By Michael, on April 1st, 2009 
Exploding third world populations, record droughts around the world and dwindling strategic food reserves in the major industrialized nations have brought us to the edge of something none of us would ever like to think about: a crippling global food crisis.
As world food reserves sit at a 50 year low, many experts are warning that we are now facing a “perfect storm” that will dramatically increase world hunger. Even the industrialized nations are not immune. With U.S. wheat reserves now at a record low, USDA Undersecretary Mark Keenum had to admit last year: “Our cupboard is bare.”
Record droughts and freak weather around the globe are threatening to absolutely destroy harvests from Australia to Argentina, just as diseases like “wheat rust” and other crop plagues are beginning to sweep across large areas.
In fact, the situation around the world is so dire that Time magazine has declared that we are in “a global food crisis”.
The World Bank is now estimating that the current financial collapse will add between 200,000 and 400,000 additional infant deaths around the world per year from 2009 to 2015.
Most people think that big countries like the United States are immune from world famine, but the truth is that the U.S. only has enough wheat held in reserve to make half a loaf of bread for each citizen.
How long do you think that will last you?
Already there have been periodic shortages and rationing of food items in some areas of the United States…..
Now the United Nations is acknowledging the seriousness of the crisis.
In a stunning new report, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations is warning that poor people around the world are already feeling the pain of high food prices. The price of important crops such as rice, which is a key staple in many poor countries, spiked more than 400 percent last year. Food riots broke out in many third world countries last year when people could suddenly not feed their families.
Things are not so bad yet in more advanced nations where food represents about 10 to 20 percent of consumer spending, but in developing countries the poor often have to spend up to 80 percent of their income on food.
Britain’s chief scientist, Professor John Beddington, says that the demand for food is going to increase by about 50 percent by 2030, and that this will cause massive world problems in the years ahead.
“It’s a perfect storm,” he told the GovNet Communications Sustainable Development 09 conference in London. “We’re not growing enough food, so we’re not able to put stuff into the reserves.”
The reality is that the world is running out of food and people are hungry…..
*1 billion people in the world go to bed hungry every single night.
*Every 3.6 seconds someone starves to death and 3/4 are children under the age of 5.
*More than 2.8 billion people, close to half the world’s population, live on less than the equivalent of $2 a day.
*More than 1.2 billion people, or about 20 per cent of the world population, live on less than the equivalent of $1 a day.
*About one-third of all children in the world under the age of five suffer from malnutrition.
*The top fifth (20 per cent) of the world’s people who live in the highest income countries have access to 86 per cent of world gross domestic product. The bottom fifth, in the poorest countries, have about one per cent.
*The assets of the world’s three richest men exceed the combined gross domestic products of the world’s 48 poorest countries.
We could very well be on the verge of the worst outbreak of starvation and hunger in the history of humanity.
Please store up food for yourself and your family, and urge your governments to do something while there is still time to prepare.
It will not matter how much money you have in the bank if you don’t have food. The price of food is only going to go higher in the years ahead, so now is the time to make sure that you and your family are prepared.
One Idea that might save your family- Turn your yard into a vegetable garden. With rising food costs, you can turn your manicured front and back lawns into a useful space. If you live in an apartment, a container gardern on your window sill can be helpful. You can find some good ideas in “Food Not Lawns” by Heather Flores.
