World May Be Facing Highest Grain Prices in History

Discussion in 'The big picture' started by Jez, Jan 10, 2007.

  1. Jez

    Jez Junior Member

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    Article from Environment News Network's (ENN) Lester R Brown discussing the fact that the previously predicted very tight grain market is likely to be even worse than expected as biofuels eat further into grain supplies once used for food.

    It also briefly discusses alternatives to biofuels for powering cars...unfortunately, using cars less is not considered an option by Lester.

    World May Be Facing Highest Grain Prices in History (Click to view)
     
  2. newcroft

    newcroft Junior Member

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    The article also shows how ethanol is quickly becoming a catastophe by dwindling food stocks and causing direct competition between feeding the car and people.

    A previous, but similar Lester Brown article showed how much ethanol 'eats' into food supplies.

    https://www.earth-policy.org/Updates/2006/Update60.htm


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  3. Jez

    Jez Junior Member

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  4. gnoll110

    gnoll110 Junior Member

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    But grain & food generally is still super cheap.

    Look at it as a percentage of 'average weekly earning' spent on food.

    Look at it from the farmers point of view. Remember there is paper value (in USD or AUD or whatever) and there is real value (harder to measure).

    Know one farmer who has a number of measure of underlying value. One that he uses is the number of tonnes of wheat he would have to produce to buy an average family home. Using that measure, wheat is about a fourth of the value it was 40 years ago.


    Gnoll110

    Update: was through Cowra two days ago, gee it's dry there. Lots of over grazed paddocks.
     
  5. Richard on Maui

    Richard on Maui Junior Member

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    Just out of interest, what does a loaf of bread cost these days in an Aussie supermarket? I'm not talking gourmet kinds, or even organic ones (can you even buy organic bread in Aussie supermarkets?), but just your standard loaf.
    Here on Maui, they go for minimum $2.50, some weeks $3.00, US of course.
     
  6. Shack Living

    Shack Living Junior Member

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    I bought a loaf of IGA supermarket bread for AUS$1.55 yesterday. Some of the brand names of course cost more.

    Whereas a 25kg bag of wheat for my chooks was about $10.00, and now they have gone up to about $17 in the last few weeks.
     
  7. Jez

    Jez Junior Member

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    Yeah Gnoll, grain is cheap here in Australia still compared to other era's...all part of our dwindling fossil fuel inheritance and mechanised farming.

    Cheap in our incomes that is. In many parts of the world, cheap grain has been the difference between subsisting on a small income and virtual starvation.

    By way of recent example regarding this looming crisis:

    A leader with a great solution huh? Lack of oil has driven the ethanol boom at the expense of grain once destined to be food, so the solution is to "scour the planet" for a place to transport ultra-cheap grain a few thousand kilometres...using up more oil...and of course, Mexico is a long way from being amongst the poorest countries or being in the worst trouble...though the oil industry which once kept the country from abject poverty is now in drastic decline.

    All over the Third World, hospitals are having to cut their already limited services because they can no longer afford fuel for the petrol generators which are their only source of power. Even more people starving because of increased grain prices and lack of availability will be the next crisis (and it is virtually here already) to hit poorer parts of the world.

    'Excess' Western grain has been feeding the world at subsidised (or free) cost. Those days are well and truly over.

    --------------------

    Richard, if you time it right at the late stage of the day, at the bigger supermarkets you can pick up bread for between 80 cents and a dollar a loaf - depends where you are, whether they bake on premises etc.

    It's not always crap soft white bread either...usually there is a wholemeal or multi-grain option at the same cost...not organic of course, but still...

    Organic flour is still comparitively cheap too...as long as you have a means of baking bread which doesn't cost you anything - hand made, wood fired oven etc.
     
  8. gnoll110

    gnoll110 Junior Member

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    But we need to got through increasing grain prices to get to Richard Heinberg's 50 million (US) farmers. https://forums.permaculture.org.au/viewtopic.php?t=3720

    The price of oil & grain needs to get high enough that a 10,000 acre (mixed cropping & grazing) property that now supports one family, can support two and then three etc. Developing systems that use less oil & more labour to capture solar energy (be it embedded as food, fibre or raw energy).

    Jez, 40 years ago is not another era, it's way closer to now than it is to the start on the Industrial Farming period. What I'm talking about are the very trends caused by 'oil farming'.

    Cheap western grain has hurt developing country, making it harder to feed themselves. If that cheap grain is around, then it's impossible for local farmers to remain viable. So there is no accumalation of resources to build & improve a sustainable durable farms.

    For me the ultimate question is how will we be able to feed 6 billion+ people with much less mined energy.


    Gnoll110
     
  9. Jez

    Jez Junior Member

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    Absolutely Gnoll, I agree with all that you've said - we're on exactly the same wavelength...though text based communication may not make that immediately apparent. :lol:

    We in the West need to start paying a far more realistic price for grain (or shift our diets much further away from it), while our 'charity' in Third World nations (coupled with our demand for them to produce monoculture 'cash crops') has drastically undermined their formerly much more stable ability to feed themselves.

    Lacking (typically speaking) anything resembling visionary leadership on a local, national or global level, unfortunately, the necessary changes to the above situations will inevitably come through rapid and significant hardship to those most vulnerable, rather than sensibly, carefully managed adaptation.
     

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