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Blunderov
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World Bank secret report: biofuel caused food crisis
« on: 2008-07-04 08:13:39 » |
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[Blunderov] And the beat goes on...
Vector = democratic underground
Source = The Guardian
Secret report: biofuel caused food crisis
Internal World Bank study delivers blow to plant energy drive
Aditya Chakrabortty The Guardian, Friday July 4, 2008
Biofuels have forced global food prices up by 75% - far more than previously estimated - according to a confidential World Bank report obtained by the Guardian.
The damning unpublished assessment is based on the most detailed analysis of the crisis so far, carried out by an internationally-respected economist at global financial body.
The figure emphatically contradicts the US government's claims that plant-derived fuels contribute less than 3% to food-price rises. It will add to pressure on governments in Washington and across Europe, which have turned to plant-derived fuels to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases and reduce their dependence on imported oil.
Senior development sources believe the report, completed in April, has not been published to avoid embarrassing President George Bush.
"It would put the World Bank in a political hot-spot with the White House," said one yesterday.
The news comes at a critical point in the world's negotiations on biofuels policy. Leaders of the G8 industrialised countries meet next week in Hokkaido, Japan, where they will discuss the food crisis and come under intense lobbying from campaigners calling for a moratorium on the use of plant-derived fuels.
It will also put pressure on the British government, which is due to release its own report on the impact of biofuels, the Gallagher Report. The Guardian has previously reported that the British study will state that plant fuels have played a "significant" part in pushing up food prices to record levels. Although it was expected last week, the report has still not been released.
"Political leaders seem intent on suppressing and ignoring the strong evidence that biofuels are a major factor in recent food price rises," said Robert Bailey, policy adviser at Oxfam. "It is imperative that we have the full picture. While politicians concentrate on keeping industry lobbies happy, people in poor countries cannot afford enough to eat."
Rising food prices have pushed 100m people worldwide below the poverty line, estimates the World Bank, and have sparked riots from Bangladesh to Egypt. Government ministers here have described higher food and fuel prices as "the first real economic crisis of globalisation".
President Bush has linked higher food prices to higher demand from India and China, but the leaked World Bank study disputes that: "Rapid income growth in developing countries has not led to large increases in global grain consumption and was not a major factor responsible for the large price increases."
Even successive droughts in Australia, calculates the report, have had a marginal impact. Instead, it argues that the EU and US drive for biofuels has had by far the biggest impact on food supply and prices.
Since April, all petrol and diesel in Britain has had to include 2.5% from biofuels. The EU has been considering raising that target to 10% by 2020, but is faced with mounting evidence that that will only push food prices higher.
"Without the increase in biofuels, global wheat and maize stocks would not have declined appreciably and price increases due to other factors would have been moderate," says the report. The basket of food prices examined in the study rose by 140% between 2002 and this February. The report estimates that higher energy and fertiliser prices accounted for an increase of only 15%, while biofuels have been responsible for a 75% jump over that period.
It argues that production of biofuels has distorted food markets in three main ways. First, it has diverted grain away from food for fuel, with over a third of US corn now used to produce ethanol and about half of vegetable oils in the EU going towards the production of biodiesel. Second, farmers have been encouraged to set land aside for biofuel production. Third, it has sparked financial speculation in grains, driving prices up higher.
Other reviews of the food crisis looked at it over a much longer period, or have not linked these three factors, and so arrived at smaller estimates of the impact from biofuels. But the report author, Don Mitchell, is a senior economist at the Bank and has done a detailed, month-by-month analysis of the surge in food prices, which allows much closer examination of the link between biofuels and food supply.
The report points out biofuels derived from sugarcane, which Brazil specializes in, have not had such a dramatic impact.
Supporters of biofuels argue that they are a greener alternative to relying on oil and other fossil fuels, but even that claim has been disputed by some experts, who argue that it does not apply to US production of ethanol from plants.
"It is clear that some biofuels have huge impacts on food prices," said Dr David King, the government's former chief scientific adviser, last night. "All we are doing by supporting these is subsidising higher food prices, while doing nothing to tackle climate change."
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Blunderov
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Re:World Bank secret report: biofuel caused food crisis
« Reply #1 on: 2008-07-05 12:31:49 » |
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[Blunderov] More bad news about the food crisis from The Onion. "Troubles come not singly but in battalions".
Tomato Genetically Modified To Be More Expensive
May 17, 2008 | Issue 44•20
PASADENA, CA—Geneticists at the California Institute of Technology announced Monday that they have developed a tomato with a 31 percent larger price tag than a typical specimen of the vine-ripened fruit. "By utilizing an exciting new breakthrough in gene-splicing technology, we've been able to manipulate this new tomato with recombinant DNA in such a manner as to make it nearly as pricey as a similarly sized tangelo," said Dr. Lee Nolan, who headed up the project. "Genetically modified crops such as this will be instrumental in helping average grocers keep pace with unaffordable organic stores such as Whole Foods." In addition to vastly surpassing similar produce in expense, the new tomato will reportedly wipe out four species of ladybugs.
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Fritz
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California farmers have started abandoning their fields
« Reply #2 on: 2009-01-26 20:02:01 » |
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[Fritz]I guess climate change and slumping economy will mean more turnips then fresh greens for the rest of the winter. Oh ya Ontario in the 1960s produced 70 % of it's vegtables and now just 30 % , I guess we oopsed
Drought-hit California farmers abandoning vegetable fields
Source: CBC
Author: The Associated Press
Date: Monday, January 26, 2009
Consumers may pay more for spring lettuce and summer melons in grocery stores now that California farmers have started abandoning their fields in response to a crippling drought.
California's sweeping Central Valley grows most of the fruits and vegetables in the United States in normal years, but this winter thousands of hectares are turning to dust as the state hurtles into the worst drought in nearly two decades.
Federal officials' recent announcement that the water supply they pump through the nation's largest farm state would drop further was enough to move John (Dusty) Giacone to forego growing vegetables so he can save his share to drip-irrigate 400 hectares of almond trees.
"Taking water from a farmer is like taking a pipe from a plumber," said Giacone, a fourth-generation farmer in the tiny community of Mendota. "How do you conduct business?"
The giants of California agribusiness are the biggest economic engine in the valley, which produces every cantaloupe on store shelves in summer months, and the bulk of the nation's lettuce crop each spring and fall.
This year, officials in Fresno County predict farmers will only grow around 2,400 hectares of lettuce, roughly half the area devoted to growing greens in 2005.
That alone could cause a slight bump in consumer prices, unless lettuce companies can make up for the shortage by growing in areas with an abundant water supply, or the cost of cooling, packaging and shipping the crop suddenly goes down, experts say.
"Lettuce comes off the field and goes straight into the market, and if there's nothing coming off the field then the marketing chain goes dry, and prices go up," said Gary Lucier, an agricultural economist with the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Economic Research Service.
Restricted flow to California also hits farmers
While the dry weather has exacerbated the problem, farmers' water woes are not all drought-related.
Supplies for crops and cities also have been restricted by several court decisions cutting back allocations that flow through a freshwater estuary called the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, the main conduit that sends water to nearly two-thirds of Californians.
Environmental groups and federal scientists say the delta's massive pumps are one of the factors pushing a native fish to the brink of extinction. Last year, federal water deliveries were just 40 per cent of the normal allocations, fallowing thousands of hectares and causing nearly $309 million US in crop losses statewide.
That prompted California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to issue a disaster declaration, ordering state water managers to expedite any requests to move water around the state, in part so high-value crops like wine grapes, almonds and pistachio trees would stand a chance of surviving.
Federal reservoirs are now at their lowest level since 1992.
With such a grim outlook, many California farmers including Giacone are investing millions to drill down hundreds of metres in search of new water sources.
Depending on how much it rains this winter, federal water supplies could be slashed down to nothing this year, forcing farmers to rely solely on brackish well water. But the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation won't make an official decision until late February, said Ron Milligan, the agency's Central Valley operations manager.
Concerns over possible job losses
The state's Department of Water Resources, which also ships farmers water, has promised to deliver 15 per cent of the normal allocations in October, but conditions are so dire that that's now in doubt, too.
"The consequences are expected to be pretty horrible in terms of farmers' revenue, but what's really disconcerting are the possible job losses," said Wendy Martin, who leads the agency's drought division. "Those communities that can least weather an economic downturn are going to be some of the places that are hit the hardest."
Richard Howitt, a professor of agriculture economics at the University of California, Davis, estimates that $1.6 billion US in agriculture-related wages, and as many as 60,000 jobs across the valley will be lost in the coming months because of dwindling water.
Analysts haven't yet provided any estimates of crop losses this year. But Bill Diedrich, an almond grower on the valley's parched western edge, said he's already worried he may lose some of his nut trees in the drought.
"The real story here is food security," Diedrich told Milligan and other officials speaking at a conference in Reno, Nev. "It's an absolute emergency and anything to get water flowing quickly is needed."
In the meantime, the forecast appears to be worsening: meteorologists are predicting a dry spring, and a new state survey shows the population of threatened fish is at its lowest point in 42 years, more imperiled than previously believed.
"This has devastating effects not only for the guys out there in the fields with the weed whackers, but it affects the whole farming industry," said Thomas Nyberg, Fresno County's deputy agricultural commissioner. "I'm just praying for rain."
© The Canadian Press, 2009
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Where there is the necessary technical skill to move mountains, there is no need for the faith that moves mountains -anon-
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letheomaniac
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Re:World Bank secret report: biofuel caused food crisis
« Reply #3 on: 2009-02-11 12:12:14 » |
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[letheomaniac] Worse still, this is not just a Californian phenomenon...
Source: http://www.globalresearch.ca
Author: Eric deCarbonne
Dated: 10/2/2009
Catastrophic Fall in 2009 Global Food Production
After reading about the droughts in two major agricultural countries, China and Argentina, I decided to research the extent other food producing nations were also experiencing droughts. This project ended up taking a lot longer than I thought. 2009 looks to be a humanitarian disaster around much of the world
To understand the depth of the food Catastrophe that faces the world this year, consider the graphic below depicting countries by USD value of their agricultural output, as of 2006.
Now, consider the same graphic with the countries experiencing droughts highlighted.
The countries that make up two thirds of the world's agricultural output are experiencing drought conditions. Whether you watch a video of the drought in China, Australia, Africa, South America, or the US , the scene will be the same: misery, ruined crop, and dying cattle.
China
The drought in Northern China, the worst in 50 years, is worsening, and summer harvest is now threatened. The area of affected crops has expanded to 161 million mu (was 141 million last week), and 4.37 million people and 2.1 million livestock are facing drinking water shortage. The scarcity of rain in some parts of the north and central provinces is the worst in recorded history.
The drought which started in November threatens over half the wheat crop in eight provinces - Hebei, Shanxi, Anhui, Jiangsu, Henan, Shandong, Shaanxi and Gansu.
Henan
China's largest crop producing province, Henan, has issued the highest-level drought warning. Henan has received an average rainfall of 10.5 millimeters since November 2008, almost 80 percent less than in the same period in the previous years. The Henan drought, which began in November, is the most severe since 1951.
Anhui
Anhui Province issued a red drought alert, with more than 60 percent of the crops north of the Huaihe River plagued by a major drought.
Shanxi
Shanxi Province was put on orange drought alert on Jan. 21, with one million people and 160,000 heads of livestock are facing water shortage.
Jiangsu
Jiangsu province has already lost over one fifth of the wheat crops affected by drought. Local agricultural departments are diverting water from nearby rivers in an emergency effort to save the rest.
Hebei
Over 100 million cubic meters of water has been channeled in from outside the province to fight Hebei's drought.
Shaanxi
1.34 million acres of crops across the bone-dry Shanxi province are affected by the worsening drought.
Shandong
Since last November, Shandong province has experienced 73 percent less rain than the same period in previous years, with little rainfall forecast for the future.
Relief efforts are under way. The Chinese government has allocated 86.7 billion yuan (about $12.69 billion) to drought-hit areas. Authorities have also resorted to cloud-seeding, and some areas received a sprinkling of rain after clouds were hit with 2,392 rockets and 409 cannon shells loaded with chemicals. However, there is a limit to what can be done in the face of such widespread water shortage.
As I have previously written, China is facing hyperinflation , and this record drought will make things worse. China produces 18% of the world's grain each year.
Australia
Australia has been experiencing an unrelenting drought since 2004, and 41 percent of Australia's agriculture continues to suffer from the worst drought in 117 years of record-keeping. The drought has been so severe that rivers stopped flowing, lakes turned toxic, and farmers abandoned their land in frustration:
A) The Murray River stopped flowing at its terminal point, and its mouth has closed up.
B) Australia's lower lakes are evaporating, and they are now a meter (3.2 feet) below sea level. If these lakes evaporate any further, the soil and the mud system below the water is going to be exposed to the air. The mud will then acidify, releasing sulfuric acid and a whole range of heavy metals. After this occurs, those lower lake systems will essentially become a toxic swamp which will never be able to be recovered. The Australian government's only options to prevent this are to allow salt water in, creating a dead sea, or to pray for rain.
For some reason, the debate over climate change is essentially over in Australia.
The United States
California
California is facing its worst drought in recorded history . The drought is predicted to be the most severe in modern times, worse than those in 1977 and 1991. Thousands of acres of row crops already have been fallowed, with more to follow. The snowpack in the Northern Sierra, home to some of the state's most important reservoirs, proved to be just 49 percent of average. Water agencies throughout the state are scrambling to adopt conservation mandates.
Texas
The Texan drought is reaching historic proportion . Dry conditions near Austin and San Antonio have been exceeded only once before—the drought of 1917-18. 88 percent of Texas is experiencing abnormally dry conditions, and 18 percent of the state is in either extreme or exceptional drought conditions. The drought areas have been expanding almost every month. Conditions in Texas are so bad cattle are keeling over in parched pastures and dying. Lack of rainfall has left pastures barren, and cattle producers have resorted to feeding animals hay. Irreversible damage has been done to winter wheat crops in Texas. Both short and long-term forecasts don't call for much rain at all, which means the Texas drought is set to get worse.
Augusta Region (Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina)
The Augusta region has been suffering from a worsening two year drought. Augusta's rainfall deficit is already approaching 2 inches so far in 2009, with January being the driest since 1989.
Florida
Florida has been hard hit by winter drought, damaging crops, and half of state is in some level of a drought.
La Niña likely to make matters worse
Enough water a couple of degrees cooler than normal has accumulated in the eastern part of the Pacific to create a La Niña, a weather pattern expected to linger until at least the spring. La Niña generally means dry weather for Southern states, which is exactly what the US doesn't need right now.
South America
Argentina
The worst drought in half a century has turned Argentina's once-fertile soil to dust and pushed the country into a state of emergency. Cow carcasses litter the prairie fields, and sun-scorched soy plants wither under the South American summer sun. Argentina's food production is set to go down a minimum of 50 percent, maybe more. The country's wheat yield for 2009 will be 8.7 million metric tons, down from 16.3 million in 2008. Concern with domestic shortages (domestic wheat consumption being approximately 6.7 million metric ton), Argentina has granted no new export applications since mid January .
Brazil
Brazil has cut its outlook for the crops and will do so again after assessing damage to plants from desiccation in drought-stricken regions. Brazil is the world's second-biggest exporter of soybeans and third-largest for corn.
Brazil's numbers for corn harvesting:
Harvested in 2008: 58.7 million tons
January 8 forecast: 52.3 million tons
February 6 forecast: 50.3 metric tons (optimistic)
Harvested in 2009: 
Paraguay
Severe drought affecting Paraguay's economy has pushed the government to declare agricultural emergency. Crops that have direct impact on cattle food are ruined, and the soy plantations have been almost totally lost in some areas.
Uruguay
Uruguay declared an "agriculture emergency" last month, due to the worst drought in decades which is threatening crops, livestock and the provision of fresh produce.
The a worsening drought is pushing up food and beverage costs causing Uruguay's consumer prices to rise at the fastest annual pace in more than four years in January.
Bolivia
There hasn't been a drop of rain in Bolivia in nearly a year. Cattle dying, crops ruined, etc…
Chile
The severe drought affecting Chile has caused an agricultural emergency in 50 rural districts, and large sectors of the economy are concerned about possible electricity rationing in March. The countries woes stem from the "La Niña" climate phenomenon which has over half of Chile dangling by a thread: persistently cold water in the Pacific ocean along with high atmospheric pressure are preventing rain-bearing fronts from entering central and southern areas of the country. As a result, the water levels at hydroelectric dams and other reservoirs are at all-time lows.
Horn of Africa
Africa faces food shortages and famine . Food production across the Horn of Africa has suffered because of the lack of rainfall. Also, half the agricultural soil has lost nutrients necessary to grow plant, and the declining soil fertility across Africa is exacerbating drought related crop losses.
Kenya
Kenya is the worst hit nation in the region, having been without rainfall for 18 months. Kenya needs to import food to bridge a shortfall and keep 10 million of its people from starvation. Kenya's drought suffering neighbors will be of little help.
Tanzania
A poor harvest due to drought has prompted Tanzania to stop issuing food export permits. Tanzania has also intensified security at the border posts to monitor and prevent the export of food. There are 240,000 people in need of immediate relief food in Tanzania.
Burundi
Crops in the north of Burundi have withered, leaving the tiny East African country facing a severe food shortage
Uganda
Severe drought in northeastern Uganda's Karamoja region has the left the country on the brink of a humanitarian catastrophe. The dry conditions and acute food shortages, which have left Karamoja near starvation, are unlikely to improve before October when the next harvest is due.
South Africa
South Africa faces a potential crop shortage after wheat farmers in the eastern part of the Free State grain belt said they were likely to produce their lowest crop in 30 years this year. South Africans are "extremely angry" that food prices continue to rise.
Other African nations suffering from drought in 2009 are: Malawi, Zambia, Swaziland, Somalia, Zimbabwe, Mozambique, Tunisia, Angola, and Ethiopia.
Middle East and Central Asia
The Middle East and Central Asia are suffering from the worst droughts in recent history , and food grain production has dropped to some of the lowest levels in decades. Total wheat production in the wider drought-affected region is currently estimated to have declined by at least 22 percent in 2009. Owing to the drought's severity and region-wide scope, irrigation supplies from reservoirs, rivers, and groundwater have been critically reduced. Major reservoirs in Turkey, Iran, Iraq, and Syria are all at low levels requiring restrictions on usage. Given the severity of crop losses in the region, a major shortage of planting seed for the 2010 crop is expected.
Iraq
In Iraq during the winter grain growing period, there was essentially no measurable rainfall in many regions, and large swaths of rain-fed fields across northern Iraq simply went unplanted. These primarily rain-fed regions in northern Iraq are described as an agricultural disaster area this year, with wheat production falling 80-98 percent from normal levels. The USDA estimates total wheat production in Iraq in 2009 at 1.3 million tons, down 45 percent from last year.
Syria
Syria is experienced its worst drought in the past 18 years, and the USDA estimates total wheat production in Syria in 2009 at 2.0 million tons, down 50 percent from last year. Last summer, the taps ran dry in many neighborhoods of Damascus and residents of the capital city were forced to buy water on the black market. The severe lack of rain this winter has exacerbated the problem.
Afghanistan
Lack of rainfall has led Afghanistan to the worst drought conditions in the past 10 years. The USDA estimates 2008/09 wheat production in Afghanistan at 1.5 million tons, down 2.3 million or 60 percent from last year. Afghanistan normally produces 3.5-4.0 million tons of wheat annually.
Jordan
Jordan's persistent drought has grown worse, with almost no rain falling on the kingdom this year. The Jordanian government has stopped pumping water to farms to preserve the water for drinking purposes.
Other Middle Eastern and Central Asian nations suffering from drought in 2009 are: The Palestinian Territories, Lebanon, Israel, Bangladesh, Myanmar, India, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Thailand, Nepal, Pakistan, Turkey, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Cyprus, and Iran.
Lack of credit will worsen food shortage
A lack of credit for farmers curbed their ability to buy seeds and fertilizers in 2008/2009 and will limit production around the world. The effects of droughts worldwide will also be amplified by the smaller amount of seeds and fertilizers used to grow crops.
Low commodity prices will worsen food shortage
The low prices at the end of 2008 discouraged the planting of new crops in 2009. In Kansas for example, farmers seeded nine million acres, the smallest planting for half a century. Wheat plantings this year are down about 4 million acres across the US and about 1.1 million acres in Canada. So even discounting drought related losses, the US, Canada, and other food producing nations are facing lower agricultural output in 2009.
Europe will not make up for the food shortfall
Europe, the only big agricultural region relatively unaffected by drought, is set for a big drop in food production. Due to the combination of a late plantings, poorer soil conditions, reduced inputs, and light rainfall, Europe's agricultural output is likely to fall by 10 to 15 percent.
Stocks of foodstuff are dangerously low
Low stocks of foodstuff make the world's falling agriculture output particularly worrisome. The combined averaged of the ending stock levels of the major trading countries of Australia, Canada, United States, and the European Union have been declining steadily in the last few years:
2002-2005: 47.4 million tons
2007: 37.6 million tons
2008: 27.4 million tons
These inventory numbers are dangerously low, especially considering the horrifying possibility that China's 60 million tons of grain reserves doesn't actually exists .
Global food Catastrophe
The world is heading for a drop in agricultural production of 20 to 40 percent, depending on the severity and length of the current global droughts. Food producing nations are imposing food export restrictions. Food prices will soar, and, in poor countries with food deficits, millions will starve.
The deflation debate should end now
The droughts plaguing the world's biggest agricultural regions should end the debate about deflation in 2009. The demand for agricultural commodities is relatively immune to developments in the business cycles (at least compared to that of energy or base metals), and, with a 20 to 40 percent decline in world production, already rising food prices are headed significantly higher.
In fact, agricultural commodities NEED to head higher and soon, to prevent even greater food shortages and famine. The price of wheat, corn, soybeans, etc must rise to a level which encourages the planting of every available acre with the best possible fertilizers. Otherwise, if food prices stay at their current levels, production will continue to fall, sentencing millions more to starvation.
Competitive currency appreciation
Some observers are anticipating “competitive currency devaluations” in addition to deflation for 2009 (nations devalue their currencies to help their export sector). The coming global food shortage makes this highly unlikely. Depreciating their currency in the current environment will produce the unwanted consequence of boosting exports—of food. Even with export restrictions like those in China, currency depreciation would cause the outflow of significant quantities of grain via the black market.
Instead of “competitive currency devaluations”, spiking food prices will likely cause competitive currency appreciation in 2009. Foreign exchange reserves exist for just this type of emergency . Central banks around the world will lower domestic food prices by either directly selling off their reserves to appreciate their currencies or by using them to purchase grain on the world market.
Appreciating a currency is the fastest way to control food inflation. A more valuable currency allows a nation to monopolize more global resources (ie: the overvalued dollar allows the US to consume 25% of the world's oil despite having only 4% of the world's population). If China were to selloff its US reserves, its enormous population would start sucking up the world's food supply like the US has been doing with oil.
On the flip side, when a nation appreciates its currency and starts consuming more of the world's resources, it leaves less for everyone else. So when china appreciates the yuan, food shortages worldwide will increase and prices everywhere else will jump upwards. As there is nothing that breeds social unrest like soaring food prices, nations around the world, from Russia, to the EU, to Saudi Arabia, to India, will sell off their foreign reserves to appreciate their currencies and reduce the cost of food imports. In response to this, China will sell even more of its reserves and so on. That is competitive currency appreciation.
When faced with competitive currency appreciation, you do NOT want to be the world's reserve currency. The dollar is likely to do very poorly as central banks liquidate trillions in US holdings to buy food and appreciate their currencies.
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letheomaniac
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Re:World Bank secret report: biofuel caused food crisis
« Reply #4 on: 2009-04-01 12:06:21 » |
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[letheomaniac] This is not going to help one bit...
Source: http://rawstory.com
Author: not credited
Dated: 1/4/2009
Hit with low prices, US farmers scale back production
Scalded by the financial crisis, which has driven crop prices down after several auspicious years, US farmers have let their lands lie fallow this year in hopes of securing some savings.
In its annual report on the upcoming season, the Department of Agriculture (USDA) said that wheat, corn and soy acreage -- the main crops in the country -- will be reduced by 6.0 million acres (2.4 million hectares).
"Farmers have responded to lower crop prices by reducing total planted acreage," said Morgan Stanley commodities analyst Hussein Allidina.
According to the USDA, wheat acreage will drop seven percent to 58.6 million acres (23.73 million hectares) while corn crops will fall by one percent to 85 acres (34.4 million hectares).
Cotton crops will also be reduced by 7.0 percent, while peanut acreage, abandoned in the wake of a massive salmonella outbreak, will fall by 27 percent.
The trend does not come as a surprise: after record profits in the first quarter of 2008, crop prices ran aground in the fall.
Wheat and corn are now being traded at half their top prices at the Chicago Board of Trade, the commodity futures exchange.
A major portion of wheat production comes from grains planted in the winter, which this year coincided with the peak of the financial crisis.
But observers were confident farmers would compensate with soy crops, which are less expensive to grow.
Although the USDA estimates soy acreage will reach a record high this year, it will barely be greater than last year's 76 million acres (30.76 million hectares).
"It's surprising that there seems to be some acres missing," noted Bill Nelson, of Doane's Advisory Services, an agricultural consulting firm based in Saint Louis, Missouri.
"They are planting less in order to save a little bit of money," he added, explaining that producing less also means consuming less fuel and fertilizer, whose prices were set in the fall before the peak of the crisis.
"They are looking to minimize costs where they can," said Chad Hart, an agricultural economist at Iowa State University.
Some farms, especially those most cash-strapped, are not able to cover their production costs with current prices, according to Hart.
Farmers "can only move forward by planting additional areas if they believe the crop prices will support that production and will pay beyond the cost of production," he said.
The USDA report points to the agricultural world's caution in a rapidly evolving economic environment.
"The Prospective Plantings report is not the final word on acreage, and price performance over the next 6 to 8 weeks will influence farmer intentions," said Allidina.
Agricultural production will also depend on weather conditions, as areas across the northern United States, particularly in North Dakota, reel from major floods.
"Farmers may intend to plant more corn but if the weather delays them into the fields, then they naturally shift to soybeans because you can plant soy later in the year," said Hart.
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letheomaniac
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Re:World Bank secret report: biofuel caused food crisis
« Reply #5 on: 2009-04-02 06:51:16 » |
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[letheomaniac] You may or may not know that, like many developing countries, SA is a major 'test bed' for Monsanto's GM seeds, particularly mielies (corn) which constitute the staple diet of the majority of South Africans. Africa is once again providing the guinea pigs for Western corporate experimentation. If there is a group that is more thoroughly representative of corporate evil than Monsanto, I have yet to encounter them (although Big Pharma are up there).
Source: http://www.sott.net/Digital Journal
Author: Adriana Stuijt
Dated: 29/3/2009
Monsanto GM-corn harvest fails massively in South Africa
South African farmers suffered millions of dollars in lost income when 82,000 hectares of genetically-manipulated corn (maize) failed to produce hardly any seeds.The plants look lush and healthy from the outside. Monsanto has offered compensation.
Monsanto blames the failure of the three varieties of corn planted on these farms, in three South African provinces,on alleged 'underfertilisation processes in the laboratory". Some 280 of the 1,000 farmers who planted the three varieties of Monsanto corn this year, have reported extensive seedless corn problems.
Urgent investigation demanded
However environmental activitist Marian Mayet, director of the Africa-centre for biosecurity in Johannesburg, demands an urgent government investigation and an immediate ban on all GM-foods, blaming the crop failure on Monsanto's genetically-manipulated technology.
Willem Pelser, journalist of the Afrikaans Sunday paper Rapport, writes from Nelspruit that Monsanto has immediately offered the farmers compensation in three provinces - North West, Free State and Mpumalanga. The damage-estimates are being undertaken right now by the local farmers' cooperative, Grain-SA. Monsanto claims that 'less than 25%' of three different corn varieties were 'insufficiently fertilised in the laboratory'.
80% crop failure
However Mayet says Monsanto was grossly understating the problem.According to her own information, some farms have suffered up to 80% crop failures. The centre is strongly opposed to GM-food and biologically-manipulated technology in general.
"Monsanto says they just made a mistake in the laboratory, however we say that biotechnology is a failure.You cannot make a 'mistake' with three different varieties of corn.'
Demands urgent government investigation:
"We have been warning against GM-technology for years, we have been warning Monsanto that there will be problems,' said Mayet. She calls for an urgent government investigation and an immediate ban on all GM-foods in South Africa.
Of the 1,000 South African farmers who planted Monsanto's GM-maize this year, 280 suffered extensive crop failure, writes Rapport.
Monsanto's local spokeswoman Magda du Toit said the 'company is engaged in establishing the exact extent of the damage on the farms'. She did not want to speculate on the extent of the financial losses suffered right now.
Managing director of Monsanto in Africa, Kobus Lindeque, said however that 'less than 25% of the Monsanto-seeded farms are involved in the loss'. He says there will be 'a review of the seed-production methods of the three varieties involved in the failure, and we will made the necessary adjustments.'
He denied that the problem was caused in any way by 'bio-technology'. Instead, there had been 'insufficient fertilisation during the seed-production process'.
And Grain-SA's Nico Hawkins says they 'are still support GM-technology; 'We will support any technology which will improve production.' [letheomaniac] That sounds like an opinion that cost Monsanto a lot of money.
He also they were 'satisfied with Monsanto's handling of the case,' and said Grain-SA was 'closely involved in the claims-adjustment methodology' between the farmers and Monsanto.
Farmers told Rapport that Monsanto was 'bending over backwards to try and accommodate them in solving the problem.
"It's a very good gesture to immediately offer to compensate the farmers for losses they suffered,' said Kobus van Coller, one of the Free State farmers who discovered that his maize cobs were practically seedless this week. [letheomaniac] I am very happy that these farmers have been compensated by Monsanto (unlike hundreds of Indian farmers who have been driven to bankruptcy and suicide by Monsanto's empty promises), but compensating the farmers is not going to help feed the people of South Africa when they are starving.
"One can't see from the outside whether a plant is unseeded. One must open up the cob leaves to establish the problem,' he said. The seedless cobs show no sign of disease or any kind of fungus. They just have very few seeds, often none at all. [letheomaniac] Frankenfoods? What Frankenfoods? Ugh, creepy.
The South African supermarket-chain Woolworths already banned GM-foods from its shelves in 2000. However South African farmers have been producing GM-corn for years: they were among the first countries other than the United States to start using the Monsanto products.
The South African government does not require any labelling of GM-foods. Corn is the main staple food for South Africa's 48-million people.
The three maize varieties which failed to produce seeds were designed with a built-in resistance to weed-killers, and manipulated to increase yields per hectare, Rapport writes.
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the.bricoleur
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Re:World Bank secret report: biofuel caused food crisis
« Reply #6 on: 2009-04-02 15:44:15 » |
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Quote from: letheomaniac on 2009-04-02 06:51:16
Of the 1,000 South African farmers who planted Monsanto's GM-maize this year, 280 suffered extensive crop failure, writes Rapport. |
How did the other 720 fare?
GM hysteria aside, how does 280 out of 1000 compare (on average) with previous years?
Are the figures available?
-iolo
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Hermit
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Re:World Bank secret report: biofuel caused food crisis
« Reply #7 on: 2009-04-02 20:02:14 » |
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Source: BBC One Planet
[ Hermit : If the article above is the one hand, then this is the other hand.
We had really better hope that Monsanto and others keep making improvements to crop yields with ever lower energy inputs, because the end of cheap fuel is in sight (the ever optimistic IAE estimates about 2020, 12 years away), and with significantly more than 1 calorie of energy currently required to produce 1 calorie of food (and significantly more than another calorie to transport it), in the form of: fertilizer (from natural gas); pesticide (from oil); ploughing (from oil); irrigation (from coal and oil); harvesting (from oil); processing (from coal) and delivering (from oil), and the less fertilizer and pesticides you have, the more you need to plough, the more you have to weed, the more crop you will lose to competitors, the more likely you are to have crop wipe-outs and the more soil you lose, there are significant challenges coming. Anything that improves these ratios and gives us the ability to feed people until we can reduce their numbers would be good. In addition, given the horrible mess we have made of the environment, we also need plants able to thrive in the disaster that remains.
Since we already have three times more people on the planet (and populations are still growing) than we can feed sustainably, and genetic engineering is the only path to reducing energy dependence and to deal with the toxins that fertilization, pest control and irrigation have created, genetic engineering is indubitably an indispensable leg of avoiding disaster, if indeed, we manage to avoid disaster. ]
Credits: Steven Duke (Editor, One Planet, BBC World Service)
Dated: 2009-03-31
Related: The full interview is available here
There are already too many people living on Planet Earth, according to one of most influential science advisors in the US government.
Nina Fedoroff told the BBC One Planet programme that humans had exceeded the Earth's "limits of sustainability".
Dr Fedoroff has been the science and technology advisor to the US secretary of state since 2007, initially working with Condoleezza Rice.
Under the new Obama administration, she now advises Hillary Clinton.
"We need to continue to decrease the growth rate of the global population; the planet can't support many more people," Dr Fedoroff said, stressing the need for humans to become much better at managing "wild lands", and in particular water supplies.
Pressed on whether she thought the world population was simply too high, Dr Fedoroff replied: "There are probably already too many people on the planet."
GM Foods 'needed'
A National Medal of Science laureate (America's highest science award), the professor of molecular biology believes part of that better land management must include the use of genetically modified foods.
"We have six-and-a-half-billion people on the planet, going rapidly towards seven.
"We're going to need a lot of inventiveness about how we use water and grow crops," she told the BBC.
"We accept exactly the same technology (as GM food) in medicine, and yet in producing food we want to go back to the 19th Century."
Dr Fedoroff, who wrote a book about GM Foods in 2004, believes critics of genetically modified maize, corn and rice are living in bygone times.
"We wouldn't think of going to our doctor and saying 'Treat me the way doctors treated people in the 19th Century', and yet that's what we're demanding in food production."
In a wide ranging interview, Dr Fedoroff was asked if the US accepted its responsibility to reduce emissions of carbon dioxide, the gas thought to be driving human-induced climate change. "Yes, and going forward, we just have to be more realistic about our contribution and decrease it - and I think you'll see that happening."
And asked if America would sign up to legally binding targets on carbon emissions - something the world's biggest economy has been reluctant to do in the past - the professor was equally clear. "I think we'll have to do that eventually - and the sooner the better."
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