World’s Crops Covered In Gore
Coming on top of many years of underinvestment in food production, Al Gore’s push for ethanol based fuels is having a devastating effect on world crop reserves.
It is projected that US wheat stocks will fall to a 60 year low of 7.64 million metric tons, for the wheat marketing year of 2007-2008.
U.S. soybean production will be 5.06 million metric tons, a 68% decline in a single year. This reflects the drastic shift of U.S. soy production to corn for biofuels.
An Illinois Agriculture Extension Service economist, David Good, wrote an article entitled, “Can U.S. Farmers Plant More Corn, Soybeans and Wheat?” on the 18th of December in agricultureonline.com, concluding that “Early projections for 2008 suggest that U.S. harvested acreage of corn, soybeans, and wheat all need to be larger than in 2007, by a total of about 7.4 million acres. With rising prices of other commodities [fuel, fertiliser, electricity, chemicals] and limited amounts of uncultivated acreage available, it is difficult to see how such an increase can occur.”
In Canada, the Vice President of the Agriculture producers Association of Saskatchewan, Don Connick, warned in DiscoverMooseJaw.com yesterday, “We have struggled with low grain prices for years while our costs of production have continued to rise. Many grain growers have gone out of business, taking off farm jobs, or seriously eroding their equity just to stay in business.”
As as result of these drops in production, as well as insane hedge fund speculation, inflation is spiraling upwards. I’ve discussed rising food prices in Europe recently. In many Central Asian and Caucasus states, the inflation rate has hit double digits. In Kyrgyzstan it reached 20.1% during the January-October period in 2007. Although Uzbekistan denies it, the International Monetary Fund claims that Uzbekistan’s inflation rate is now 12.2%. In Kazakstan, inflation was 13.4% for the first ten months of 2007.
In Georgia, inflation is at 11.2%. It’s about the same in Azerbaijan. Both Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan rely on wheat imports from Kazakstan, which has decided it’s more lucrative to export surpluses to China and India instead. Reports from Tajikistan, where inflation is running at 14.9%, say the price of a 50 kilogram bag of flour has risen by 20% over the last year. In Uzbekistan, which is scheduled to hold a Presidential election tomorrow, regional media outlets have reported that the price of flour has risen between 10% and 37% depending on quality.
To add insult to injury, a wind borne fungal disease - a new wheat stem rust strain - has appeared in Yemen, having managed to cross the Red Sea, from East Africa. This disease is now in a perfect place to attack the Indian subcontinent where 25% of the world’s wheat is grown. This disease is highly virulent, a strain having destroyed 40% of the spring wheat crop in North America during the 1950s.
In Pakistan, India, and Bangladesh, 300-400 million people survive on wheat based diets.