Food Crisis, It’s Here!
“Home Farming Movement”
There’s a term that if you haven’t heard it yet, you will become very familiar with in the near future, that term is “home farming movement”. The powers that be are now pushing for a home farming movement because we are now at a point at which America can no longer feed itself. For quite a while now experts have warned of a food crises looming on the horizon, but this year’s extreme weather from heavy flooding in the North to extreme droughts in the South to heavy storm (hail and wind) damage in the middle of the country along with a few cases of the stupid’s like Georgia’s anti-immigrant laws causing millions of dollars of produce to rot in the fields with desperate farmer’s unable to find the workers necessary to pick it, along with ever increasing arable land being used for corn based ethanol, along with several other factors have finally put the US in a position where we are now projected to import more food than we export for the first time since this country’s independence from Britain.
What this means is that food prices are likely to skyrocket in the coming months (and you thought they were high now, just wait a couple of months), to be sure, the US will continue to export food as it gets sold to wherever the buyers are, and we will continue to give food aid to desperate nations, however, skyrocketing food prices will mean that although the dollar amount of food aid given is unlikely to change, the actual amount of food given in aid will drop drastically.
For people in the third world that rely on food aid, this will mean that many more people will go hungry or starve. Although the situation we are in now is not good, the real danger is if conditions are as unfavorable for South America and Australia during their upcoming growing season. If so, we will see global starvation reach a new and unprecedented level.
Although much of the growing season has already passed in the Northern Hemisphere, there is still time to plant some fall crops and there is still time to transplant already growing late summer crops which is why we will be hearing much more about the home farming movement in the coming weeks and months. Whether all you have to work with is a kitchen windowsill or an apartment deck, any grown food will help reduce demand which reduces prices which along with decreasing what we have to pay for our own food, also increases the amount of food that can be purchased with the food aid budget which directly impacts starving people in third world nations. In addition, nothing could be more local than home-grown which decreases emissions; so if you’re not already, go ahead and familiarize yourself with the home farming movement.
Drought forces Texas ranchers to sell livestock early
LOCKHART, TX - Beef is king in Lockhart, Texas. Visitors know the town for its BBQ, but it is the ranchers who raise the cattle that keep the briskets coming in. Now with every day the drought continues, that tradition is threatened.
You will not find a booming city in Lockhart, but a booming business that now defines the small town.
“It’s probably the best BBQ in the state,” said avid BBQ fan R. Lee Carroll.
From brisket, to sausage and pork chops, to ribs, BBQ brings the crowds to several famous pits.
“It’s quick, it’s good, it’s delicious, and it’s good price,” said Carroll. At Kreuz Market that good price is now in peril.
“You order every week and every week you get a different price,” said owner Keith Schmidt, who is the third generation of his family to be devoted to the art of smoked meats.
“It seems like everybody is holding their breath waiting for it to end and the weather patterns to turn back to normal,” said Schmidt.
Business is good, but the drought has put a cloud of uncertainty over the 111-year-old business, starting at its source. Just a few miles down the road, ranchers herd hundreds of cattle into auction pens.
“We’ve been short on rain, real short for quite some time,” said rancher Johnny Siemering.
Weather now forces the 89-year-old Siemering to sell early. Drought conditions drive up feed costs, leaving ranchers in need of cash. The Texas Independent Cattlemen’s Association says nearly 40 percent of cattle in drought areas have already been sold.
Without any cattle to sell, the price of beef can only go up, meaning the prices of grocery store beef could also rise.
“It’s a waiting game,” said Schmidt. “Every day we go without rain is another nail in the coffin that prices are going to go up again.”
Why Are Food Prices Rising So Fast?
If you do much grocery shopping, you have probably noticed that the cost of food has been rising at a very brisk pace over the past year. So why are food prices rising so fast? According to Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, inflation is still very low and the economy is improving. So what is going on here? When I go to the grocery store these days, there are very few things that I will buy unless they are on sale. In fact, I have noticed that many of the new “sale prices” are the old regular prices. Other items have had their packages reduced in size in order to hide the price increases. But with millions of American families just barely scraping by as it is, what is going to happen if food prices keep rising this rapidly?
The food prices are especially painful if you are trying to eat healthy. Most of the low price stuff in the grocery stores is garbage. Eating the “typical American diet” is a highway to cancer, heart disease and diabetes.
But if you try to stick to food that is “healthy” or “organic” you can blow through hundreds of dollars in a heartbeat. In fact, the reality is that tens of millions of American families have now essentially been priced out of a healthy diet.
Soon there will be millions more American families that will not even be able to afford an unhealthy diet.
Some recent statistics compiled by the Bureau of Labor Statistics are absolutely staggering. According to a recent CNBC article, over the past year many of the most popular foods in America have absolutely soared in price….
Coffee, for instance, is up 40 percent. Celery is 28 percent higher while butter prices rose 26.4 percent. Rounding out the top five are bacon, at 23.5 percent, and cabbage, at 23.3 percent.
Unfortunately, it looks like the trend of rising food prices is accelerating. Just look at what the CNBC article says happened in the month of April alone….
Just in April—the most recent month for which data is available—grapes went up nearly 30 percent, cabbage jumped about 17 percent and orange juice surged more than 5 percent.
Meat is becoming more expensive as well. Since March 2009, livestock prices have risen by 138%.
So when Ben Bernanke tells us that inflation is very low, that really is a lie. On the stuff that people spend money on every day (like food and gas), prices have gone up dramatically.
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