DianaWhat about Global Starvation???
April 29th 2008 02:24
Let's forget about global warming for the time, if that is possible. Forget even about the drought (that is if you were even thinkin about it in the first place!) and focus on the current looming crisis: global food shortage!
Now is the time to go out and start stock-piling food: rice, flour, oats, beans. (er, joking!)
We have world shortages in grain. Rice is already being restricted in the States, for goodness sake! Then of course there are the food riots in Bangladesh, Haiti, Egypt, Africa that we have talked about earlier.
Some countries are holding back on exporting rice (China and Vietnam) and grain (Argentina) for fears they will run out for their own people.
With the global food shortage comes a raising of rural land prices.
In the UK there has been recorded a 30% increase in the price of any arable land.
In Victoria, Australia, while the housing market may have gone ‘flat’,
giving hope to those trying to buy their first home, any rural land with reasonably reliably rainfall is becoming hot property.
It seems that while the stock market is unstable investors are taking a punt on the uncertain fortunes of agriculture and buying up land.
Paddocks of over one thousand acres are particularly sought, preferably croppable.
What does this mean?
Not much I suppose, but then maybe......well, for a start, investors following the rural boom will find it gives a slower return for their money, though they may eventually get a higher rate of return, (agricultural pursuits are notoriously slow and unpredictable); investors will want to ‘drive’ the land that little bit harder to get that higher gain. This may mean they try to over-crop land, (crop continuously without a break) or ignore the rules of crop rotation. They may, in their desire for profit and lack of understanding, ask their farmers or managers to use chemicals or fertilisers more heavily in the mistaken belief of a higher yield.
None of it feels very good to me. What about you? Reckon there is a solution anywhere there?
Gotta go: enjoy your lunch!
Now is the time to go out and start stock-piling food: rice, flour, oats, beans. (er, joking!)
We have world shortages in grain. Rice is already being restricted in the States, for goodness sake! Then of course there are the food riots in Bangladesh, Haiti, Egypt, Africa that we have talked about earlier.
Some countries are holding back on exporting rice (China and Vietnam) and grain (Argentina) for fears they will run out for their own people.
With the global food shortage comes a raising of rural land prices.
In the UK there has been recorded a 30% increase in the price of any arable land.
In Victoria, Australia, while the housing market may have gone ‘flat’,
giving hope to those trying to buy their first home, any rural land with reasonably reliably rainfall is becoming hot property.
It seems that while the stock market is unstable investors are taking a punt on the uncertain fortunes of agriculture and buying up land.
Paddocks of over one thousand acres are particularly sought, preferably croppable.
What does this mean?
Not much I suppose, but then maybe......well, for a start, investors following the rural boom will find it gives a slower return for their money, though they may eventually get a higher rate of return, (agricultural pursuits are notoriously slow and unpredictable); investors will want to ‘drive’ the land that little bit harder to get that higher gain. This may mean they try to over-crop land, (crop continuously without a break) or ignore the rules of crop rotation. They may, in their desire for profit and lack of understanding, ask their farmers or managers to use chemicals or fertilisers more heavily in the mistaken belief of a higher yield.
None of it feels very good to me. What about you? Reckon there is a solution anywhere there?
Gotta go: enjoy your lunch!
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