of genetically modified seeds. The agricultural cycle, which enables farmers to store their organic seeds and plant them to reap the next harvest has been broken. This destructive pattern – invariably resulting in famine – is replicated in country after country leading to the Worldwide demise of the peasant economy.

...At the June 2008 FAO Rome Summit on the food crisis, politicians and economic analysts alike embraced the free market consensus: the outbreak of famines was presented as a result of the usual supply, demand and climatic considerations, beyond the control of policy-makers. "The solution": channel emergency relief to affected areas under the auspices of the World Food Program (WFP). ..

... We are dealing with a complex and centralized constellation of economic power in which the instruments of market manipulation have a direct bearing on the lives of millions of people.

The prices of food, water, fuel are determined at the global level, beyond the reach of national government policy. The price hikes of these three essential commodities constitute an instrument of "economic warfare", carried out through the "free market" on the futures and options exchanges.

These hikes in the prices of food, water and fuel are contributing in a very real sense to "eliminating the poor" through "starvation deaths". The sugar coated bullets of the "free market" kill our children. The act to kill is instrumented in a detached fashion through computer program trading on the commodity exchanges, where the global prices of rice, wheat and corn are decided upon.

...the (US) NSSM 200 report -
http://wlym.com/text/NSSM200.htm

- intimated that the occurrence of famines could, under certain circumstances, provide a de facto solution to overpopulation:

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=10860

"Since the 1970s, food production has become increasingly globalized and concentrated. A handful of countries dominate the global trade in staple foods. 80% of wheat exports come from six exporters, as does 85% of rice. Three countries produce 70% of exported corn. This leaves the world's poorest countries, the ones that must import food to survive, at the mercy of economic trends and policies in those few exporting companies. When the global food trade system stops delivering, it's the poor who pay the price.

Rising oil prices also affect the cost of producing food. Fertilizer and pesticides are made from petroleum and natural gas. Gas and diesel fuel are used in planting, harvesting and shipping.It's been estimated that 80% of the costs of growing corn are fossil fuel costs — so it is no accident that food prices rise when oil prices rise."

"There have been food price spikes before. Indeed, if we take inflation into account, global prices for staple foods were higher in the 1970s than they are today. So why has this inflationary explosion provoked mass protests around the world?

The answer is that since the 1970s the richest countries (read: corporations) in the world, aided by the international agencies they control, have systematically undermined the poorest countries' ability to feed their populations and protect themselves in a crisis like this."

Haiti was forced to abandon government protection of domestic agriculture — and the U.S. then used its government protection schemes to take over the market.
http://www.haitiaction.net/News/HIP/2_10_8/2_10_8.html

There have been many variations on this theme, with rich countries of the north imposing "liberalization" policies on poor and debt-ridden southern countries and then taking advantage of that liberalization to capture the market. Government subsidies account for 30% of farm revenue in the world's 30 richest countries, a total of US$280 billion a year,[8] an unbeatable advantage in a "free" market where the rich write the rules.

The global food trade game is rigged, and the poor have been left with reduced crops and no protections.

See also the following reports:

Trade and People's Food Sovereignity (FOE 2003)
Agriculture at a Crossroads (IAASTD 2009)

http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=317&Itemid=317&jumival=food+prices&search=search

This is not inconsequential .It will drive the market.But the wheat would be under bid because of fears of possible radioactivity anyway.It will probably burn ,if the fires are not controlled.Yes, grow some food ,plant dope ,cut firewood,build a fuel still.Listen to Dubet ,if you think we are paraniod..OK ,we are.But we are survivors.We will have safe haven and a sandwich when you need it.
peace

Yep, decrease food stamps because the "cost of food is projected to go down"...So just WHO is the President listening to??

Thanks for these excellent resources, toqueville22. The sources you quote are really quite essential background. The Harper's article makes it clear that market volatility is actively encouraged by commodities traders and monied interests, who make boodles of moola off it.

I tried the link to the Harper's article in toqueville22's post, and it didn't work for me. Here's another one:
http://www.foodpolitics.com/wp-content/uploads/The-Food-Bubble-pdf.pdf

And who might those monied interests be? None other than Goldman Sachs, to start with, who invented the Goldman Sachs Commodity Index, a commingling of eighteen commodities that included cattle, coffee, cocoa, corn, hogs, a couple varieties of wheat, etc., according to a formula. They then created an investment vehicle, a sort of index stock fund that people could purchase shares in.

The article tells how Goldman Sachs was able to purchase futures at a cost of only 5% of the actual futures price. They could then stash the other 95% of their investors' money as useful capital in other investments.

"If the price of wheat went up, Goldman made money. And if the price of wheat fell, Goldman still made money-- not only from management fees, but from the profits the bank pulled down by investing 95% of its clients' money in less risky ventures. Goldman even made money from the roll into each new long contract, every instance of which required clients to pay a new set of transaction costs.

"The bankers had figured out how to extract profit from the commodities market without taking on any of the risks they themselves had introduced by flooding that same market with long orders. Unlike the wheat producers and the wheat speculators, or even Goldman's own customers, Goldman had no vested interest in a stable commodities market....

"No surprise, then, that other banks soon recognized the righthness of this approach. In 1994 J.P. Morgan established its own commodity index fund, and soon thereafter other players entered the scene, including the AIG Commodity Index and the Chase Physical Commodity Index, along with initial offerings from Bear Stearns, Oppenheimer, and Pimco. Barclays joined the group with eight index funds and, in just over a year, raised close to $3 billion."

The only way citizens can counteract the machinations of big business is by understanding what they are doing. The articles toqueville22 posted are a step in that direction, I would say. I intend to devote some time to them, and then talk to my friends about how banks are out of control and require meaningful regulation.

I don't know what else to do, really. But I think this is a worthwhile use of some of my time.

No better way to batter a population around than fucking with their water and food sources. Ask the british, they handled this quite well in the 'Late Victorian Holocausts'(Mike Davis). And the imperialism of the british was ever more responsible for the 10s of millions of people starving in India, britain's crown jewel, more like britain's crowned suckers.

So why be content in just screwing up one country and britain once again decided to not play favorites and gave china a 'healthy' dose of their 'crown jewel' dogma. Not only continuing the exploitation of severe weather once again causing 10s of millions to starve but to add insult to injury, tried to create a nation of opium addicts which almost worked until the ever patient chinese were able to run those infernal and pesky brits out of their country, except for Hong Kong.

global warming = failing crops
failing crops = starving people
starving people = lots of dead people
lots of dead people = less global warming
less global warming = still lots more dead people
lots more dead people = begin to return to survivable climate

thus, lots less food = a good thing

Good old Mom Nature. She can fix anything. Yowsah, yowsah, yowsah!!

Certainly, a rise in the price of food would be an excellent thing in the US and Britain, and a few other western countries too.

If a majority of these populations could only afford to eat, say, a quarter of what they do now the national health of these places would improve, not worsen. Imagine; a reduction in diabetes, heart disease, arthritis; fantastic. Bring it on.

In fact governments should tax food in the west anyway.

As for the rest of the world; I would expect famine and population decrease anyway, since the world is over populated and there simply aren't the resources to feed, clothe and water them reliably.

I sound callous I know, but I feel terrible about what is happening, and will happen.

Disasters "could" push food price up? Are you kidding me? The author of this article must not do groceries. I've commented this already on a different post but the last time I bought milk, it had gone up 20 cents per gallon - in the course of one week and for no apparent reason (unless the cows were on strike). Everything else is going up, up, up or the quantity in the packages is less, less, less with the same prices. I've also noticed another trend, a lot of the products that I normally buy and which have been a part of the family's diet for a long, long time are no longer available. Quietly and mysteriously, things are disappearing off the shelves.

Grow your own or learn to do with less.

After reading another post, it's no wonder that Netanyahu is stalling any peace talks; he's now going to really starve the Palestinains to death.

The world will be so caught up in its own lack of food, that no one will notice.

Further proof that there is no God.

Dear Friends,

There is a simple technique which can double or quadruple agricultural yield (and soil carbon sequestration) while improving taste, nutrition, drought tolerance, freeze tolerance and reducing fertilizer requirements. This technique uses sea minerals in a reduced salt form. Anyone with access to fire and sea water can use this open-source technique to improve their own garden. This technique is described at:

http://www.subtleenergies.com/plant-lynx.htm

The page above also has links to a number of reports about the benefits mentioned.

In terms of increasing soil carbon, you can find a story about eight inches of new topsoil in one year at:

http://www.subtleenergies.com/ormus/tw/topsoil.htm

With kindest regards,
Barry Carter
bcarter@igc.org