There have been several articles in the past few months about drastic food price climbs putting more people in a hunger crisis situation all over the world. Riots resulting in casualties have broken out in Haiti and Africa due to the food prices. Price increases are related to the increased cost of petroleum, Here are two articles about the situation.CNN video
CNN article
TIME article
"In a single day in February, global wheat prices jumped 25% after Kazakhstan's government announced plans to restrict exports of its giant wheat crop for fear that its own citizens might go hungry." - TIME
Interestingly as prices continue to increase, this process of withholding crops will become more beneficial than selling them for countries concerned with starvation. This is a perfect example of the necessity for communities to be sustainable, in other words able to provide basic necessities such as food for themselves.
2 comments:
Yeah, withholding crops may be beneficial for those who HAVE the crops. Well-functioning global trade is just as important for a country's well being as is self-sustainability. See how self-sustainable North Korea is.
It is important. For example with the disaster in Myanmar, their prime farming land was destroyed, and starvation seemed inevitable while the government prevented foreign aid. Global relations are very important in times of crisis. But with the extreme jumps in the price of oil, transportation of goods is increasingly costly, making those products in turn too expensive for poorer countries to be able afford them. Wouldn't you assume that all countries were self -sustainable at one point? The simplification of crop growth to one large crop per area from multiple crops made families not able to feed themselves with their own food. I don't know if this is a fact of just the US farmers or a world-wide phenomena.
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