U.N. to Teach Americans How to Change their Behavior

Cross-posted from Faultline USA

Here are some excerpts from articles this week that should make anyone frightened. When it comes to our national sovereignty, our safety and our food supply should be number one! But it looks like the U.N is well on its redistributive way to take what’s left of our food.

According to USA Today, Surplus U.S. food supplies dry up

"Worldwide, food prices have risen 45% in the past nine months, posing a crisis for millions, says the United Nations' Food and Agriculture Organization.

Because of the current economics of food, and changes in federal farm subsidy programs designed to make farmers rely more on the markets, large U.S. reserves may be gone for a long time.

The upshot: USDA has almost no extra food to supplement the billions in cash payments it spends to combat hunger at home and in developing nations. "

Could the global food crisis impact America?

"NEW YORK (FinalCall.com) - United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon, in a recent meeting here with Bretton Woods Institution organizations, called for immediate and long-term measures to tackle a growing global food crisis.

The rapidly escalating crisis of food availability has reached emergency proportions,” Secretary-General Ban said April 14. He was referring to food riots taking place in different parts of the world, from Italy to Yemen and Mexico to the Philippines. Tanks were deployed in parts of Yemen April 4 after five days of protests by 1,000 people, mostly youth, angry about the rising price of food. Wheat prices have doubled since February, while rice and vegetable oil jumped 20 percent. . . .

While international leaders gathered to find solutions to the world food crisis, analysts in the United States braced for the April 16 Consumer Price Index Report. Analysts say the U.S. is wrestling with the worst food inflation in 17 years because of sharply higher costs for wheat, corn, soybeans and milk as well as higher energy and transportation costs. . . .

“It’s hard for most Americans to even conceive of the idea that food could become scarce in this country,” said Raj Patel, a writer, activist and former policy analyst with the advocacy group Food First and analyst for the World Bank, World Trade Organization and the United Nations. “Few of us are paying attention to the close relationship between bio-fuel, grain crops and price inflation,” Mr. Patel told Democracy Now’s Amy Goodman. He was appearing on her Pacifica Radio show, to push his new book, “Stuffed and Starved: The Hidden Battle for the World Food System.” The book is due out April 25. Competition between corn and other crops for planting acres has driven up the price of food in the U.S., as the government mandates more acreage for corn, wheat and soybeans, ingredients needed for ethanol production. . . .

“We are studying ways to communicate to people in the U.S. that they have to change their behavior. Americans are too complacent, believing there never would be a food shortage, which could be caused by a drought,” he said. “From my academic position, I can say that people are having a hard time finding food in America, so we have to change our thinking.”

This from What is Running Through Our Minds

". . .President Bush in mid-April drew $200 million from the Emerson Humanitarian Trust, named after former congressman Bill Emerson, a Missouri Republican. Bush's action followed a desperate plea from the United Nations for food aid. Thursday, the president announced he would ask Congress for $770 million in separate, additional funding to meet international needs.

But Agriculture Secretary Ed Schafer, at a recent food aid conference, says his agency faces tough decisions about managing the rest of the reserve in times of widespread hunger. "How far do we draw down?" he asked. "Do we take it down to zero because we need it? Do we hold some in there, because who knows what's going to happen, for emergency purposes later?"