Have you noticed how much it costs to go to the grocery store these days? If you think it’s bad now, just wait…things will be worse in 2013. All Americans are going to have to use more of their monthly budget for food. This means that less and less income is going towards savings, retirement, or day-to-day expenses. When food becomes so expensive that lower class people can’t afford it, riots happen. This has happened in countries all over the world but food riots may not be far from reaching U.S. soil.
The year 2012 brought with it one of the worst droughts in over a half-century. According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, in 2013 retail poultry prices are projected to increase as much as 4 percent, beef by 5 percent and dairy products by 4.5 percent because of higher feed prices and thinning herds. The drought’s effects on food prices may linger as late as 2016, said Christopher Hurt, a livestock economist at Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana. The drought that went through the Great Plains brought corn yields to their lowest level in 17 years. What this means for corn prices is at least an extra 4% increase in 2013. Think that’s just for corn? Think again.
In October of 2012, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization released a report voicing their concerns that there will be a food shortage in many nations. In September of this year, food prices rose 1.4.%. While this may not seem like a major increase, that pace is an increase that has been the total increase or many years. The Organization echoes the USDA in citing severe droughts and abnormal heat in the U.S. and Russia as the main cause for corn and soybean price jumps. According to the USDA, the U.S. cattle herd is the smallest since at least 1973. Any expansion in supply in response to higher prices won’t hit the marketplace until at least 2013 because of the amount of time it takes to raise a beef animal.
What happens when food prices are TOO HIGH?
When food prices spike and people go hungry, violence soon follows. Riots caused by food shortages – similar to those of 2007-08 in countries like Bangladesh, Haiti, the Philippines and Burkina Faso among others – may be on the horizon, threatening social stability in impoverished nations that rely on US corn imports. Early dryness in Russia’s wheat growing season, light monsoon rains in India, and drought in Africa’s Sahel region, combined with America’s lost crop, mean a perfect storm is on the horizon. “We are in a very vulnerable situation in markets, and any further supply-side shocks or any disruptive policy actions that individual countries might take could add further to the problems we have and create turmoil in markets, said David Hallam, the UN Food and Agriculture Organization’s director of trade and markets.
According to an insider into the food supply industry, “in order for riots to break out the whole food supply doesn’t have to be wiped out. It just has to be threatened sufficiently. When people realize their vulnerability and the fact that there is no short-term solution to a severe enough drought in the Midwest they will have no clue as to what they should do. Other nations can’t make up the difference because no other nation has a surplus of grain in good times let alone in times when they are having droughts and floods also. It takes two or three months to raise grain, yet people have to eat usually at least once a day, usually more than that.”
What can you do?
With the inevitable knowledge that food prices are, and will continue, to go up…and knowing how quickly food can disappear from grocery store shelves in a real or perceived crisis, there is another option. The only option that can sustain a family in a serious time of need is your own garden. The ability to grow your own food is the one option that doesn’t leave you reliant on other people or the government. A Survival Seed Kit is full of thousands of premier heirloom seeds that can be planted year after year. A Seed Bank with Non-Hybrid seeds assures that you only get the natural seeds than haven’t been altered in any way. If you are worried about food crisis and the potential for food shortages or riots, a Survival Seed Kit is an excellent source of food and peace of mind.