Planet for Sale: Big Ag Buying Up World's Fertile Land (Documentary)

Farm Land Grab

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Industrial Agriculture Destroying Topsoil and Polluting Water (Video)

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Groundbreaking New UN Report on How to Feed the World's Hungry: Ditch Corporate-Controlled Agriculture

A new report from the UN advises ditching corporate-controlled and chemically intensive farming in favor of agroecology.

Wikimedia Commons

Jill Richardson
AlterNet

There are a billion hungry people in the world and that number could rise as food insecurity increases along with population growth, economic fallout and environmental crises. But a roadmap to defeating hunger exists, if we can follow the course -- and that course involves ditching corporate-controlled, chemical-intensive farming.

"To feed 9 billion people in 2050, we urgently need to adopt the most efficient farming techniques available. And today's scientific evidence demonstrates that agroecological methods outperform the use of chemical fertilizers in boosting food production in regions where the hungry live," says Olivier de Schutter, the UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food. Agroecology is more or less what many Americans would simply call "organic agriculture," although important nuances separate the two terms.

Used successfully by peasant farmers worldwide, agroecology applies ecology to agriculture in order to optimize long-term food production, requiring few purchased inputs and increasing soil quality, carbon sequestration and biodiversity over time. Agroecology also values traditional and indigenous farming methods, studying the scientific principals underpinning them instead of merely seeking to replace them with new technologies. As such, agroecology is grounded in local (material, cultural and intellectual) resources.


A new report, presented today before the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva, makes several important points along with its recommendation of agroecology. For example, it says, "We won't solve hunger and stop climate change with industrial farming on large plantations." Instead, it says the solution lies with smallholder farmers. The majority of the world's hungry are smallholder farmers, capable of growing food but currently not growing enough food to feed their families each year. A net global increase in food production alone will not guarantee the end of hunger (as the poor cannot access food even when it is available), an increase in productivity for poor farmers will make a dent in global hunger. Potentially, gains in productivity by smallholder farmers will provide an income to farmers as well, if they grow a surplus of food that they can sell.

With its potential to double crop yields, as the report notes, agroecology could help ensure smallholder farmers have enough to eat and perhaps provide a surplus to sell as well. The report calls for investment in extension services, storage facilities, and rural infrastructure like roads, electricity, and communication technologies, to help provide smallholders with access to markets, agricultural research and development, and education. Additionally, it notes the importance of providing farmers with credit and insurance against weather-related risks.

In the past, efforts to help the hungry involved developing high yielding seeds and providing them along with industrial inputs to farmers in poor countries. However, in poor countries, smallholder farmers who often live on less than $1 or $2 per day, cannot afford industrial inputs like hybrid or genetically engineered seeds, fertilizer, pesticides, or irrigation. Many work each year to make sure their crops go far enough to feed their families, with little left over to sell. And for those who live far from roads and cities, there might not be a market to sell to anyway.

Agroecology requires replacing chemical inputs with knowledge, often disseminated by farmers who work together with scientists and aid organizations to teach their fellow farmers. "Rather than treating smallholder farmers as beneficiaries of aid, they should be seen as experts with knowledge that is complementary to formalized expertise," the report notes. For example, in Kenya, researchers and farmers developed a successful "push-pull" strategy to control pests in corn, and using town meetings, national radio broadcasts, and farmer field schools, spread the system to over 10,000 households.

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Corn Rationing Needs to Begin

Fran Howard
Agweb

The corn market is extremely tight heading into the New Year, and analysts expect short supplies and heavy use to keep upward pressure on corn prices in 2011.  

"The corn market has one job and one job only—to go high enough to make people stop using the product," says Ryan Turner, risk management consultant for FCStone, Kansas City. "We are past the point of encouraging more supply." Turner predicts 2011 corn futures prices will exceed 2008 highs. "I don’t know if it will happen in January or June, but it will happen," he says.


Soaring corn prices will slice into demand, with corn exports expected to fall first followed by feed usage. Analysts anticipate the cattle industry to begin rationing earlier than other livestock sectors due to poor margins, but rationing in poultry, hog, and dairy will be close behind. "It will be very painful," Turner adds.
        
USDA’s latest World Agricultural Supply and Demand Estimates (WASDE) put the carryout for the 2010-11 U.S. corn crop at 832 million bushels, less than half the previous year’s carryout of 1.7 billion bushels. USDA pegs the average U.S. farm price for the 2010-11 crop at $4.80 to $5.60/bu. World supplies have also tightened: USDA’s latest estimate for world ending stocks for the 2010-11 crop is 130 million metric tons, a nearly 12 percent drop from the previous year’s 147 million metric tons.
        
Looking ahead to the 2011-12 crop, Chad Hart, agricultural economist with Iowa State University, calculates the full cost to grow corn in Iowa will be $4.25 to $4.50/bu., but revenues will be more than $5/bu., leaving at least a 50-cent-per-bushel margin. "That’s a really good margin, similar to 2007-08, when the first big push in ethanol occurred," says Hart.

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Record Cold Will Result in More Food Shortages

Dr. Mark Sircus
IMVA

This strange weather phenomenon, which you will see in the video below, happened in Newfoundland where the waves were actually frozen as they crashed on the beach. This is exactly what one would expect at the end of the warmest year on record, right? Are we freezing because of global warming? The media is still ranting that one of the effects of global warming is colder, wetter winters. Yes and building seven at the world trade center collapsed on its footprint from a burning ember? Or was it from a burning Rolls Royce engine that was catapulted from one of the planes. Was there ever a reasonable explanation for what was obviously a controlled demolition?

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Global warming is why a low temperature record of 42 degrees that had been in place for 169 years in Fort Lauderdale was broken on December 7. Global warming is why people are freezing to death in the northern hemisphere and why they are increasingly finding themselves buried in deeper and deeper snow. Global warming is now an insanity that has been implanted deep into the consciousness of the masses, meaning no matter how cold it gets, it’s getting warmer in the minds of the press and those who control it.

Dr. Willie Soon, astrophysicist and geoscientist at the Solar and Stellar Physics Division of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics said, “It’s close to being insane to try to keep insisting these changes in carbon dioxide are going to create all of the disasters that the politicians and doomsayers are trying to tell us. Saying the climate system is completely dominated by how much carbon dioxide we have in the system is crazy—completely wrong. Carbon dioxide is not the major driver for the earth/climate system.” Obviously the sun is the major driver, but then we have other factors like air pollution from human and volcanic sources blocking out more light and thus heat, and now we are also having a breakdown in the Gulf loop current as well as a diminishing of the Gulf Stream. What we have, ladies and gentlemen, is heart-thumping climate change that is going to take a frightening toll on humanity.

Britain for is experiencing some of the most severe winter weather in a century.

And look at Monday’s report from the Christian Science Monitor. “An early winter snow and ice season just got a little more peculiar over the weekend as a weakening regional high-pressure system over the Pacific allowed huge pockets of warm moisture onshore as part of a weather effect seen only every 10 to 15 years, meteorologists say.” That’s a meteorological expression that means totally freak storms are massing against the west coast with one after another coming ashore with a flurry of precipitation that is both frightening and dangerous.

There are spot reports of power outages, trees falling on cars and houses, cars stalling in water, and families trapped temporarily in their homes because of rushing water.

White Areas are Snowfall

“The storm dropped 2.3 inches of rain in Los Angeles—an amount not seen in the dry valleys since 1921. By the time it reached California’s higher altitudes, the rain had turned to snow, dropping 9 feet (now two days later it’s 13 feet) of the white stuff on Mammoth Mountain. In the east, a high-pressure oscillation situated over Greenland has forced more Arctic air than usual down from Canada, creating unusual early winter conditions throughout the East—the same system that has brought blizzards to Britain and Scandinavia. A diminished regional high-pressure system over the central Pacific, which usually helps divert storms away from California and up into Washington and Oregon, means the West, too, is beginning to see some unusual weather, reports the Los Angeles Times.”

And now, after days of relentless rain, Southern California is awaiting the most intense storm system yet, where a monster storm was expected to bring torrential rain, thunderstorms, flooding, hail and possible tornadoes and water spouts. Forecasters warned of possible rainfall rates of .75 inch to 1 inch an hour and thunderstorm rates of 2 inches an hour in the region and predict this storm will march right across the entire continental United States.

Germany is brought to near standstill by 12 hours of solid snowfall.

Climate change is obviously quickly taking on a new dimension in the northern hemisphere this autumn. After the record heat wave this summer, Russia’s weather seems to have acquired a taste for the extreme.Forecasters say this winter could be the coldest Europe has seen in the last 1,000 years. The change is reportedly connected to the speed of the Gulf Stream, which has shrunk in half in just the last couple of years. Polish scientists say that it means the stream will not be able to compensate for the cold from the Arctic winds. According to them, when the stream is completely stopped, a new Ice Age will begin in Europe. Some are saying that day has come and gone already, meaning Europe, at least, is in for some very big trouble. I reported a few weeks ago that indications are the stream has completely stopped in terms of completing its journey to Europe.


Americans Will Eat Fewer Tomatoes

Florida tomato growers are assessing the damage caused by this week’s below-freezing temperatures. Consecutive nights of unusually cold weather threatened produce growers across the state. In Hillsborough and Manatee counties, the results are severe. At Frank Diehl Farms in Wimauma, not a single tomato plant survived the bitter air. “They start breaking down and deteriorating like this,” Diehl explained to FOX 13, showing one of the countless destroyed tomatoes. “Then they won’t ripen, so you end up throwing them away.” The cold snap wiped out the entire tomato crop at Diehl’s farm. All 600 acres are destroyed; Diehl says nothing can be saved. “Our own operation, we’ve probably have lost 400,000 boxes,” he said.

Five nights of below freezing temperatures have severely damaged Florida’s 2010 sugarcane crop. Actually many crops have been hurt, damaged, or utterly destroyed and this is all food taken right out of the population’s collective stomach. Row crops across the state of Florida have been virtually wiped out. Not much about this though in the mainstream news.

So what’s going on with our world today? Bloomberg News says, “Earthquakes, heat waves, floods, volcanoes, super typhoons, blizzards, landslides, and droughts killed at least a quarter million people in 2010—the deadliest year in more than a generation. More people were killed worldwide by natural disasters this year than have been killed in terrorism attacks in the past 40 years combined.”

Prices are expected to increase due to inclement weather patterns influencing international commodity production and demand. Extreme cold snaps and heavy snowfall in Europe and the United States are increasing demand for oil and destroying or hurting crops; droughts and deluges in Australia are wreaking havoc on sugar and wheat production; Argentinean corn production is being threatened by weather patterns; and parts of China are expected to run short of oil and even coal in the coming winter months.

“Things” are getting more expensive. That is a fact. Energy, metals, and the ‘softs’ (grains and cotton) are all headed higher both in the US and elsewhere across the world.

In India food inflation is taking off like a plane off a runway, and China is not far behind. India’s annual food inflation went up again for another week on the back of rising prices of fruits, vegetables, and milk and stood at 9.46 percent for the week ending 4 December. Food inflation was 8.60 percent in the previous week. This is the second consecutive week of rise in food inflation. While prices of rice rose by 1.47 percent, vegetables went up by one percent, milk by 17.76 percent, and fruits by 19.75 percent on an annual basis. Pulses and wheat prices declined by 4.24 percent and 11.46 percent, respectively. Onions became costlier by 29.93 percent on an annual basis.

The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) has alerted developing countries about possible steep rises in food prices during 2011 but they have not warned citizens of the first world that even their access to food will be curtailed by a quick run-up in prices. According to FAO, “with the pressure on world prices of most commodities not abating, the international community must remain vigilant against further supply shocks in 2011.” World cereal production is likely to contract by two percent during 2010 and global cereal stocks may decline sharply. The price of sugar has reached a 30-year high while international prices of wheat increased by 12 percent in the first week of December 2010 as compared to their November average.

Collapse of cities and even societies is possible in the near future though almost no one anywhere is entertaining the idea that where they live today might not be livable in the near future. Ecosystems can and will fail. Predictably we will see failing infrastructure; food, water and fuel shortages, infectious disease, war, civil disobedience and conflict, and outright collapse of livable climate conditions. Extreme climatic events (including extreme rain events, floods) can do more to level humanity than nuclear attacks.

I received a call from a friend in Germany. She told me that it is a complete disaster over there. They had just gotten buried yet again but this time by one of the worst storms she can remember. This one dumped 50-60cm of snow. They are approaching five feet of snow for the month.

If December is repeated in January and then February, March, and April you will not be able to find these houses on this German street.

“Is it possible that everything we do is dwarfed by the moods of the star that gives life to the world? The Sun is incomparably vaster and more powerful than any work of man. We are forged from a few clods of solar dust. The Sun powers every plant and form of life, and one day the Sun will turn into a red giant and engulf us all. Then it will burn out. Then it will get very nippy indeed,” writes The Daily Telegraph.

The Thermohaline Circulation (THC)

This “thermohaline (from the Greek words for heat and salt) circulation” is an important part of the Earth’s climate that includes not only currents at the tops of the oceans, such as the Gulf Stream, but also currents deep under the water. The system is global and includes water that sinks around Antarctica.

The North Atlantic is dominated by the Gulf Stream—currents that bring warm water north from the tropics. At around 40° north—the latitude of Portugal and New York—the current divides. Some water heads southwards in a surface current known as the subtropical gyre, while the rest continues north, leading to warming winds that raise European temperatures by 5°C to 10°C making Europe warmer than it would otherwise be.

The slowing down or stopping of these currents could result in catastrophic changes in the world’s climate. Seems like this is already happening as the Gulf loop, and now Gulf currents weaken, and miles above, even the Jet Stream seems to be affected, which perhaps is causing the strange phenomena in this next weather video.

It is not normal for storms to travel from the east coast back to the west. The Gulf Stream is part of a global system of ocean currents, which, the generally accepted theory says, is driven at least in part by salty, cold water sinking in the northern Atlantic. As the water sinks, more water flows north to replace it, which means if anything slows down the sinking, the Gulf Stream would slow down and maybe other currents would slow down.

Way back in 2005 scientists (Nature (vol 438, p 655)) were already finding problems with the Gulf Stream. A study of the ocean circulation in the North Atlantic found a 30% reduction in the warm currents that carry water north from the Gulf Stream. Harry Bryden at the National Oceanography Centre in Southampton, UK, whose group carried out the analysis five years ago, was not sure if the change is temporary or signals a long-term trend. Whatever was going on seems to have been exacerbated by the huge Gulf Oil spill and the unprecedented usage of dispersants that has had the effect of sinking the oil and affecting of destroying the gulf loop.

Weakened Gulf Stream August 2010

At this site there are several of these animations sourced from satellite data. One has to watch repeatedly to get a feel for the weakening current. This one above demonstrates real data from the last seven years.

What’s the bottom line? For the first time there are seven billion people on the planet and we have just reached, these past few years, what could be called peak agriculture. We are growing and consuming more food than ever. We were already heading downward in output, though, and world food stocks are shrinking dramatically. Even during these years of peak production the United Nations says a billion souls are going to go to bed hungry most nights. Now we are facing dramatic decreases of food production from climate change as well as rapid increases in prices.

The cold is coming on quicker than a rabbit can eat a row of carrots and even the big boys at the top of the human heap probably were taken by surprise. The movie is being made in the real world today and we all have to watch it until it catches up with us no matter where or who we are. Life is about to get a whole lot more difficult.

Special Note: Again my voice issues a strong warning and again I urge all who can to stock up on superfoods for survival do so. Rejuvenate, which I use in my concentrated nutritional medicine protocols, makes the best survival food one can imagine. It has a shelf life of approximately two to three years and can provide nourishment to the whole family in the best and worst of times. Green gold is actually better then the yellow stuff so please think seriously and plan for worst case scenarios. I have always called Spirulina green gold and most of the Rejuvenate products have spirulina and chlorella as well as a host of other organically sourced super food items.

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U.S. May Have `Problem' Meeting Surging Global Demand for Wheat, UN Says

Luzi Ann Javier
Bloomberg

The U.S., the world’s largest wheat shipper, may not have the logistical capacity to meet rising global demand after rains cut the quality of the harvest in Canada and Australia, the United Nations said.

As much as 8 million metric tons of Australia’s wheat harvest may be downgraded because of excessive rains and Canada’s output suffered from wet weather, pushing importers to seek alternative suppliers, said Abdolreza Abbassian, an economist at the UN Food & Agriculture Organization, citing government estimates.

“Right now, the only country that would have such supply to compensate for the downgrade of Australia and also Canada would be the U.S.,” Abbassian said in an interview. “The problem is that the capacity in the U.S. for terminals to absorb enough milling wheat for shipment, it’s just not there.”

Increased demand from the U.S. may lead to supply bottlenecks, delaying deliveries and intensifying competition among importers, said Park Yang Jin, business manager at Seoul- based Daehan Flour Mills Co., South Korea’s largest milling wheat importer. This would help sustain a rally in Chicago futures, he said. The U.S. accounts for 27 percent of global wheat trade.

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Wheat-Crop Quality in Australia's Queensland Is Hurt by Rains, Growers Say

Wendy Pugh
Bloomberg

More than half of the wheat crop from Australia’s Queensland state may deteriorate to feed grade following heavy rain, tightening milling-quality supplies and potentially helping to extend a rally in prices.

“There is a lot of downgrading of quality because of the persistent wet weather,” Wayne Newton, grains president of Brisbane-based farm group Agforce, said today. The northern state may produce 1.6 million metric tons in all this season, according to a September forecast from the government.

Wheat surged 7.2 percent yesterday on concern that downgrades and delays to the crop from Australia, the fourth- largest shipper, may curb supply of high-quality grain. There was “a little bit of panic” in the market, according to Austin Damiani, a floor broker at the Minneapolis Grain Exchange.

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Surviving the Food Crisis

Empty Shelves in Mexico During Swine Flu Scare

Giordano Bruno
Neithercorp Press

Food production is one of the most essential concerns of any society. Without direct availability and ease of consumption, without the consistent flow of agricultural goods, every nation existing today (except the most primitive) would immediately find its infrastructure crumbling and its people in a furious panic. It’s strange to me, then, that long term independent food planning is the one concern that many Americans seem to take most for granted. Firearms and ammo, camping gear and bug-out-bags, MRE’s, beans, and rice; these are the easiest part of your survival foundation. The hard part is not storage of goods, but devising a solid and practical plan for sustainability in the long term. This starts with the capacity to support your own agriculture regardless of how long the grid is down, even if it is down indefinitely.

Understandably, there will be some people who do not have enough land to implement many of these strategies. They should still know the fundamentals and be ready to apply them at a retreat location or within a community should the opportunity arise.

In the first chapter of our ‘Survive Anything’ series, we covered all the consequences of a nuclear attack on American soil, and how to not only make it out alive, but even thrive after such an event.


The reason Neithercorp covered survival tactics for a nuclear strike first was simple; we wanted to make it clear that the title of this series is not an exaggeration. Truly, ANYTHING is survivable with the right knowledge and preparation. Those who promote a ‘doomer’ view of economic collapse or global war are on average people who have simply given up before the struggle has even started. Therefore, their opinions on survival are empty, and barely worth the effort to ignore. Life goes on after collapse, as it always has since the beginning of organized civilization. It is YOU who decides whether or not you will be a part of that life. It is you who decides your chances of success.

With that success in mind, let’s dive into the most important aspects of food survival in a country where infrastructure has ceased to function…

Emaciated Grocery Chains

Last winter, I witnessed perhaps the most incredible snow storm I have ever seen in my life. A low pressure system punished the Northeast with downpour after downpour, stopping most road travel and cutting power to millions for at least a week. Being that the average family has only a week’s worth of food or less in their pantry, you can imagine the chaos that unfolded. Those grocery stores with backup power were flooded with customers buying armloads of batteries, water, ice chests, and, of course, foods that don’t require refrigeration. Now, what I want you to imagine, is what would have happened if no grocery stores had been open that week. What would have happened if they had never reopened? How many people would have been in the very real position of starving to death? From what I observed that winter…far too many…

The problem of storage and backstock is widespread in the U.S. and the culprit is actually one which we have been trained to admire; efficiency. It is because of the over-application of efficiency in grocery models and in the freight sector that most outlets carry little to no backstock in goods. Instead, they order goods as quickly as they sell out, refilling shelves on a product by product basis. This means that in most grocers, what you see on the shelf, is all that they have. The speed of trucking deliveries makes this business model possible, but its operation suffers from a seriously fatal flaw…

Grocery stores may seem like a bounty of goods at first glance, but if freight shipments shut down, or even slowed, those aisles would empty within the span of a few days. Many households in America operate on the same faulty “efficiency”. They rely on the weekly trip to the grocer to maintain the pantry while also attempting to save money by reducing backstock. It’s a frayed rope holding up too much weight, a completely inflexible system that cannot withstand any deviation from the set routine. One unexpected disaster could render the entire food and agriculture distribution network immobile.

Many grocery chains also function on a line of credit from banks while operating at a loss. Profits are poured directly into the liabilities the companies incur from loans and then more money is borrowed to continue ordering goods. Some stores in the chain (flagship stores) usually bring in enough money to cover the red ink of the other branches, however, what if banks were to cut off credit completely to a grocery chain? Or maybe ALL grocery chains? The cycle of debt, to sales, to profit, to debt, becomes disrupted. Any stores that rely solely on credit to stay open for business would immediately lose the ability to bring in new stock. Again, we are faced with empty shelves in less than a week.

This scenario is entirely possible in the U.S. today, especially in the event that big banks institute capital retention in order to protect themselves from a further collapse of investment markets. Banks have already restricted loans to consumers down to the bare minimum. A restriction of loans to the business sector in the near future is not that far fetched.

Must Read - Full Article HERE

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How the U.S. Government Guaranteed the Coming Global Food Crisis

Steve Sjuggerud
Market Oracle

Porter Stansberry with Braden Copeland write: Over the last several years, I've written constantly on the growing likelihood of a global currency collapse.

The governments of Europe and the United States have accumulated debts so large they can't ever hope to repay them, except with currencies whose value will be inflated away by money-printing.

That's led me to recommend inflation hedges like railroads, gold, silver, and various forms of energy. Owning these "real assets" is the single best way to protect yourself from the inflationary crisis. But make sure you don't forget the most important inflation hedge of all: food.


If you've been reading the financial press for the past few months, you know the prices of vital food commodities are soaring. The price of corn is up 47% since this summer. Soybeans are up 30%. Wheat is up 43%.

I expect this trend of higher food prices to continue for years as the U.S government intentionally debases the dollar while lying to you the whole time about wanting a "strong currency." (Make sure to read our essay hereabout this great lie.) There's also a good supply/demand case to be made for owning agricultural assets. Let's start with the largest crop in the United States, corn...

In 2009, U.S. farmers grew 39% of the world's corn – 307.4 million metric tons. The crop was worth $48 billion. Our corn exports totaled $8.7 billion.

Most harvested corn in the U.S. is used to feed livestock – 43% of 2009 production. Almost as much (41%) was used for food, consumer, and industrial products (toothpaste, adhesives, cosmetics, starches, sweeteners, oils, beverages, industrial alcohol, fuel ethanol, etc.). The remainder was exported. The U.S. sent most of its corn to Japan, Mexico, and South Korea.

The second-largest corn grower, China, produced 165.9 million metric tons, or half the U.S. production. The European Union was a distant third, harvesting 62.7 million metric tons. Brazil checked in fourth, at 51 million metric tons.

In 2009, a severe drought in China killed millions of bushels of corn. Stockpiles dwindled to alarming levels as the government sold corn to keep the price from rocketing higher. Into 2010, the situation hasn't improved. The Chinese have become net importers of corn for the first time in 16 years. Experts predict China will require 6 million to 8 million metric tons of corn this year.

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