What is Digg?262 Comments
- umbriago, on 04/24/2008, -7/+76We (as in Americans) could all stand to eat less.
- bstory, on 04/24/2008, -13/+75It will only get worse as we convert more food stocks to fuel
- SilentStrider, on 04/24/2008, -16/+73Yep, taking food and turning into gas has got to be one of the dumbest ideas America's come up with yet. Way to starve the world to "save the planet".
- TheDHC, on 04/24/2008, -2/+52America, you must construct additional pylons
- DeskFlyer, on 04/24/2008, -9/+46Food should be fuel for humans, not internal combustion engines.
- notmtwain, on 04/24/2008, -3/+34A couple more news reports like this and we may see widespread rice hoarding take off in the US. In fact, it may be too late to stave off some near term problems since news organizations don't usually pick up on this stuff until it is already firmly established. I'd better get to the market.
- inactive, on 04/24/2008, -1/+31Soylent Green..... the future of food
- inactive, on 04/24/2008, -8/+35Looking at the price of commodities on the futures market one would be a fool not to take advantage of the prices today. We have double digit inflation, they just don't admit it.
What it costs to produce a pound of flour has risen and there's no reason to believe the prices will do anything but increase all down the line.The same holds true for rice and beets and other foods.
The prices we see today are the lowest we will see. - vault, on 04/24/2008, -4/+25Yeah because that worked so well in Soviet Russia. You're an idiot.
- Kythas, on 04/24/2008, -0/+16Looks like I picked the wrong day to stop sniffing glue.
- saigumi, on 04/24/2008, -7/+22It's not a food stock -> food shortage problem because of ethanol. It's mainly the cost of shipping as well. It's also the problem that most 3rd world countries have been ruined by the cheap grain the US has been giving selling that they wiped off all of their agriculture because it was too expensive.
Don't get yourself stuck in a 1 track mind about a minor addition to the problem as a whole, it makes you look like Bush. - drmobutu, on 04/24/2008, -8/+22The solution? A Fat Tax...
- imgstacke, on 04/24/2008, -1/+15With diminishing oil production, the cost to produce food will get much more expensive (83% in 3 years - 40% since mid 2007). Oil is now at ~120$US/b. Its tightly correlated with Oil prices as you can see. It's not the food that is the problem, but the amount of fuel required to produce the food.
We need alternate sources of energy now, not energy carriers like hydrogen produced from oil fueled generators. But LARGE nuclear/solar/wind/tidal/geothermal/hydro plants WITH more efficient means of transmission (super conductors). For every mile (1.6Km) of high voltage transmission wires you loose about 1% of energy.
We need solutions like more efficient cars/homes/industries and better energy distribution systems along with more efficient generating capacity.
All while generating less CO2 and other climate changing gases. - nonymous666, on 04/24/2008, -1/+14They did a story on the NBC news last night about rice being rationed by Cosco. They had a couple experts from someplace or another say there is no real shortage in the States and that some graineries actually have surpluses. The problems are being caused by people hearing of shortages in other countries so they then make runs on U.S. stores to stock up, then the stores run out for a couple days until they can get restocked, and then everybody thinks the U.S. suddenly has a shortage, too.
- mtekk, on 04/24/2008, -2/+15That's the reported inflation, inflation on commodities is much higher than reported.
- bromac, on 04/24/2008, -2/+15Dugg for understanding that FOOD NEEDS TO BE TRANSPORTED TOO.
For every calorie of food you eat, it took 10 calories of fossil fuel to produce and ship to your plate. - jmpeagle, on 04/24/2008, -2/+14that's kind of what started the problem
- had3l, on 04/24/2008, -2/+13How many times will we have to say it. Biofuels are NOT to blame, at least not this time. As you can read from the article, the price of rice more than doubled. Rice is not converted to ethanol. One can't stop producing rice to start producing ethanol crops because the kind of land and climate required to grow rice are not favorable for growing corn or sugarcane.
The basic reason is simple: Increase of the price of Oil. It increases both the cost of production and the cost of transportation. Coupled with bad weather in some countries and a malformed market due to all the subsidies, of course prices are going to increase. - drmobutu, on 04/24/2008, -1/+12No joke, more big spikes in the price of oil could disrupt transportation networks, and boom...empty shelves in the supermarket...
- dupswapdrop, on 04/24/2008, -1/+12Costco is great I got me 200 lbs of rice and 400 lbs of flour, tomorrow I go buy me some pigs and chickens.
- saigumi, on 04/24/2008, -1/+12Farmer: How will we get this grain to the rest of the world?
Shipper: By ship/train/trucks of course.
Farmer: But those require gas and the cost of petroleum based gas has TRIPLED! Heck, the cost to run my tractors has TRIPLED as well since 2 years ago.
Shipper: Well food prices will grow up by the same.
Farmer: But then we will get smegheads blaming us for those extra fields we started planting again last year to sell to Ethanol companies.
Shipper: Too right. - lhbaker, on 04/24/2008, -3/+14I don't care whether you lean left or right, this affects you. Google 'rice shortage' and stop blaming the messenger.
- dlllb, on 04/24/2008, -1/+11'AINT NO ***** FOOD CRISIS IN AMERICA!!
- pentupentropy, on 04/24/2008, -9/+19Again I will say this as I have before.. the only crisis going on is a lack of motivation. We could do so very little, and I mean little. If 10 million people all gave one day to help out and work on things in some way, there would be no food crisis. Food costs nothing from a moral standpoint. There are more than enough resources on the planet to feed everyone 10 times over.
- BobMysterioso, on 04/24/2008, -0/+9Let say I bought 10 50lb bags of rice. Its just me and my wife, and we eat rice, particularly basmati quite frequently. At that, 500lbs of rice (aside from the storage space) would take us forever to eat. I believe, so long, that by the time we got to the end of it, if there was still a rice shortage I'd have far more to fret over than not having rice.
- jmpeagle, on 04/24/2008, -3/+12uh...everyone saw this coming from a mile away...hell even that communist ***** down in Cuba saw it and that guy loves state intervention.
http://www.autobloggreen.com/2007/03/30/cuban-pres ... - taintedzodiac, on 04/24/2008, -0/+9In related news, towel sales are up 200% today. When asked for comment, the CEO of America's top towel manufacturer simply said, "Don't panic."
- quail20, on 04/24/2008, -2/+11I smell hysteria. Like 30 somethings buying wood burning stoves for their apartments in NYC before Y2K, or idiots in New England wrapping their houses in duct tape and plastic some months after 9/11. It would have been nice if the news outlets would stress the fact that the limits on rice at Costco & Sam's are not nationwide. They're regional in scope and it is to prevent those crazy hoarders from walking out with a full pallet. Oops, got to go check which gallon of Y2K water expires this week. Only 32 gallons left!! Yea!
- SourWorm, on 04/24/2008, -0/+8They'll probably just try to solve it with more overlords ...
- joelmole, on 04/24/2008, -1/+9BIngo. Costco is trying to protect itself from the idiots that heard about some global food epidemic, so they go in hoard mode and try to buy 10 50lb bags of rice in their panicked state.
- justok, on 04/24/2008, -0/+8i'll eat to that!
- SteelChicken, on 04/24/2008, -3/+11all you idiots in here who think this has to do with bio fuels are STUPID.
stop being "force fed" what to think by others. do your own research and use some goddamn common sense!
No one is turning wheat and rice into ethanol. And the US still has plenty of corn to go around. Biofuels are the new George Bush, the blame it all scapegoat. - captmorgan555, on 04/24/2008, -0/+8Nuclear launch detected?
- Wacer, on 04/24/2008, -0/+8Where are you from? All the stores I go to are full of milk, flour, sugar and other food commodities. It has been that way for decades. There hasn't been a food rationing system in place since the time of ww2. Every store I go to, they still accept cash just fine. The American dollar has lost some value but it is far from worthless. Not that many starve because if they do, they are to stupid to go get food stamps. Wow, what non-sense.
- DeskFlyer, on 04/24/2008, -3/+10Even though you claim to be from Cali, can you please stop stereotyping so much. While I agree with your general message, there are plenty of US citizens out there that are far apart from your standard definition of an American ***** fatass.
- inactive, on 04/24/2008, -2/+9As EwMo stated above me, the Seattle PI is a joke here in seattle. Take everything in context. It reports the "Seattle Left"..... which is doom and gloom all the time. I laughed as soon as I saw the source was the PI.
That's my take (I'm a Seattle reader and former subscriber) - inactive, on 04/24/2008, -6/+13The Seattle PI is far left (even for the internet) and extremely pessimistic in every story. If you don't believe me, look around their site.
- nickymouse, on 04/24/2008, -3/+10OH NO IT'S A FOOD CRISIS... I can't buy more then four twenty pound bags a day of imported rice. Thanks George Bush
- willk281, on 04/24/2008, -1/+8OM NOM NOM NOM
- xenuxenuts, on 04/24/2008, -3/+10Things are going to get pretty nasty soon. The rising cost of food and fuel are going to push a lot of people who are borderline making it over the line. The housing issue was nothing compared to whats about to happen if real inflation doesn't slow down quickly or wages go up quickly.
Oh and btw, the y2k thing wasn't a big deal because people fixed the problems before it hit. You might bitch about the hysteria, but the hysteria was part of the reason why nearly all of the issues were fixed before the problem occurred. - DeskFlyer, on 04/24/2008, -1/+8If only airlines would adhere.
- inactive, on 04/24/2008, -0/+7You require more vespene gas.
- TybaltCpp, on 04/24/2008, -0/+6What ever you do don't panic! aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaargh...
Besides it will help with the 'obesity epidemic'. - bromac, on 04/24/2008, -1/+7Then find us some fuel for those engines, because they're what run the farm equipment to grow the food and the trucks to deliver it.
I'm more of a fan of biodiesel from algae, but really it's not as simple as just keeping the food around. You have to transport it to hungry people, and that takes energy. With no other solutions, as least a farm could use a PORTION of its crop to produce the fuel for its equipment and transport the crop to market. - saigumi, on 04/24/2008, -1/+7Good grief. Can you people take one step back and realize that we are not "Driving our Food"?
Answer me this:
How much more is it costing to grow, collect, ship and process corn then it was two years ago now that petroleum based fuels and products have tripled? Fertilzers are made with oil. It takes gas to power the machinery. Yet, somehow, you are expecting the cost of food to stagnate? Seriously, or blame it on additional fields that are being planted this year to capitalized on e85? Do you really think that much corn is being shunted that isn't being eaten?
Seriously, the world needs to get off of foreign grain the same way the US needs to get off of foreign oil. Most #3's have left their agriculture to rot because of their lust of cheap grain in the same was the US has not been drilling because of our lust of cheap oil. - dirtyfrog, on 04/24/2008, -0/+6Addition supply depots required
- lhbaker, on 04/24/2008, -4/+10Sure, but they're not the only news organization reporting the story.
Google 'rice shortage" - area51x, on 04/24/2008, -0/+6"Food prices have risen 40 percent on average since mid-2007, and have led to riots in the Caribbean, Africa and Asia." This is poor writing. I am sick of people lumping countries into continents. Lumping continents is even worse. Asia + Africa = most of the Earth's population. Where in Africa? Botswana? Morocco? Guinea??
- imgstacke, on 04/24/2008, -2/+8More food for us...
- BohicaTwentyTwo, on 04/24/2008, -0/+6food FUD or Panic! At the Cosco
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