This article deserves a good reading, as does Celsias, the site it originated from. So I’m bumping it to the top. Food for thought indeed. – biscuit
The era of cheap food is over — this means disaster for millions, and mega-profits for a few. How did we get into this mess?
Most objective observers of the current food crisis are understandably concerned. Around 45% of the world’s population live on two dollars per day or less. Skyrocketing food prices are now bringing stress to two billion people, and despair to millions — around one hundred million, actually. The situation is only expected to further deteriorate as: the price of oil continues to soar; climate change-related disasters increase in frequency and intensity, and as policy decisions such as mandated biofuel quotas in our fuel supply further strengthens the already strong price connection between fuel and food. It is a humanitarian disaster that’s well underway, and one which seriously threatens to destabilize international security. As I’m sure you can appreciate, a hungry man is an angry man.
Making a killing
And yet, this situation is playing into the arms of large corporations who are making windfall profits out of desperate demand for the most basic of needs, and who see even greater opportunities for a lot more of the same in the coming months and years.
Please click here to read the rest on Celsias (only because I can’t see a way to embed the video clips that need to go with this article on this site). This article has been featured on The Daily KOS, and should be well worth your time.
8 Comments
This is an important topic. It is ironic that the term “green revolution” has more to do with greenbacks than with feeding people adequately. Warmest regards, Doc.
Wow. Thanks for those links. I’ll be reading them a little later this evening.
Corporations are like brokers: they make money when they buy and make it as well when they sell.
I have believed for some time that genocide is part of the policy of the current world regime. Hard as it is to fathom human beings in power making policy that would deliberately result in the extinction of large swaths of humanity, it’s also hard to see any other explanation for what’s going on.
If I were a soulless, rich, powerful “leader,” I imagine that it would be no skin off my nose if a certain percentage of the population died off. It would leave more money, food, water, and energy for me, and there’d still be plenty of slave labor to man the infrastructure that supported my extravagant way of life.
Now you know why most rich countries don’t give a hoot about Africa and other poor areas. It suits them which is short sighted, as usual, because if all heads were put together we’d be able to solve food & water shortages and right the past wrongs….but we’re too elitist to even think that way!
Thank you all – I’m more than glad for this topic to get as much exposure as it can. There are so many vested interests that don’t want these issues examined at their root (financial) level. If enough people know, and get infuriated by, what is happening, then just maybe we can turn this around.
Some organisations just plain don’t deserve to exist, yet they manage to paint such a philanthropic veneer over themselves. It makes me feel ill when I think of the consequences – and not just for the huddled masses in the global South, as the implications for we in the North are dire also.
As you have time, I’d highly recommend you take a look at the GMO category on Celsias as well. This issue is getting increasingly urgent.
Will do.
Thanks, Craig.
I hope we hear more from you here. You’ll definitely be seeing more of me at Celsias.
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