Food Rationing Hits USA - Food Crisis Emerges Quickliy
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Food Rationing Hits USA
Food Crisis Emerges Quickly
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(A-O Newswire) -- The A-O Report has provided subtle warnings for the past couple of years that the world was moving towards future food shortages. Indeed, in our latest edition of the A-O Intelligence Digest posted late Sunday night, April 20, we noted the world was rapidly developing shortages. Near the end of the article, I speculated that it might yet be two or three years before we saw serious shortages of grains and breads in America. Apparently, I was overly optimistic.
No sooner had the Digest edition posted that within 4 to 6 hours, the New York Sun newspaper posted an article detailing food rationing here in America, most notably on the West Coast and in the Northeastern USA.
Within 36 hours after that article, the Wall Street Journal and the major newswire services like Associated Press and Reuters began reporting on food shortages on American grocery store shelves for rice, flour and cooking oil.
What is apparently developing is hoarding by some Americans, who are buying up large quantities of these food staples. The large box warehouse chain Costco reportedly began “rationing” supplies of large bags of rice to its shoppers. We’re talking about 25 pound bags of rice – the institutional size. It isn’t just rice though that is in short supply. Various types of wheat flour are also disappearing from store shelves along with cooking oils.
As we have noted in previous A-O Weekly News Round Up coverage, especially the edition for the week-ending 4-19-8, we noted news articles focusing on these food shortages and the skyrocketing prices for rice, wheat, corn and soybeans. We also pointed to a “panic” in the world’s rice markets as various nations like India cancelled export sales of rice to ensure Indian consumers had their fare share of rice. This latest round of news stories prompted our Intelligence Digest article alerting A-O donors to this rising problem of food rationing, hunger, and a trigger for future chaos and war around the world.
I really didn’t think at the time when I was writing the Digest article that three days later A-O would be reporting on such shortages showing up on American grocery store shelves.
Keep in mind that this reporter is located in the heartland of America’s food basket – the American Midwest – where basic foods have historically been overflowing on store shelves for the past 100+ years. I have not seen empty shelves in local food stores in my area as of yesterday at least when I conducted a shopping investigation. Wheat flours and cooking oil was readily available on local store shelves as was smaller bags of rice up to the 5 pound size.
What was also noteworthy is that the price for rice was a nominal cost of about 40 cents per pound. According to the article published by the New York Sun newspaper, the price of rice on the West Coast was going for more than $1.00 per pound in institutional sizes. I suspect that in the near future, that local bargain price here for a bag of rice will escalate as inventories are replenished by more expensive stocks.
It is hard for me to fathom that locally, here in wheat growing country, that there could be shortages of wheat flour where I live – unless there is serious crop failures due to weather or crop disease difficulties. At the moment, the weather does not seem to be a problem for wheat in America’s breadbasket of Kansas.
Corn production here in the American Midwest may be a different story.
In America’s heartland, some areas where corn is grown are experiencing wet or flooding conditions. These conditions may delay corn planting. Weather may even limit the amount of corn harvested in 2008. Combine the weather factor with a surging demand for corn as a bio-fuel for synthesized gasoline and you have the makings of a perfect storm for shortages of corn for food consumption.
Consider also the fact that corn is a primary feed grain for livestock such as cattle, hogs and poultry. Rising prices for corn and shortages of corn will dramatically impact the production of meats, dairy and poultry products. Japan is reportedly experiencing a near total loss of dairy products such as butter due to such problems, primarily because Japan’s primary supplier of dairy products is Australia, a nation in the grip of an historic drought.
Prophetic Implications:
So what does all of this mean for prophecy watchers?
Biblical prophecy indicates that in the Tribulation era, there will be famine and starvation on an unparalleled scale. With all of the information now crossing the A-O News Desk, it would seem that a “perfect storm” of food shortages and rationing may well be leading us to a time of unparalleled, global famine and starvation. It also appears that the time for such developments may well be just around the corner, if the current trends persist.
You will find below various news articles published in the past two days dealing with the subject of food shortages in America and around the world.
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USA Faces Food Rationing
Shortages & Rationing Now
This is the first article in the US mainstream newsmedia to being focusing on the USA food crisis developing in local American grocery stores. LINK HERE.
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American's Begin Hoarding Food
Rice, Flour, Cooking Oil Shortages
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Wal-Mart & Sam's Club Limit Rice Sales
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Wall Street Journal Warns:
Americans Should Stock Food Now
I don't want to alarm anybody, but maybe it's time for Americans to start stockpiling food.
No, this is not a drill.
You've seen the TV footage of food riots in parts of the developing world. Yes, they're a long way away from the U.S. But most foodstuffs operate in a global market. When the cost of wheat soars in Asia, it will do the same here.
Reality: Food prices are already rising here much faster than the returns you are likely to get from keeping your money in a bank or money-market fund. And there are very good reasons to believe prices on the shelves are about to start rising a lot faster.
"Load up the pantry," says Manu Daftary, one of Wall Street's top investors and the manager of the Quaker Strategic Growth mutual fund. "I think prices are going higher. People are too complacent. They think it isn't going to happen here. But I don't know how the food companies can absorb higher costs." (Full disclosure: I am an investor in Quaker Strategic)
Stocking up on food may not replace your long-term investments, but it may make a sensible home for some of your shorter-term cash. Do the math. If you keep your standby cash in a money-market fund you'll be lucky to get a 2.5% interest rate. Even the best one-year certificate of deposit you can find is only going to pay you about 4.1%, according to Bankrate.com. And those yields are before tax.
Meanwhile the most recent government data shows food inflation for the average American household is now running at 4.5% a year.
And some prices are rising even more quickly. The latest data show cereal prices rising by more than 8% a year. Both flour and rice are up more than 13%. Milk, cheese, bananas and even peanut butter: They're all up by more than 10%. Eggs have rocketed up 30% in a year. Ground beef prices are up 4.8% and chicken by 5.4%.
These are trends that have been in place for some time.
And if you are hoping they will pass, here's the bad news: They may actually accelerate.
The reason? The prices of many underlying raw materials have risen much more quickly still. Wheat prices, for example, have roughly tripled in the past three years.
Sooner or later, the food companies are going to have to pass those costs on. Kraft saw its raw material costs soar by about $1.25 billion last year, squeezing profit margins. The company recently warned that higher prices are here to stay. Last month the chief executive of General Mills, Kendall Powell, made a similar point.
The main reason for rising prices, of course, is the surge in demand from China and India. Hundreds of millions of people are joining the middle class each year, and that means they want to eat more and better food.
A secondary reason has been the growing demand for ethanol as a fuel additive. That's soaking up some of the corn supply.
You can't easily stock up on perishables like eggs or milk. But other products will keep. Among them: Dried pasta, rice, cereals, and cans of everything from tuna fish to fruit and vegetables. The kicker: You should also save money by buying them in bulk.
If this seems a stretch, ponder this: The emerging bull market in agricultural products is following in the footsteps of oil. A few years ago, many Americans hoped $2 gas was a temporary spike. Now it's the rosy memory of a bygone age.
The good news is that it's easier to store Cap'n Crunch or cans of Starkist in your home than it is to store lots of gasoline. Safer, too. LINK HERE.
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Calif Shoppers Limited on Rice
Silicon Valley Limits Purchases
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World Faces Huge Food Challenge
If food security cannot be restored quickly, social unrest and political instability will spread and the number of failing states will likely increase dramatically, threatening the very stability of civilization itself.
A fast-unfolding food shortage is engulfing the entire world, driving food prices to record highs. Over the past half-century grain prices have spiked from time to time because of weather-related events, such as the 1972 Soviet crop failure that led to a doubling of world wheat, rice, and corn prices. The situation today is entirely different, however. The current doubling of grain prices is trend-driven, the cumulative effect of some trends that are accelerating growth in demand and other trends that are slowing the growth in supply. Read the full story, LINK HERE.
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Japan's Food Crisis:
A Dire Warning to World
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World Doomed To Hunger & Wars
A Russian View
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The Hunger Tsunami
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"Perfect Storm" Food Crisis Grips Globe
View From Scotland
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Wal Mart Unit Limits Rice Purchases
Concerned about rising prices and limited supplies of staples such as rice and flour, customers across the country have been cleaning out the shelves at big-box retailers, including Wal-Mart Stores Inc.'s Sam's Club and Costco Wholesale Corp. stores. LINK HERE.
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