Blog 5 Compounding Problems likely to Push Food Prices Higher

Alex Clute
February 14, 2011
1730 EST

The Tehran Times reports that China is facing the possibility of drought that could further effect global wheat prices. This winter has seen like rain or snow in China has placed stress on the winter wheat crop, which usually protected by a layer of snow fall. If the drought continues into the spring there could be major losses, which will forced China, which is mostly self-sufficient when it comes to food, to import wheat. This coupled with the heat wave in Russia that has lead to the Russian government to prohibit wheat exports due to shortages, as well as the floods in Australia could force food prices to increase dramatically. The article goes on to cite soil degradation, fresh water shortages, competition of food crops with biofuels, population increase, and diverting food into increasing livestock production as other factors contributing to rising food prices.

Meanwhile, in Somalia, the Tehran Times article goes on to say that people are seeing a 300 percent increase in the price of water with families selling off their possesses and going into debt just to buy potable water. The Financial Times claims that Somali pirates have extended their operations out into the Arabian Sea, where they have captured an oil tanker bound for the US with $200 million of oil abroad. And seven people were killed in Mogadishu as a result of fighting between al-Shabaab and the transitional government, according AFP.

It would seem that there is a quickening in the rate instability is is spreading in the world. The legacies of colonialism and neo-colonialism have strained the biosphere and centralized the control of wealth into the hands of a few at the expense of the many. The nexus of globe concentration and control is right here in the USA, and as I watched this week's Democracy Now programs I was stunned to see how brazen some in the government, along with their corporate handlers, are becoming. The Governor of Wisconsin, Scott Walker, cutting state employee salaries and benefits while notifying the National Guard to be on standby for unrest, Republican efforts to redefine rape and undermine women's access to abortion and birth control, and cutting fuel oil assistance and Pell grants for low-income people, all under the guise of reducing the deficit. So it is becoming clear that as the US empire crumbles there will be no sober reappraisal of the the current global situation. Only a desperate and reactionary attempt to hold onto a hegemonic system that will just serve to make matters worse. The elements that dominate the global economy have in affect said, "To hell with all these people, its not our problem, we're just encharge here!"