Important News About The Global Food Crisis!
Summary — this post contains three sections (also note the updates at the end)
Reporting indications of a global food crisis.
Research suggesting it could become much much worse.
Analysis on the scope and significance of the problem.
It is not now clear if we have a serious problem, or just a temporary abundance of bad news. With global grain stockpiles at 30 year lows, even minor temporary disturbances can have serious effects.
Or we might have a combination of serious commodity inflation, increased demand (third world prosperity) and long-term supply problems (e.g., climate and/or pest cycles). This deserves close attention, as the geopolitical effects could be severe.
One lesson learned should be obvious: it was imprudent to reduce global grain stockpiles because of the minor financial costs of maintaining them.
I. Recent reports indicating we may have a global problem with the global food supply