Long term food supply

[R.A.T.]

I realize this should probably go in the wilderness and survival section but I don't have time to keep a check on two forums, so I'm posting it here for those interested in long term survival. Interesting article and one of the reasons I've been growing a garden and canning most of my own food for years.

Load Up the Pantry
By BRETT ARENDS
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
April 21, 2008 6:47 p.m.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120881517227532621.html#

I don't want to alarm anybody, but maybe it's time for Americans to start stockpiling food.

No, this is not a drill.

You've seen the TV footage of food riots in parts of the developing world. Yes, they're a long way away from the U.S. But most foodstuffs operate in a global market. When the cost of wheat soars in Asia, it will do the same here.

Reality: Food prices are already rising here much faster than the returns you are likely to get from keeping your money in a bank or money-market fund. And there are very good reasons to believe prices on the shelves are about to start rising a lot faster.

"Load up the pantry," says Manu Daftary, one of Wall Street's top investors and the manager of the Quaker Strategic Growth mutual fund. "I think prices are going higher. People are too complacent. They think it isn't going to happen here. But I don't know how the food companies can absorb higher costs." (Full disclosure: I am an investor in Quaker Strategic)

Stocking up on food may not replace your long-term investments, but it may make a sensible home for some of your shorter-term cash. Do the math. If you keep your standby cash in a money-market fund you'll be lucky to get a 2.5% interest rate. Even the best one-year certificate of deposit you can find is only going to pay you about 4.1%, according to Bankrate.com. And those yields are before tax.

Meanwhile the most recent government data shows food inflation for the average American household is now running at 4.5% a year.

And some prices are rising even more quickly. The latest data show cereal prices rising by more than 8% a year. Both flour and rice are up more than 13%. Milk, cheese, bananas and even peanut butter: They're all up by more than 10%. Eggs have rocketed up 30% in a year. Ground beef prices are up 4.8% and chicken by 5.4%.

These are trends that have been in place for some time.

And if you are hoping they will pass, here's the bad news: They may actually accelerate.

The reason? The prices of many underlying raw materials have risen much more quickly still. Wheat prices, for example, have roughly tripled in the past three years.

Sooner or later, the food companies are going to have to pass those costs on. Kraft saw its raw material costs soar by about $1.25 billion last year, squeezing profit margins. The company recently warned that higher prices are here to stay. Last month the chief executive of General Mills, Kendall Powell, made a similar point.

The main reason for rising prices, of course, is the surge in demand from China and India. Hundreds of millions of people are joining the middle class each year, and that means they want to eat more and better food.

A secondary reason has been the growing demand for ethanol as a fuel additive. That's soaking up some of the corn supply.

You can't easily stock up on perishables like eggs or milk. But other products will keep. Among them: Dried pasta, rice, cereals, and cans of everything from tuna fish to fruit and vegetables. The kicker: You should also save money by buying them in bulk.

If this seems a stretch, ponder this: The emerging bull market in agricultural products is following in the footsteps of oil. A few years ago, many Americans hoped $2 gas was a temporary spike. Now it's the rosy memory of a bygone age.

 

[MrCoffee]

There is a huge thread on this in the Wilderness forum, with a lot of great info. But posting it anywhere that might get peoples attention is a good idea.

 

[R.A.T.]

That's my problem. My time is spent here on the RC forum and I rarely get anywhere else, so I may be a bit behind

 

[Beroya]

Well, seems to me that RAT knives and survival go hand in hand So that much better to share survival tips in the forum for the blade thats gonna help ya do just that, Survive!

 

[texastonydobbs]

Yeah great thread been watching in the W&SS but I think it is a very important subject ,never hurts to see it here as well !

 

[kgd]

Dang - if you were born a baby-boom life has just been a peach. I'm pretty sure this generation is going to find out it has a lot in common with my grandparents who went through the 30's.

 

[BoxANT]

Important subject. Sad but this is really the first mentioning on this problem in mass media. The threat of climate change and the related food shortage needs to be brought up to more people.

Read "Plan B" by Lester Brown, scary stuff.

 

[robert65]

Important subject. Sad but this is really the first mentioning on this problem in mass media. The threat of climate change and the related food shortage needs to be brought up to more people.

Read "Plan B" by Lester Brown, scary stuff.

I agree people need to be warned about the food shortage. And it isn't for lack of trying there have been many voices in the wilderness screeming about what is coming for years. It's to bad media coverage is selective. Which leads to the next point....
As for climate change, I really dont see how it can be said that people need to be brought up more. I mean really? I may be understating this but that is a subject that has more mention than Brittney whatsername:yawn:. I honestly wonder why climate change is such a dire emergency? Is there a change? I mean I know when I go to the grocery store there is a change NOW and I mean right NOW. Hmmm I wonder why the media (and politicians) have decided being able to eat is not that much of a threat? Does anyone think they all might have just overlooked it? Thanks for posting this here it helps to remember there are other things going on besides toys/tools that I cant afford anymore.

 

[kgd]

robert65

Are you really trying to say you can't see the relationship between weather and food supplies? Have you talked to any farmer's in your lifetime? Climate change has major connotations to food production potentials.

First - increasing the global temperature increases net water evaporation keeping more water in the atmosphere, stimulating less rainfall and focusing more rain onto the oceans where it is not so useful. The rainfall events that we will get will be spaced further apart in time and be more prone to major storms and flashfloods which has as much potential to damage crops than they do to replenish them.

We are now seeing consequences of drought. Groundwater supplies in the west U.S. are drying out at an incredibly fast rate. In California, we are just starting to understand the importance of the glaciers in the rockies in terms of their role of buffering water supplies and water tables used by the extensive agriculture in the region. The receding of these glaciers is causing shortages of water that is needed for irrigation. Australia's failure of its rice crop (98% lower yield in 2008) this year comes off the back of a 6 year drought which is contributing to this year's global shortage in rice supplies.

Second - the major climate regions on earth will be shifting. What is now some of the best cropland on earth will become desert as per above. While it is true that the proper weather and climate will shift things northwards, the soils in the new areas are not necessarily appropriate to accomodate high wheat and corn yields like they are in the current locations. Thus, an attempt to 'move farms to keep up with the weather' will ultimately run into poorer yields.

Third - good crop yields are needed to support an ever increasing human population. Our mode of factory farms servicing major population centres presumes cheap and rapid transport. While we have lots of coal, the oil needed for transporting vehicles like cars, trucks and airplanes is reaching its peak. If we can't move the food to where it is needed fast enough - you have a crisis.

Interesting enough, a good chunk of the current food shortages we are witnessing is due to the U.S. which has shifted almost 25% of its corn crop to ethanol fuel production. Also many farmers have changed their crops to go after this more lucrative cash crop. The political decision has been made that transportation is more important than food surpluses. This is a reasonable decision for a superpower like the U.S. whose population has the economic might to accomodate increasing food costs. However, on a global scale there are only 20 or so nations which are net food surplus produces. This means, somewhere down the line people are starving because of that decision.

One might also consider that most of the fertilizers and pesticides used to increase farm production are derived from petreleum. This will increase food production costs and at some point there will have to be another political decision weighing whether 'oil for fuel' or 'oil for food' or 'food for oil' wins. So yes climate change gets a lot of air play - but the media focusses almost fully on the physical consequences such as flooding of coastal cities and island countries. You almost never hear about climate change in the context of food production capacity or interacting with our ability to transport what foods can be grown and moved to where it is needed.

So while next years crops may be better than this year's, and perhaps food and fuel will drop down slightly in the short term, the long term trend will be a steady rise in cost of food and fuel. Fortunately - we all collect knives rather than cars. It would be depressing if your were a car collector!

 

[R.A.T.]

There have been more than a few meteorologists that have stated that most of these cycles are natural and have occurred throughout the history of the world. I'm not sure what to believe but I do know that nowadays it's the "in" thing to blame global warming on everything that makes our life good and worth living. These Greenies are more than willing to sacrifice man's life and man's happiness in the process of saving the world. And that's not something I am willing to do on any level.

 

[R.A.T.]

As a side thought to all of this, maybe food shortages and "global warming" will be the ultimate law of the jungle. There is nothing wrong with a system weeding out the weak. It's what makes the system better in the long run.

 

[kgd]

Greenies aren't the only societal fraction willing to sacrifice man's happiness or man's life. Political and religeous enterprises have demonstrated the exact same tendencies for less noble purposes. Even economics place limiters on man's happiness.

There will likely be some weeding out. However, given war technologies today it is doubtful that our individual lives won't be strongly affected even if we consider our positions to currently be strong.

 

[R.A.T.]

Political and religeous enterprises have demonstrated the exact same tendencies for less noble purposes. Even economics place limiters on man's happiness.

Couldn't agree more!

 

[shotgunner11]

I for one embrace the whole global warming "greenie" culture. If global warming is a man made event, we can slow it down with some of the measures were taking.

If it's just a natural cycle of the earth (which I personally think it is), all the BS thats being spewed is at the least raising the awarness of what were doing to the earth. Even if humans have nothing to do with global warming, were still ruining the earth.

 

[robert65]

Climate change is real, terrorism is real, food shortages I can feel. Corny but true. What we need to be very careful of is knee jerk reactions to climate change. The polar ice caps on Mars are receding, so is it the sun or my SUV causing these changes. The tyranny of good intentions is destroying our country and our national sovereingty. We are losing control of our government and our media to people that dont care about you and I, for example Monsanto, Shell oil these are global corporations that have no interest in our Bill of Rights they think globally. It is the way climate change is being pitched that we really need to keep an eye on. The point I'm trying to make I guess is that we have always had threats, cold war,new ice age,terrorists,guns, etc and now what we are being told is that "we" are the enemy "we" are causing the earth to die. And with all of these things have also come a incremental erosion of our freedom, our basic human rights protected in this beautiful country, are slipping away. As I said before, beware the tyranny of good intentions.

 

[BoxANT]

Cyclic climate change has happened thought the earths history. However, what we see currently which is different than previous changes is the rapidity of the climate change. The scientific community has pretty much reached a consensus (a few disagree). And honestly, why risk it by not doing anything?

Right now the "greenie" eco movement is more grass-root. Not alot of government support. You think we could provide some economic backing for alternative energies (beyond what we are doing now), but it will probably take more to motivate people.

A few hundred million may die, but humanity will survive

 

[R.A.T.]

...and those that survive, and their children, will be a strong bunch of folks.

You know, I don't have the first problem with anyone wanting to "go green" as a personal choice. I think that's probably a great thing in the long run. What I DO have a problem with is government dictating it or the everyone else attempting to shame someone into it - much like the anti-smoking crowd did.

 

[Tim the Slugman]

Good thread !!!

 

[kgd]

You know, I don't have the first problem with anyone wanting to "go green" as a personal choice. I think that's probably a great thing in the long run. What I DO have a problem with is government dictating it or the everyone else attempting to shame someone into it - much like the anti-smoking crowd did.

I don't have any problem with market economics forcing personal choices as cost incurred for certain luxuries. However, when corporations are able to offer subsidized prices, by using up natural resources which are commonly held properties, then I have a problem with that. Sometimes governments are needed to step in and provide an equalizer for this. Personally, I tend to agree with our governments demanding corporations utilize best available technology for pollutant emissions and energy efficiency when operating on our soils.

Where this system has failed is because the government didn't have the conviction of principles to enforce this on nations to which it imports goods. They could do this through duties and tariffs applied to goods applied to international companys that do not uphold similar enviornmental standards and ethics of labor practices. This would generate a fair playing field four our own industrial sector, albeit, at a cost to consumers. The air pollution produced by China, unfortunately, is just as likely to affect us as it is them.

Personally, I'd rather pay the true cost of goods and services even if that means a lower standard of living as a whole. Unfortunately, personal seem to do little good.

 

[R.A.T.]

We will just agree to disagree. I don't believe in subsidies or welfare (of any type) and I don't believe in government interference in business. Period. I'm a believer in true free market Capitalism and such a premise if not even possible once the word "government" is introduced into the concept. Once government gets involved (no matter if the original intentions are good) then you do have unfair trade practices since government inevitably gives an advantage to one party or the other instead of being a dispute settler, which, in fact, is the only role government was ever created for. As Ayn Rand once said in a novel, money is only made possible by men who produce. In a true Capitalistic society subsidies, welfare and the altruistic behavior of "saving the world" simply binds the hands of the true producers of wealth (wealth, which society as a whole shares and benefits from) and makes them "evil." Just look at the way the great icons that built the United States (such as J.P Morgan) are looked at today, and you will see that it is now fashionable to hate those who actually have brains and can make huge profits with their brains. It is fashionable to hate the guys that invented the technology that we all enjoy and makes our lives easier. How ironic. Society will say, "well, they couldn't have made it without help from all the poor people they employed." The fact is they didn't twist anyone's arm to work for them, nor do they owe the worker any more than the contract that was agreed on when the worker went to work. Nor do they owe society for being welathy. In fact, most wealthy industrialists actually made more and more people and societies wealthy through their motivation and ability to think, create and build. It is now in vogue to demonize those who have wealth and intelligence; those who made it by their own sweat equity. Instead, the new heroes are the looters, moochers and "poor" folks who can't make it. They will say preach and shout that the love of money is the root of all evil but they will be the first in line for a government check or a handout. I love the irony. This is the mentality of many who want to "save the world" and I completely and whole-heartedly disagree with it if it forces me to abide by ANY policy other than honest individualism. Voluntary submission to such a policy is fine but the policy of "saving the world" is not about saving the world. It is about the further socialization of the world. If the policy was so sound and honorable, then why do most of those who tout the greatness of it use more energy than most of the rest of us who are "normal" people? Al Gore is great example of this. Government is a great example of this. It's bullshit. No one in government cares about saving the world, nor does Al Gore.