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The Forum > Article Comments > Today’s food price spikes are the tip of the iceberg > Comments

Today’s food price spikes are the tip of the iceberg : Comments

By Frank Rijsberman, published 9/10/2012

Without investment in research our agricultural industries won't be up to the challenge of feeding the globe.

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Curmudgeon,

It about the most sustainable way to grow food, especially in the third world. It's no use degrading the soil and depleting the water table in the first instance, if that means that future production and biodiversity cannot be sustained.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyid=104708731
Posted by Poirot, Tuesday, 9 October 2012 3:31:33 PM
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Curmudgeon,

It was a UN report released back in 2009 about price fixing in international food markets. I've looked in my clips but can't find it so I'm not solid on my assertion re Russia and Ukraine, etc - grain crops.

I found this below which looks at how speculators have been manipulating the price.

http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/deadly-greed-the-role-of-speculators-in-the-global-food-crisis-a-549187.html
Posted by Cheryl, Wednesday, 10 October 2012 9:54:26 AM
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Cheryl
Oh, okay, the bit about speculators going into the market when food prices rose is not surprising .. that happens with every market.. if you look down the report you cite there's a bit in there about certain countries imposing export controls and controls on their farmers.. that may be what the UN report was talking about, but I'll look for it some point.. tnks for that..

Poirot
I see a bit of what you were getting at. Now go back and look at the story you cite. This part "But consider this: India has about three times the population of the U.S., but 30 times more organic farmers than the U.S." That sounds almost convincing until you realise that key stats have been left out of the story.. in the US and Aus, farms would be gigantic compared to those of India - or at least I would imagine that to be the case. That means you may well find that there is more organic farm land in the US, say, than there is in Inida.

But its difficult to say as you will note that the size of this Indian farm is not mentioned.. However, as they talk about a village seed bank it can't be very large at all.. That may in itself be part of the problem.. sections of the farm have not been rotated out of prouduction, as sometimes happens in farming here, or different crops grown. So its difficult to say what's happening but doesn't seem to have anything to do with international corporations.
Posted by Curmudgeon, Wednesday, 10 October 2012 12:47:41 PM
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Curmudgeon,

"...but doesn't seem to have anything to do with international corporations."

You couldn't be more wrong on that one. I won't bang on - suffice to say if you poke about a bit on the net, you'll soon uncover just how much multinational (seed and fertilizer) companies have affected India's farmers and their environment.

I will leave you with this from Dr Vandana Shiva, who's at the forefront of the fight by Indians to regain some autonomy.

http://www.theecologist.org/News/news_analysis/1547185/reclaiming_the_seed.html
Posted by Poirot, Wednesday, 10 October 2012 1:38:55 PM
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Periot

No, no.. had a look at your link.. although I don't contest some (note some) of the trends, your writer has almost entirely mistaken what they mean and what effects they are having. What on earth is wrong with monoculture crops in agriculture for example? If the poor Indian farmers devised new grain varieties as she says (which is unlikely), even poor farmers would have some redress if another organisation has gone and patented it. Bound to be some organisation that would fund the challenge and that's what she should focus on - if what she says is true, but I suspect its not.

As both that link and the earlier link you cited have major problems I hope you can see the problems of believing any of this hard-left green material which you seem to favour.. As I said before major corporations have just as much influence in the US and Canadian and European markets but conditions in those markets are totally different from that of India and each other - ergo, major corporations are not the problem.
Posted by Curmudgeon, Wednesday, 10 October 2012 4:02:22 PM
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Curmudgeon,

I disagree.

The bottom line here is sustainability. In the case of India, the Green Revolution initially solved the hunger problem and promised to continue doing so. Successive Indian governments have embraced the globalisation of agriculture. They've signed deals with the World Bank, the IMF and the WTO and have been obligated by these agreements to let the trade flow.

Forty years on, as I've mentioned, this practice has led to severe and widespread land degradation, poisoned and depleted groundwater reserves, farmer suicides, loss of biodiversity and knowledge, and massive shifts of the rural population to urban shanty towns, etc.

Multinational corporations play a critical role in this unfolding dilemma. They, in concert with government, have relieved Indian farmers of their autonomy. They have usurped control over seeds which are now required to be purchased prior to each planting. Farmers are forced into massive debt to buy seeds, fertilizers and equipment like pumps to make a living - they are encouraged to plant monocultures. At one time the Indian government provided free electricity to farmers so they could work their pumps 24/7. The upshot of this practice was to wash away nutrient and soil base, which was promptly replaced with another batch of nutrient from a multinational supplier. Not only was the government growing food (which was often stockpiled to inflate the price) the multinationals were guaranteed sales as the over-watering washed away nutrient. Aquifers, therefore, were either run dry or filled with nutrient or pesticide residue...

I hope you'll read this link which I've posted numerous times, but can't find anything more explanatory. It's by the same woman, physicist Dr Vandana Shiva, who, by the way, is no crackpot Greenie. She is an intelligent, highly educated and eloquent spokesman for the people of India who cannot speak for themselves.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/static/events/reith_2000/lecture5.stm

NASA on northern India's disappearing groundwater:

http://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/india_water.html
Posted by Poirot, Thursday, 11 October 2012 12:19:12 AM
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