Like it or not... Food shortages are here to stay?

I recently came across the headline
U. N. Warns Food Shortage Will Continue Up to 2010

which (excerpted) states that:

United Nations World Food Program (WFP) head Josette Sheeran warns that the agency is already taking precautionary measures by rationing food aid to address worldwide food shortage and the increasing commodity prices which is expected to continue up to 2010.

She said that millions of the world's poorest people will buy less food, less nutritious food or be forced to depend on aid if no concrete action is taken.

WFP latest data showed that prices of some food rose by up to an unprecedented 40 percent last year in many nations citing that the escalating energy and grain costs, the effects of climate change and demand for biofuel are primarily responsible for the soaring prices.

The agency head said global food reserves were at their lowest level in 30 years, which is good for only 53 days, compared with 169 days in 2007.

If you're wondering why, instead of reaching shortage point, the farmers can't just use the seeds collected from the crops after harvest, the answer is simple. Monsanto's corporate ownership of seeds and patenting policies won't let them. The hybrid and so-called preferred seeds use something called terminator technology, which means that the seeds produced after a single harvest will produce sterile seeds that cannot be planted again, and are for all practical purposes d-e-a-d. So instead of re-investing a portion of the produce for the next year's crop as has been customary for millennia, the farmers are being forced to purchase new seeds all over again from the meager profits made from previous crop sales (assuming there are any left after fighting off the loan sharks). Is it any wonder that farmers in India are committing suicide like never before? Watch this 5-minute video to get a feel of how bad the situation is... and where it's heading. While the youth in our government-supported tech-driven economy have consistently increasing purchasing power, the benefits seem to be a one-way street as hardly any are percolating down to the people who quite literally hold the future of our subsistence in their hands, thereby taking away even more from the have-nots. Fact: for every rupee you pay for fruit/vegetable produce in the market, less than 6 paise is actually making its way to the grower.

And because this is all about control, the powers-that-be couldn't possibly get rid of Monsanto (what? and kick away all those fat kickbacks??) and allow farmers the empowerment they so desperately seek, such as affordable credit, better irrigation, and relinquish their efforts to suppress the usage of ham radio which has proven networking benefits for subsistence farmers and can potentially be a most helpful tool for disseminating technical and marketing information and advice on a daily basis.

All of which has everything to do with food shortages. One thing leads to another and before you know it, the domino effect has wiped the house of cards off the map.

I used to be a meat eater not so long ago. I quit. I used to believe that vegetarianism doesn't have a whole lot going for it, and I couldn't stand the holier-than-thou attitude some vegetarians tend to adopt when they hear you're a chicken-eater. As it turns out, my decision to quit eating meat wasn't planned. So-called healthy proteins aside, I just developed an aversion to the thought of an animal's carcass providing my body with any kind of nourishment. I had no idea that in my own miniscule way I was actually helping to alleviate grain shortage.

For a start, this article is an eye-opener. It says, "Scaling back on heightened levels of resource-intensive meat production may be the best way to ensure food security for all people into the next century." In nutshell, a sizable proportion of food-grains is being diverted to fill the stomachs of livestock who are in turn filling the stomachs of the richer sections of society which in turn is causing the poorer people, who are dependent on direct consumption of food-grains, to starve. Imagine, it takes SIX pounds of corn and 660 gallons of water to produce a single pound of chicken, and 2500 gallons and nearly SIXTEEN pounds of grain to produce a single pound of beef!!! On top of which, increasing income levels means that meat consumption in India is rising. We're discovering the Western way to shooting ourselves in the foot.

While starvation is nothing new in this country, and most of us have developed a thick hide to being bombarded with stories of deprivation by the media, it just might concern us to understand that according to the Law of Unintended Consequences ..uhhh... I mean the Law of Cause and Effect (LCE), us city-bred folks (specially in North India) who have been till now insulated from the vagaries of crop output will be just as badly hit in a famine because of our dulled survival instincts and lack of intimate knowledge of the Earth. I’m not talking a couple of years of drought – that seems fluffy and cute in comparison. I’m talking about a doom scenario. Consider this: in 2004, our food-grain production was 182 million tons with 169 million hectares of land under cultivation. By 2010, our food-grain requirement is projected to be 240 million tons but due to rapidly diminishing arable land only 130 million hectares will be available! This precious non-renewable resource is losing its health to the long term effects of agro-chemicals and the projected climate change scenarios that will severely jolt production in the fertile Northern plains. Seeds that will exhaust themselves after a single year and will need to be re-purchased every year, huge overpopulation will decrease per capita land available for use to a fraction of the present value, millions shifting home and hearth due to flooding and the problems of resettlement that will also impact existing dwellers, and the icing on the cake – the recession in the USA that has the potential to stem the cash flow into our hugely US-dependent economy. Doesn’t sound like much fun huh? What goes around comes around. It bothers me to know that city supermarkets and grocery stores (all those in India, and even more so abroad) often willfully go to extreme lengths to dispose off food (hoarding, throwing, spoiling it) in order to siphon off excesses and protect their profits. This in addition to all the food wasted due to lack of proper transport and infrastructure! Did you know that according to a report presented to the Ministry of Food Processing by Rabo India Finance, 58,000 crores worth of agricultural food items get wasted every year? How can we know that, and know about the nightmarish scenario looming high ahead of us, and still believe that we can continue with our callous and apathetic attitude and abuse the privileges we take for granted without the LCE catching up with us?

I often think that the Indian government has it so good!! Lucky for them, we don’t care about a single issue unless it concerns us directly, and we don’t bother to hold them accountable if we don’t care. We blissfully continue with our lives thinking that so-and-so problem is “his” problem or “their” problem, or the familiar “oh, but that can’t happen to me!” or better still, “I’m perfectly ok, and I don’t have to care”. Guess what, the writing’s on the wall. Unless we take the trouble to empathize with the farmers when we see them on the news, and see through the voracious corporate greed structure and recognize it for what it is under all its various garbs, and unless we are aware and educated and make ourselves heard, our fates are sealed.

End of diatribe. Don’t take my word for it though. Do your own research – I could be lying (you wish!!)

Have a nice day :-)