Soaring food prices imperil U.S. emergency aid

[Amerigo Vespucci]

Source: MSNBC

WASHINGTON - The U.S. government's humanitarian relief agency will significantly scale back emergency food aid to some of the world's poorest countries this year because of soaring global food prices, and the U.S. Agency for International Development is drafting plans to reduce the number of recipient nations, the amount of food provided to them, or both, officials at the agency said.

USAID officials said that a 41 percent surge in prices for wheat, corn, rice and other cereals over the past six months has generated a $120 million budget shortfall that will force the agency to reduce emergency operations. That deficit is projected to rise to $200 million by year's end. Prices have skyrocketed as more grains go to biofuel production or are consumed by such fast-emerging markets as China and India.

Officials said they were reviewing all of the agency's emergency programs -- which target almost 40 countries and zones including Ethiopia, Iraq, Somalia, Honduras and Sudan's Darfur region -- to decide how and where the cuts will be made.

"We're in the process now of going country by country and analyzing the commodity price increase on each country," said Jeff Borns, director of USAID's Food for Peace, the organization's food aid arm. "Then we're going to have to prioritize."

Read more: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23418142/

[OneBlueSky]

1. just one day of war expenditures would solve this problem . . . n/t

.

[ixion]

2. imperils US aid, and US citizens as well

thanks BushCo. :grr: :argh:

[lonestarnot]

3. And Tom Horne scaled back aims tutoring for those who failed too.

[Morereason]

4. So what if a few million people starve... gotta keep those SUVs running

*sarcasm*

[WhiteTara]

5. I just drove through the central valley in California

and I am still reeling from the shock. This is a trip I take fairly often so I've seen a lot of the crops that are grown there. This year, there is nothing and I mean NOTHING besides almond trees. 200 miles long and as far as the eye could see inland, it is all almond trees. What used to be lettuce, onions, tomatoes, beans and various other vegetables are now trees!

:scared:

[The Croquist]

6. What do you mean "are now trees"?

I don't know if the lack of fruits, beans and vegetables is because of drought or because the farmers switched to almond trees. Trees take years to grow.

[WhiteTara]

7. I mean they have planted trees on every square inch

of land. The trees are in various states of growth...from bare land being prepared for planting, twigs in white collars to mature trees. None of the mature trees have been pruned (that I could see along the highway). It made me wonder how many pruners it would take to prune all those trees, but none looked as though they had ever been cared for. It smelled wonderful because the trees were all in bloom and the fragrance is quite heady.

I couldn't tell if the bee boxes were empty and I don't know how many boxes are usually around but there were boxes along the way.

[NYC]

8. Do you have any idea why?

I'm very curious.

Thanks in advance if you know the answer.

[The Croquist]

9. Almond trees love hot, dry conditions

http://www.hotgardens.net/fruit_nut_trees_in_desert.htm

Almonds (Prunus dulcis) love hot, dry summer weather. The recommended variety for home gardens is the semi-dwarf 'All-In-One' which self-pollinates and grows best in reasonably fast-draining soil. The large, soft-shelled nuts look like clusters of small green peaches until late summer when the outer coat peels back to reveal the almond in its shell. The 'All-In-One' almond tree reaches 15 feet in height.

The other almond trees that grow well in the desert are full-size, reaching 20 to 30 feet tall, and require two varieties to pollinate and produce nuts. If you select the 'Nonpareil' or the 'Ne Plus Ultra', they will pollinate each other. The 'All-in-One' will also pollinate both of these trees. To harvest the nuts, place a tarp on the ground and shake the trees. Dry fallen nuts in the sun for a day or two until the nuts inside the shell rattle.

It sounds to me like this was a smart move on the part of the farmers. There is always a shortage of water in that part of the country.

[NYC]

10. Thanks.

Now the question is who makes up for the shortfall of tomatoes, lettuce, and other produce.

[happyslug]

11. But depended on Bees, which can NOT survive the rest of the year

Mono-culture has its advantages as you mention, but it has one big disadvantage, the trees are only in flower part of the year and are pollinated by bees. Bees pollinated about 1/3 of the food that we eat (including almonds) but need to have flowers all year around (or at least spring, summer and fall) to survive. In nature this is done by various plants coming into flower at different times of the year. In olden days, this was done by farmers growing different crops on their land, or farmers living next to each other planting different crops, this permitted the bees to get pollen all year around.

The problem with miles and miles of any one crop, is to get them pollinated you must move the bees to the area of mono-culture when the tree go into flower and then to other areas as those crops come into flower. People were doing this as early as the late 1800s (At that time by Rail-road) but this has really become the ways on most domesticated bees since WWII.

This has lead to problems for the domesticated bees over the last several decades. Most of the problems have been manageable, but in the last 2-5 years we have seen a huge die off of commercial Domesticated bees. Wild bees (Bumble bees and other native non-honey bees) do NOT seem to suffer this same die off (But wild honey bees seem to have disappeared since about 1971). The biggest problem with the wild bees are that they are NOT readily transferable like honey bees, nor are they as good as pollination as the honey bee.

The leading theory is the widespread adoption of nicotine based herbicides, through the biggest killers of bees seems to be mites. The problem with the mite theory is that the mites have been around for several decades and have been managed to several decades, but only in the last ten years have you seen Colony Collapse disorder (CCD). As to the herbicide theory, the honey has been tested and contain the herbicide but at below levels that should cause harm to the bees.

The best Theory I have read is a combination of the theories. The miles are what is killing the bees, but only do to the introduction of the herbicide AND that movement of the bees bring the bees into contact with other bees with the mites (and other diseases). This exposure to other bees spreads the mites and disease to other bees quicker then would be the case. This speed of exposure prevents the bees from having any time to recover from one disease before hit with another disease. The herbicide is just the icing on the cake, one one push that causes the colony to collapse.

The solution? Stop moving bees around. In fact the biggest movement of bees is to the California Almond crop. The movement is from ALL of the US, including the East Coast. Once the Almonds flowers have died off, the bees have NO food, for they are in the middle of a sea of almond trees. The bees must be moved. This brings most of the bees in the US into one place, diseases are spread and exchanged and then carried to the rest of the country affecting the bees that never made it to California. This brings us to the solution that people have been avoiding, to stop moving the bees around. This means mono-culture of any crop that depends on bees to be pollinated must stop. The almond trees of California must be cut down and replaced with crops that come into flower later in the year, to give the bees other flowers to work with once the Almonds no longer have flowers.

Other solutions are possible, there is even an outside chance of a cure, but the movement of the bees, at least to some degree has to stop and with that stoppage, mono-culture of crops that depend on bees must also stop.

More on bees and Almonds:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/10/14/CM2SS2SNO.DTL
http://www.hcn.org/servlets/hcn.Article?article_id=16891

More on Honey bees:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honey_bee

More on Colony Collapse Disorder:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colony_Collapse_Disorder

More cites:
http://www.freshplaza.com/news_detail.asp?id=17081
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/opinion/322781_focusbees08.html

[ohio2007]

13. less drain on the Colorado river and mountain snow run off

less fertilizers and less burning out of the soil.
Oxygen producing trees is a more responsible use of land perhaps.

[ohio2007]

12. Turning grain into $4/gal gas

snip
Why are food prices so hot at the moment?
Demand for the three Fs: food, feed and fuels. Most of the demand for food and animal ent on oil. The US is producing about five billion gallons of bioethanol a year, has 120 bio-fuel production plants and is building 68 more. But there is room for massive growth

snip
http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/money/investment/article3465637.ece

this is may be the only way small family farms can stay in buisness.

[FarCenter]

14. What do these countries have in common?

"Officials said they were reviewing all of the agency's emergency programs -- which target almost 40 countries and zones including Ethiopia, Iraq, Somalia, Honduras and Sudan's Darfur region -- to decide how and where the cuts will be made."

They are all countries ravaged by US-sponsored conflicts.

[UncleSepp]

15. Serious question that sounds tinfoil.

This is the horrible thought that came to mind reading your post. It's so big and so horrible that it's right up there with shapeshifting lizard-people and what-have-you, but...

Is this whole thing only accidentally leading up to widespread famine and death due to incompetence? Was the coming hunger a foreseen side effect of foreign policy and energy policy and accepted as reasonable collateral damage? Or is it the truly unthinkable - is the effect intentional?

[FarCenter]

16. Conflict destroys herding and farming societies

In the less-developed parts of the world, food is not normally transported into the area. Typically, the food is grown locally by the herders and farmers and is consumed on the farms and in the villages. These are not urban societies, and they have no money to buy food with anyway.

Typically these areas have been populated for centuries, and the population is in balance with the available food supply, sometimes precariously so in the more arid and variable climates.

The tactics of conflict include killing the livestock, burning the crops, poisoning the wells, and destroying the seeds of the communities being attacked. These leave behind a destitute and starving population.

"Rebel forces", well armed with guns, ammunition, pickup trucks, etc., do not materialize out of the agrarian population by itself -- the military resources arrive from outside. The Sudan Liberation Army, popularly styled as a Christian, black rebel movement opposing the Muslim, Arab appears to have been backed by Western oil interests, NGO's and intelligence agencies. In Darfur, the cover story is more complex because most of the participants are black and Muslim. Furthermore, the exact nature of the resources being contested are less obvious, but various stories have mentioned oil, copper and uranium.

[ohio2007]

17. ?what they have in common. They hate america but love freebees?

Food aid gets highjacked by militias that kill the aid workers in the process. Simple solution, stop feeding the militias that hijack the food aid by no longer providing food. The old addage of "teach a man to fish" doesn't work in the desert.

Actually, more harm is being done by sending food out into deserts that only prolong starvation for another decade of failed crop yeilds.