Food In America and the World

I wonder how many readers of ats.com know the condition of food production in America and the world. Have you ever wondered, or even given thought to how
is it possible there is always fresh fruit of all types in the grocery stores? Where does it all come from? Have you ever asked yourself, I wonder if this banana, or tomato has been genetically engineered? Do any of you know that Russia, China,
North Korea, Saudi Arabia and many other countries have already purchased
[yes, legally own], millions and millions of hectacres in Africa [because of the Nile and the Amazon], and are already growing food to be exported to their own country?

[edit on 5-9-2010 by Freedom of Thought]

reply to post by Freedom of Thought


Hey, it's an interesting topic, could you post some articles, quotes, videos, etc, etc, to back this up?

I'd be pretty interested in knowing more about the land purchases.

Originally posted by jokei
reply to post by Freedom of Thought

 

Hey, it's an interesting topic, could you post some articles, quotes, videos, etc, etc, to back this up?

I'd be pretty interested in knowing more about the land purchases.

"How food and water are driving a 21st century African land grab"
by John Vidal in Juba, Sudan The Observer, Sunday 7 March 2010
I got this article from the web-site guardian.co.uk

......"The farm manager shows us millions of tomatoes, peppers, and other vegetables being grown in 500m rows in computer controlled conditions. Spanish engineers are building the steel structure, Dutch technology minimises water use from two bore-holes and 1,000 women pick and pack
50 tonnes of food a day. Within 24 hours, it has been driven 200 miles to
Addis Ababa and flown 1,000 miles to the shops and restaurants of Dubai,
Jeddah, and elsewhere in the Middle East....."

...."Saudia Arabia, along with other Middle Eastern emirate states such as
Qatar, Kuwait, and Abu Dhabi, is thought to be the biggest buyer...
Meanwhile, the Saudi investment company Foras, backed by the ISLAMIC
Development Bank and other wealthy Saudi investors, plans to spend
!1bn buying land and growing 7m tonnes of rice for the Saudi market within seven years...By turning to Africa to grow its staple crops, Saudi Arabia is not just acquiring Africa's land but is securing itself the equivalent of hundreds of millions of gallons of scarce water a year. Water,
says the UN, will be the defining resource of the next 100 years.''
.."China has signed a contract with the Democratic Republic of Congo to grow 2.8m hectares.."
.."Indian companies, backed by government loans, have bought or leased hundreds of thousands of hectares in Ethiopia, Kenya, Madagascar, Senegal, and Mozambique, where they are growing rice, sugar cane, maize and lentils to feed their domestic market."
.."South Korean companies last year bouth 700,000 hectares of northern
Sudan for wheat cultivation: the United Arab Emirates have acquired 750,000 hectareesm abd Saudi Arabia last month concluded a 42,000 hectare deal in Nile province."

[edit on 5-9-2010 by Freedom of Thought]

I only know a little about America’s food outrageousness; but regarding the European Union, the situation has been quite insane for several decades…

Exhibit 1...
The EU has a net imports 4 million fish tonnes

With a production of almost 7 million tonnes of fish, in 2005, from fisheries and aquaculture, the EU is the world's second largest fishing power after China. Yet, while more than 2 million tonnes of fish products were exported in 2006, over 6 million tonnes had to be imported to meet the needs of the EU. This imbalance between imports and exports resulted in a deficit of over €13 billion the same year .

eufundings.com...

Whilst simultaneously forcing EU fishermen to dump over 1 million tonnes (purely of endangered fish) back into the sea: www.ens-newswire.com...

So the problem is not that there isn’t enough fish, but that starving Africans don’t live in the North Sea.

Exhibit 2...
Under the Eu’s Common Agriculture Policy millions of tonnes of surplus food are produced, using taxpayer money to subsidise EU wildlife devastation, in or to produce food we don’t need.
This surplus food is then purchased by the EU taxpayer (at EU prices) before being sold at a discount loss, sometimes in the poorest parts of the world. Here the artificial low value of the food destroys the economic feasibility of poor people’s agriculture. This increases their national poverty, and makes them more dependant on Western-EU “aid”
en.wikipedia.org...

This has been the case for years, and looks to remain so given nearly half the EU budget goes on CAP. About 1300 Many multi-millionaires are receiving more than

and more than 80 percent of CAP subsidies are received by businesses with an asset value above 1 million Euro’s. Needless to say these are often the very rich-influential leaders of the EU’s feudalistic future.
These facts recently caused the British civil service to withhold public information about the 1300 multi-millionaires who received EU subsidy greater than one million Euro’s
uk.reuters.com...

So the problem isn’t necessarily that the poor can’t feed themselves, but that the surpluses of raping our more fertile land makes their own agriculture, sector smaller and less profitable than it would otherwise be.

reply to post by Freedom of Thought


So countries that can not grow enough food for themselves are buying land in places they can grow food. Is that it? I am not sure what you are trying to tell us.

Originally posted by MrSpad
reply to post by Freedom of Thought

 

So countries that can not grow enough food for themselves are buying land in places they can grow food. Is that it? I am not sure what you are trying to tell us.

In a way. If you look at the countries that are actively buying up land and water rights: Saudi Arabia, China, etc.-these are nations that historically do not align with the United Staes.
[side note; within the last six weeks, China just bought 45% of the
Cheasepeake Bay Power Company here in the United States, and two other companies].
The nations [and religions] that are rapidly expanding in population
are going all out to procure food and energy sources.
What is America doing?
If I had to sum up what I am trying to tell you all, is please, please, please: if you do not already know how to grow and put up your own food, PLEASE start immediately on learning how to do so.
All indications, and I repeat all, show a plan for ultimate world-wide
food rationing. Yes, folks, it would be worse than anthing your parents
ever told you about The Great Depression or WWII.

Great topic. People don't think about this or follow it enough. I read earlier this summer that 25% of Russia's wheat crop had been ruined by drought, Pakistani floods also affecting the world's wheat crop, wild market speculation...this is big stuff but we're told not to worry?

Here's an earlier article about it. If there are world wide shortages you can expect to see this at the grocery store, we're may really getting down to dramatic price increases on staples for many people. This price of rice has increased phenomenally in the last five years too.

www.reuters.com...

But MrSpad: Other countries owning food producing land in, other nations, is only all well & good, providing property rights are respected, and internal relations between the two nations remain stable.

So if-when in the future the: U.S, EU, China, Russia ect sponsor an African dictator (for whatever their reason) to go on a rampage, and the war, subsequently threatens, food importers, property rights; then the war will be drawing either the support (or hostility) of these food importers. For them theses importers than will be no neutral, “middle ground”.
If in this way, food could behave like e.g. oil does today, in promoting African warefare.

Alternatively: Given both the EU-US are today producing food surpluses, it could simply be that these surpluses shrink. In which case African agriculture would get the chance to develop itself (and its host nation) (without the market price, being routinely spoilt by other countries “Food Dumping” practices).

Personally; I don’t mind subsidies providing they are allowed to deflate the price of food for all consumers. Farmers will very quickly strike a balance between producing food, and not making a loss on it. The result being that they’re farms would effectively possess agricultural production “on standby” for another growing season (when world food prices might have jumped higher).
If some of the current CAP subsidy was paid towards good, environmental stewardship, then not only would acres be on standby, but they would also (more often than not) be on standby in a way that encouraged wildlife.

Basically the same money spent differently to meet the same objectives would turn something bad (destroying African agriculture) to something good (encouraging EU wildlife, whilst marinating stable, food production, capacity).
Unfortunately decades of repeating the status quo, show the EU is either too stubborn, or too corrupted with human shortcomings, for change to happen any year (soon).

Originally posted by Freedom of Thought
....other countries have already purchased [yes, legally own], millions and millions of hectacres in Africa [because of the Nile and the Amazon], and are already growing food to be exported to their own country?

[edit on 5-9-2010 by Freedom of Thought]

And here I thought The Amazon was in South America.

If you do your homework, you'll find China buying much more than land, for food production, on all continents except Antarctica.

The following link will take you to a slide show on how much people in certain countries spend for food for their families.

www.ebaumsworld.com...

of course it was added 99 weeks ago and a lot of things have changed in that time frame...but, it does give an idea what a family of 5 roughly spends.

just for contemplation...

~holly

Originally posted by hinky

Originally posted by Freedom of Thought
....other countries have already purchased [yes, legally own], millions and millions of hectacres in Africa [because of the Nile and the Amazon], and are already growing food to be exported to their own country?

[edit on 5-9-2010 by Freedom of Thought]

And here I thought The Amazon was in South America.

If you do your homework, you'll find China buying much more than land, for food production, on all continents except Antarctica.

Hinky, Of course you are right: The Amazon is in South America. One who is posting should not be reading three articles at one time, and talking on the phone. My apologies to all the readers.

With regards to your statement: "If you do your homework, you'll find
China buying much more than land......", Posts have already been made
on other topics as to China's endeavors in acquiring more of the world's
resources. This article was on Food Production, so there was no need
to introduce the other aspects of accquisitions by that particular foreign
country.

Originally posted by Liberal1984
I only know a little ...

So the problem isn’t necessarily that the poor can’t feed themselves,

Thank you for posting the information on EU's fishing industry. If EU
exports 2 million tonnes, but imports 6 million: how is that a surplus?

If they had to dump a load of endangered fish, what were they doing
with the fish in their boats?

In the article, "There's a limit to fish harvesting" (by David Cronin interviewing Isabella Lovin, Swedish fisheries policy activist, Sunday
February 14, 2010) from the Inter Press Service News Agency

reference is made that the EU fisheries have agreements with
Africa, and actually the EU is paying Africa to let them fish in African
waters
reference is made to the European vessels fishing in the waters
of Western Sahara

These statements would lead one to conclude that there are not enough
fish in the waters of the EU countries, so they are going elsewhere.
"Europe's own catches have gone down by 25 percent in the last ten
years. At the same time, Europe has increased consumption [of fish] by
20 percent."

You comment "the problem isn't necessarily that the poor can't feed
themselves' is puzzling.

China and Nigeria, the most populous countries in Asia and Africa
respectively, are losing roughly 1400 square miles of land a year to
desertification (loss of territory due to advancing deserts). Remember
the dust storms in Beijing during the Olympics?
With the food needs of Nigeria's people forcing the plowing of marginal
land and the forage needs of livestock exceeding the carrying capacity
of its grasslands, the country is slowly turning to desert.

Above excerpt taken from: The Earth is Shrinking-Advancing Deserts and Rising Seas Squeezing Civilization, November 16, 2006 By Earth
Policy Institute.
More information available at the Earth Policy Institute site.

Originally posted by ChrisCrikey
Great topic. People don't think about this or follow it enough. I read earlier this summer that 25% of Russia's wheat crop had been ruined by drought, Pakistani floods also affecting the world's wheat crop, wild market speculation...this is big stuff but we're told not to worry?

Here's an earlier article about it. If there are world wide shortages you can expect to see this at the grocery store, we're may really getting down to dramatic price increases on staples for many people. This price of rice has increased phenomenally in the last five years too.

www.reuters.com...

More data to look up:
U.S. Dept of Agriculture: Economic Research Service
Foreign Agriculture Service
Agriculture Outlook Tables