DISPATCHES FROM AMERICA The hunger wars in our future

[xchrom]

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Global_Economy/NH09Dj03.html

The Great Drought of 2012 has yet to come to an end, but we already know that its consequences will be severe. With more than one-half of America's counties designated as drought disaster areas, the 2012 harvest of corn, soybeans, and other food staples is guaranteed to fall far short of predictions. This, in turn, will boost food prices domestically and abroad, causing increased misery for farmers and low-income Americans and far greater hardship for poor people in countries that rely on imported US grains.

This, however, is just the beginning of the likely consequences: if history is any guide, rising food prices of this sort will also lead to



widespread social unrest and violent conflict.

Food - affordable food - is essential to human survival and well-being. Take that away, and people become anxious, desperate, and angry. In the United States, food represents only about 13% of the average household budget, a relatively small share, so a boost in food prices in 2013 will probably not prove overly taxing for most middle- and upper-income families. It could, however, produce considerable hardship for poor and unemployed Americans with limited resources. "You are talking about a real bite out of family budgets," commented Ernie Gross, an agricultural economist at Omaha's Creighton University. This could add to the discontent already evident in depressed and high-unemployment areas, perhaps prompting an intensified backlash against incumbent politicians and other forms of dissent and unrest.

It is in the international arena, however, that the Great Drought is likely to have its most devastating effects. Because so many nations depend on grain imports from the US to supplement their own harvests, and because intense drought and floods are damaging crops elsewhere as well, food supplies are expected to shrink and prices to rise across the planet.

[Scootaloo]

1. During the depression...

Fruit, vegetables and grain were left to rot in the fields, since it couldn't be sold at a good return. Migrants were warded off by armed men, who forbade them from eating the fruit that was rotting on the trees just the same.

Food is a human right. Governments have been destroyed, their officials murdered and hung from poles, because people are hungry. Maybe - hopefully - it will never come to that here in the united States.

But we have a bad, bad habit of treating things essential to human existence - nutritious food, clean water, useful health care - as market commodities rather than necessities of life. And anyone who thinks that this will never bite us in the ass is a fool.

[bemildred]

2. There are a lot more people, and they are much better armed, than 80 years ago.

(Just trying to help ...)

[polly7]

3. DU rec. nt.