Food shortages coming to a town near you

[monsoon]

I know it is hard to believe in a country were 2 out of 3 adults are overweight but there are stories floating around out there that certain markets are facing shortages of some basic items such as flour, rice and oil. There are sporatic shortages of other items. This is in part because the American food system is a very high user of energy and almost all of it based on burning oil. Recent high prices of oil have put a lot of price pressure on this system. In addition, there are no export controls on most of our agricultural products so items such as wheat are being exported out of the country where more money can be made. Of course the fact the world is adding 170M people/year isn't helping.

So what do you think this means over the next 20 - 30 years for Americans that are used to unlimited amounts of food?

[erdogs]

If we can raise food prices to where people can afford less, then maybe can force people to eat less?

[Neo]

If we can raise food prices to where people can afford less, then maybe can force people to eat less?

It is a great idea, except when you think about how it will affect those who can't afford the high prices of food. Yes, it would be great to reduce obesity in America but it will also increase poverty and inch us closer to being a third world country.

[Gusterfell]

If we can raise food prices to where people can afford less, then maybe can force people to eat less?

[JDC]

The ingredients used to make those noodles and burgers might be too high to keep convenience items so cheap.

Seek out some local farmer's markets and do some research on growing food at home. Eating seasonally and locally won't be a hip, trendy thing to do in a few years' time. It will be what everyone does because there's no other option.

[Justadude]

^ Bingo -- half the problem is that we take it for granted that food can be transported hither and yon without any effect on the sticker price. It wasn't that long ago that a banana was considered a delicacy in New England. With the rising cost of transportation we might see a regression in the variety of products to be found on the shelves of local groceries.

[erdogs]

The ingredients used to make those noodles and burgers might be too high to keep convenience items so cheap.

Seek out some local farmer's markets and do some research on growing food at home. Eating seasonally and locally won't be a hip, trendy thing to do in a few years' time. It will be what everyone does because there's no other option.

[Raintree21]

Who is saying that there are food shortages?

[suburban george3]

Who is saying that there are food shortages?

[Raintree21]

The shortages being referred to so far are buying limits by the retailers mainly in the New York, New England, and the West Coast. It has been limited to flour, rice, and cooking oil. Read Here

[monsoon]

^Maybe you didn't read the subject post of this article. This is a discussion for the next 20-30 years, not what you can find in your grocery store right now. Geez. If you choose to not to believe anything is going to happen, fine, then I guess you are done with this conversation.

The point of this topic is that food is becoming scarce, expensive, and it's current production/distribution system consumes an unsustainable amount of fossil fuel. And due to that we are seeing shortages of food, even here in the United States, where presumably there should be none. BTW, I didn't know about the Costco article, but its another sign of coming trouble.

[Gard]

^Maybe you didn't read the subject post of this article. This is a discussion for the next 20-30 years, not what you can find in your grocery store right now. Geez. If you choose to not to believe anything is going to happen, fine, then I guess you are done with this conversation.

The point of this topic is that food is becoming scarce, expensive, and it's current production/distribution system consumes an unsustainable amount of fossil fuel. And due to that we are seeing shortages of food, even here in the United States, where presumably there should be none. BTW, I didn't know about the Costco article, but its another sign of coming trouble.

[Justadude]

^ Might solve an economic problem, but it would be an environmental disaster. I sincerely hope that we are advanced enough to foresee and avoid the obvious ecological aftereffects that such a plan would cause.

[Gard]

^ Might solve an economic problem, but it would be an environmental disaster. I sincerely hope that we are advanced enough to foresee and avoid the obvious ecological aftereffects that such a plan would cause.

[Neo]

I am an avid NPR listener (actually, it is the only thing I listen to in the car) and on my way home from work today they were talking about the supposed rice shortage in America going by the new rice policy by Sam's Club. Apparently there is no shortage in America and we produce twice as much rice as needed for consumption by Americans. They couldn't justify why Sam's Club feels the need to limit rice purchases to four bags per customer when the expert they had on says that in reality there is actually a rice surplus happening here in the US.

Makes me wonder how much of this is truly accurate. Perhaps it is the case for some countries, but is it being overblown here in our own country? I was under the assumption that we do not export rice to other countries but perhaps we do and that is the cause of the shortage here?

[Captain Worley]

^Why in the heck would you need five bags of rice from Sam's Club anyway? Panic hoarding is what is causing the few spot shortages that are happening.

Neo's right, there is no food shortage in America right now. It is the media (as usual) making 'news' out of nothing. It reminds me of when MadTV did the breathless Killer Bee news break skits.

[Charlotte_native]

Could they be jumping on the bandwagon of the doom and gloom news to use as an excuse for raising their prices? Consumers also have a tendency to want something more when it is limited. This is one of the reasons grocery stores used to put random limits on sale items, as if people would really rush to the store to buy more than 2 whole turkeys or more than a case of green beans. Wheaties on sale!! Limit 10 boxes per customer!

Put a limit of four or five huge bags of rice at Costco, suddenly everyone wants 4 huge bags of rice to stock up when they didn't use to buy that many when it was supposedly more plentiful.

[Raintree21]

^Maybe you didn't read the subject post of this article. This is a discussion for the next 20-30 years, not what you can find in your grocery store right now. Geez. If you choose to not to believe anything is going to happen, fine, then I guess you are done with this conversation.

The point of this topic is that food is becoming scarce, expensive, and it's current production/distribution system consumes an unsustainable amount of fossil fuel. And due to that we are seeing shortages of food, even here in the United States, where presumably there should be none. BTW, I didn't know about the Costco article, but its another sign of coming trouble.

[Rural King]

Food shortages in the Third World are probably on the horizon, but those of use who grew up in the 80s remember we have seen this before in Africa, and our parents saw it back in the 50s-60s as well in Asia and Africa. The US should not face food shortages anytime soon, as we have more than ample acreage to grow the necessary staple crops for our own consumption and support livestock used in our everyday diets. Will we see food prices potentially go up to energy costs, you betcha, but if we started to face real shortages in staple foods the federal government would most likely impose export controls to support US consumption/needs.

On the other hand we may well see certian fruits and vegetables we take for granted now go way up in price and/or become seasonal again. Most of us never have known a time when fruits and vegetables were seasonal, but are parents did, and our grandparents basically didn't even have access to most of the range of fruits and vegetables we have access to from our local groceries.

The Costco/Wal-Mart deal has more to do with them not wanting to pay to keep backstock on certian items they aren't making a huge profit margin on due to increasing prices for those commodities, but wanting to keep enough on the shelves that the conusmers can find it everytime they shop; thus avoiding customer complaints about an "outage" of a product. Retailers do this all the time when they put things on sale

-ie limit 2 per customer-, same principle.

[Gard]

but wanting to keep enough on the shelves that the conusmers can find it everytime they shop; thus avoiding customer complaints about an "outage" of a product. Retailers do this all the time when they put things on sale

-ie limit 2 per customer-, same principle.

[monsoon]

.....Most of us never have known a time when fruits and vegetables were seasonal, but are parents did, and our grandparents basically didn't even have access to most of the range of fruits and vegetables we have access to from our local groceries. ....

[sean]

Or, or, ... we're witnessing an inflation hedge.

Another possible cause for rice hording might be that folks are wising up to the falling dollar and want to buy future-use rice at today's price. If you keep a bag of rice dry, the stuff will keep damn near forever.