Obama Warning Americans to Be Prepared For Disaster Surviving the Coming Food Crisis

Tuesday, August 23, 2016
By Paul Martin

by AMY S.
PreppersFortress.com
AUGUST 23, 2016

Suddenly, the world food markets spilled out of control. Within a year, prices for wheat doubled, those for soybean and sugar even tripled. The drivers behind this surge were stock decreases during the preceding years, a disappointing harvest due to bad weather in several countries and growing demand for feedstuff. Once prices soared, governments of exporting nations curbed the outflow of food, thus exacerbating the crisis. Merely two years later, prices had come down roughly to previous levels-the affliction had ended.
This is not the account of the infamous 2012/2016 price spikes; it is the half-forgotten story of the early 70s. At least for developed countries, this earlier crisis was worse than the recent one. Real food prices-corrected for inflation-climbed higher, and food expenditures absorbed a much greater share of households’ income, so that any increase was felt more harshly. This episode nonetheless takes a backseat in our collective memory because OPEC limited oil production soon after the food prices had started to rise. Higher oil prices proved to be the more lasting and pernicious impediment to global growth.
So there is a historical precedent of a food price surge that did not destabilize the world economy. Instead, it was eventually followed by a quarter of a century of low food prices beginning in 1980. But the 2016/08 episode was not perceived from this bird’s-eye perspective. Even in emerging and industrialized countries, much less affected than the poorer nations, the crisis has changed the thinking of the powerful. The fear was born that the next food crisis may be waiting for us, one that will dwarf anything the world has seen before. The world might cast off its multilateral, liberal veil in the merciless scramble for food.
Under this lens, the purchase or long-term lease of fertile farmland abroad appears to be a hard-nosed move of Realpolitik without humanitarian disguise. Non-governmental organizations attack the neo-colonial land grab of Arab and Chinese investors that uproots local communities and undermines the self-sufficiency of poor nations. It’s smart but contemptible, so the common judgment goes-which may be wrong on both counts.
The receiving countries may actually win. Investment in developing countries’ agriculture is direly needed: the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) estimates that an annual US $ 30 billion of additional funds will be required over the next 10 years. This is hardly a sum governments will muster. Often the significant pledges made by donor countries during the crisis are just that, pledges. Making a promise is not the same thing as signing a check. Private investment is necessary to fill the gap.

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