Drought Spreads Across Australia/US Grain Prices Soar

DantesPeak

Like Hurricane Katrina in the US, this weather event will certainly get more people around the world thinking about the effects of GW:

Zardoz

We can't take many of these big crop production hits. If they continue, we'll start seeing shortages very soon, and a lot of people will be in real trouble.

We can only hope this trend doesn't continue.
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RonMN

Tough banannas...people need their fuel, so all that food will be turned into ethanol/biodiesel.

Lorenzo? any comments?
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DantesPeak

gego · Light Sweet Crude Joined: Mar 03, 2005 Posts: 1334

FireJack · Heavy Crude Joined: Mar 16, 2005 Posts: 451

I wonder at what point we will face world food shortages, and how that will play out. Will there suddenly be some kind of announcement that there is only enouph food to feed say 6 billion people and the rest will have to starve. Will that cause hoarding, skyrocketing food prices, etc?

What are the stats on food production, I remember that article from a while ago saying that food production had fallen short in the last while.

Zardoz

DantesPeak

I think we are already eight years past peak of food production per person. Current events seem to indicate that food availability per person is actually falling the fastest in the poorest countries, while in the first world it doesn't seem to be falling at all. If that trend continues, it won't be many years before there is mass starvation in some poor countries - drought or not.

Most scientists seem to be convinced the Dust Bowl of the early 1930's US will not return, but if it did it's 'game over' for many in the human race.

Montequest has discussed the possibilities in detail on his threads.

PS - The moderators already said no one has been removed for their opinions, but violations of the code of conduct.

dukey · Fission Joined: Feb 20, 2005 Posts: 2023

so much for biofuels

nocar · Intermediate Crude Joined: Nov 05, 2004 Posts: 675

Since I first learned of PO in 1997, I have been keeping track of oil prices. Then in 2002 realized that the real problems (or changes) would not occur until food prices started to rise. So then I started to keep track of world wheat prices. They have been ranging between 280 and 400 since 2002, but suddenly have risen to 500 (US cents/bushel). It is still a very very low price, if you compare to what you typically pay for bread - or wheat flour - in the store.

Something seems to be going on, though.

Still, I think starvation is many years into the future. Most of the world's grain goes to feed animals for meat production. Meat should get more expensive, then people will eat less meat, which leaves more grain for human consumption. (at least in the western world, people eat more meat than optimal for health) And if we eat more of the animals, like livers, tongues, hearts, etc, that people used to eat, we can stretch every animal further and still get our protein. And animal fats, like lard, might reoccur in western diets.

People in the vast cities in the third world will suffer though. Many poor subsistence farmers have been lured into the cities due to the very low grain prices (except they see it as more opportunity in cities for earning money that can buy food and other things) - a very unsustainable situation. Some will find that subsistance farmer is a better option than city slum living. Farmers may find it better to grow food for themselves than to grow cash crops for western markets (like coffee, flowers and expensive fresh veggies).

In some countries, vineyards can be turned into food production.

In Scandinavia, for many decades, farmland has been turned into woodlots, for paper and timber production, because wood products have yielded higher economic returns. I am sure people will rather eat than consume today's vast amounts of paper. This is, they will be willing to pay more for food than today, making the reverse conversion economical.

So I believe starvation is not a big threat - but people will have to pay more for food, and will have less money to buy other things. Cars, for example - hopefully. And hopefully we will receive less junk mail when paper gets scarcer and thus more expensive.

Farmers in drought-stricken Australia are hit hard - but farmers in other parts of the world will gain.

nocar

Doly · Expert Joined: Dec 03, 2004 Posts: 4034

MrMambo · Heavy Crude Joined: Jul 22, 2005 Posts: 163

A bad year in Australia doesnt concern me one bit. minus 10 million tonnes? The world produces about 2000 million tonnes. 10 million is half of a percent.

I'm more interested in hearing about the production in USA and China.

DantesPeak

green_achers

FoxV

I read that the "days of supply in storage" reaches 50, TSHTF as far as grain prices go.

anybody know where we are right now (last I heard, in July, we were at 58 days)
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