HUNGER LEADS TO REVOLUTION

Via Natural News

World Bank warns of food riots as rising food prices push world populations toward revolt

food

(NaturalNews) A new report issued by the World Bank (1) warns that food prices are skyrocketing globally, with wheat up 18 percent and corn up 12 percent this quarter. Ukraine, one of the largest wheat exporters in the world, has suffered a 73 percent increase in domestic wheat costs. Argentina has seen wheat prices skyrocket 70 percent.

According to the World Bank, these price increases have been caused primarily by three factors: 1) Sharply higher demand for food in China, 2) U.S. drought conditions that hammered wheat production, and 3) unrest in Ukraine due to the near state of war with Russia.

Rising food prices lead to food riots

According to the World Bank, rising food prices have caused 51 food riots in 37 countries since 2007. These include Tunisia, South Africa, Cameroon and India, among other nations.

“Food price shocks can both spark and exacerbate conflict and political instability,” warns the report.

A World Bank blog entry by Senior Economist Jose Cuesta entitled “No Food, No Peace” (2) warns that “It is quite likely that we will experience more food riots in the foreseeable future… food price shocks have repeatedly led to spontaneous — typically urban — sociopolitical instability.”

The following chart shows from the World Bank shows the sharp trend toward increased food prices worldwide:

Hunger leads to revolution

What the World Bank is leading to (but not quite saying) is that hunger leads to revolution. When the People are starving in the streets, there is political unrest that can easily turn violent. Because this is a fundamental human reaction, it is just as true in the United States, UK and other first-world nations as it is in Cameroon or India.

American investigative journalist Alfred Henry Lewis (1855-1914) famously said, “There are only nine meals between mankind and anarchy.” He went on to explain, “It may be taken as axiomatic that a starving man is never a good citizen.”

What he means is that hunger dispels the illusions of a polite society and unleashes the desperate animal-like nature that lurks inside all human beings. A starving man trying to feed his starving children will at some point abandon all law and order, doing anything necessary to keep himself and his children alive, including engaging in robbery, assault and murder.

Stated another way, the only reason most people obey laws and agree to live in a socially polite manner is because their bellies are full. Take away the food and all illusions of social friendliness vanish in about nine meals (three days). No local police force can hope to control the actions of the starving masses, regardless of how obedient the population once was when food was abundant.

The coming food collapse is now inevitable

Many are now warning about the coming collapse in the food supply. These warnings include all the following factors:

* EBT CARDS are the federal government’s “food stamp” system that distributes money to over 47 million Americans who use that money on debit cards to buy food. The EBT system depends entirely on the financial solvency of the federal government, an empire steeped in over $17 trillion in debt and constantly on the verge of a financial wipeout. When the day comes that the feds stop funding the EBT cards, food riots are imminent. EBT cardholders have already ransacked a Wal-Mart store, even in good times! (Once the EBT entitlements are cut off, EBT card holders will simply ransack the same stores they used to visit as customers. Once those stores run out of food, U.S. cities will devolve into all-out street warfare.)

* HYDROLOGIC CYCLE SCIENTISTS are warning that much of the food production taking place in the world today — across the USA, India, China, etc. — depends entirely on fossil water extraction from underground aquifers. Those aquifers are being rapidly depleted, some dropping more than a foot each year. Once this fossil water is used up, it’s gone for hundreds or thousands of years. Entire breadbasket regions of the world (such as the U.S. Midwest) will be turned into agricultural deserts. Already, much of Texas and Oklahoma is returning to Dust Bowl conditions.

* ENVIRONMENTALISTS warn that climate change will cause radical weather patterns (droughts, floods, freezes) that devastate the food supply. It is undeniable that radical weather has already caused unprecedented destruction of U.S. food production over the last 18 months. (The underlying causes of such weather patterns, however, remain hotly debated.)

* GENETICALLY MODIFIED CROPS are genetically vulnerable to disease because they are mono-culture crops with little genetic diversity. Nearly all corn grown in the USA, for example, is genetically modified corn with a near-identical genetic makeup. The situation is obviously ripe for precisely the kind of disease wipeout we’re already witnessing with global banana crops.

* ECONOMISTS are warning that the global money supply is on the verge of collapse. Once it collapses, banking would go down with it, destroying the infrastructure that people use to buy food. If grocery stores can’t conduct financial transactions, they can’t buy inventory to retail to the public, for starters. To stay informed on this subject, read up at www.TheEconomicCollapseBlog.com or www.SHTFplan.com or www.SteveQuayle.com

* PERMACULTURE advocates are warning that the global seed supply has been deliberately collapsed by biotech companies which routinely buy up small seed companies and shut them down. The intention is to create seed monopolies and eliminate competing alternatives to patented, corporate-controlled seeds. The answer to all this, by the way, is found in the wisdom of people like Geoff Lawton who teaches decentralized, abundant food production based on permaculture design science. (Really, Geoff’s wisdom can save our world if embraced as a replacement for corporate agriculture…)

Temporary illusions of cheap food will soon be shattered

In other words, there are economic, hydrologic and genetic reasons why today’s abundant food supply will come to an abrupt end. The cheap, easy food you buy at the grocery store right now is a temporary illusion of cheap food based on unsustainable agricultural practices that use up fossil water, destroy topsoil and poison the environment.

Even the U.S. government’s subsidizing of food through its runaway food stamp program is a temporary artifact of a nation headed for an inevitable debt collapse. Learn more from www.TrendsResearch.com

It is therefore a mathematical and physical certainty that this illusion of cheap, plentiful food will soon be shattered. And in its wake, we will be left with a starving, desperate population with nothing to lose by marching in the streets or staging a violent revolt.

America has abandoned food security in favor of corporate monopolies

Everywhere that this happens will see cities turned into death traps. Because of the centralized corporate farming model that now dominates first-world economies, food production (and even farm land) is controlled by very small number of corporate operations. This is the opposite of food security.

A nation practicing food security would encourage home gardens and support decentralized food production that includes urban food production. Interestingly, nations like Cuba and Russia have encouraged precisely these practices, which is why they are more resistant to a food supply collapse.

In the United States, however, home gardeners have been threatened with arrest. People who produce real food are often raided at gunpoint by government authorities. Farmers who try to produce clean, non-GMO crops are sued by companies like Monsanto whose seeds pollute their farm land.

Government and corporate entities have colluded in the United States to monopolize food production, thereby centralizing it in a way that compromises food security. The day of Americans being told to “plant Victory Gardens” during World War II are long gone. Today, we’re told to obediently line up and eat genetically modified soybeans or drink hormone-contaminated cow’s milk. Government now demands our food obedience and actively works against individuals who try to produce their own food at the local level.

Why the food supply is America’s tactical vulnerability

This makes America wildly vulnerable to disruptions in the food supply. While many nations can manage to get by thanks to home gardens and decentralize food production, the United States of America has allowed government and corporations to structure the national food supply system into a precarious, non-fault-tolerant configuration that’s practically begging for collapse.

Just one disruption in the system — a failed power grid, failed fuel refineries or a failed financial transaction infrastructure — would collapse food availability nationwide, sending the population into a near-immediate state of desperate starvation. Martial Law would no doubt quickly follow, after which Americans would be ordered to starve to death at the hands of FEMA instead of starving to death on their own.

On March 16, 2012, Obama declared federal control over all farms, food, livestock and seeds

The federal government already knows everything I’m telling you here. That’s why on march 16, 2012, President Obama issued an executive order entitled, “NATIONAL DEFENSE RESOURCES PREPAREDNESS.”

You can read the official White House press release admitting this right here.

This executive order states that the President alone has the authority to take over all resources in the nation (labor, food, industry, etc.) as long as it is done “to promote the national defense.”

The proclamation gives the Secretary of Agriculture full authority to seize all “food resources, food resource facilities, livestock resources, veterinary resources, plant health resources, and the domestic distribution of farm equipment and commercial fertilizer.”

The Secretary of Defense is given control over all “water resources,” and the Secretary of Commerce is given control over “all other materials, services, and facilities, including construction materials.”

The federal government sees what’s coming, in other words, and has already laid claim to all YOUR food, farm land, livestock, fertilizer and farm equipment, among other food-related assets.

If, after reading this, you aren’t double-checking your secret storable food stockpiles, you’re crazy. As a small plug if you want to help support Natural News, we offer the world’s only certified organic long-term storable non-GMO freeze-dried fruits (plus some FD organic veggies) at the Natural News Store.

Sources for this article include:
(1) http://www.worldbank.org/en/topic/poverty/pu…
(2) http://blogs.worldbank.org/voices/no-food-no…

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28 Comments
indialantic
indialantic
June 5, 2014 5:10 pm

Signing an Executive Order and enforcing an Executive Order are two entirely different things. The main problem with carrying a big stick is when it is taken away from you, then shoved up your ass.

AWD
AWD
June 5, 2014 5:18 pm

I love hunger articles. Kind of like global warming. Obesity kills more people by a factor of 1000x than starvation, and the fatties gotta eat, so yea, I can see them rioting to get into the all you can eat buffet.

Spinolator
Spinolator
June 5, 2014 5:35 pm

Don’t worry eveyone! Monsanto and company will save the world of hunger and starvation. Just eat as much GMO as you can. After all, it’s “substatially equivalent”. Remember they also created other “gifts” to the world such as aspartame, agent orange, round-up, etc. Ahhh, a better life through chemistry….I feel good!…

Stucky
Stucky
June 5, 2014 5:38 pm

“Obesity kills more people by a factor of 1000x than starvation …..” ———– AWD

Not in most of the world.

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Thinker
Thinker
June 5, 2014 5:47 pm

You know it’s already desperate when…

Onlookers allegedly steal groceries from woman killed in crash
By Bobby Blanchard | June 5, 2014

A 23-year-old mother was killed and her two young children suffered injuries in a wreck Wednesday, Houston police said.

The woman’s sons, ages 4 and 6, were in the backseat and were transferred to a hospital with broken bones but no life-threatening injuries, said HPD spokesman Victor Senties.

The mother failed to yield when she was leaving a private drive around 5 p.m., Senties said.

She then lost control of her Toyota 4Runner and hit a tree after a Mercedes E320 traveling northbound at 9600 Fondren Road clipped her. Police said she was travelling at a high speed.

According to ABC 13 news, eyewitnesses told police they saw people steal groceries out of the dead woman’s SUV.

The TV station said the driver had attended a ceremony at her 4-year-old’s elementary school, went to a grocery store, dropped off a friend and then crashed her car on the way home.

MuckAbout
MuckAbout
June 5, 2014 5:52 pm

The Feds (and the Pres) can issue executive orders and pass laws all they want up to the point where an attempt is made to confiscate private property (homes, machinery, food, whatever) at which time, those getting screwed (or their families are being put in danger) will drag out Gramps sawed off shotgun and defend his property.

Mine isn’t sawed off – just with an 18″ barrel – but until the American Military or the FSA starts shooting American citizens (or each other) I won’t need it. But it’s there. And it will be used.

MA

Stucky
Stucky
June 5, 2014 6:15 pm

“Onlookers allegedly steal groceries from woman killed in crash”

Watched the video … judging from all the on-looker comments it was a black neighborhood.

Soooo, whatchya got here is Neegrows not letting a crisis go to waste.

hardscrabble farmer
hardscrabble farmer
June 5, 2014 6:45 pm

Providing the sustenance for one’s self and family is fundamental to a successful life and a healthy community/nation/state. We wouldn’t think of hiring a contractor to wipe our hind end after a bowel movement or having someone come in from the outside to have sex with our spouse, or love our children for us, but something as fundamental as providing the very food we eat has been outsourced, gladly.

I happen to believe that the root cause of most of our societal ills can be tied directly to the move away from agrarianism and towards urban cosmopolitanism. Can we survive this way? Sure, in the same way you can keep a body alive on life support. Is that what is best for humanity? The answer should be self evident.

(As I write this my wife is preparing dinner and the children are busy doing chores in the kitchen and the oldest walked in from splitting rails, saying that he was starving. My wife said “hunger builds character”)

I probably sound like a broken record and for that I apologize, but human beings are part of the natural world and are not exempt from the limitations of our nature. The more jammed up we are, the more our anxiety increases, like livestock raised in confinement. The lower the quality of our food, the longer the time between harvest and consumption, the more processes between raw and served, the more malnourished we become and nourishment, like hydration is essential to life.

We’re sick. Personally, culturally, politically, spiritually and intellectually because we aren’t living naturally. The worst part is that most of us don’t even consciously choose to live this way, we simply go along with the existing system because of convenience. It’s easy. Like staying in a bad relationship, like bearing the chains of servitude, like hanging on to a job because of the income.

Making the choice to live like we were meant to requires sacrifice. Toys, leisure time, distractions, excitement. Often times it leaves us out of tune with vast majority of our fellow man and aside from the basic needs of any organism, fitting in with everyone else is crucial to how we perceive ourselves. Being an iconoclast or an outsider is a far worse fate than dying of obesity or cancer.

The other day we were all standing outside after a shower and the largest, most colorful double rainbow I had ever seen created a perfect arc over our farm. The scent of lilacs filled the air and all of us, normally a loquacious bunch, stood there in rapt silence. I wondered how many people in the US were tucked into their climate controlled houses watching whatever passes for entertainment these days, guts plugged with overly processed food, their bloodstreams swimming with pharmaceuticals and felt a sense of profound sorrow that this was being missed, not just this one time, but for entire lives.

Maybe hunger will spark a revolution, but I certainly wish that it winds up being the kind that doesn’t involve conflict with others, but instead a resolution with ourselves.

bb
bb
June 5, 2014 7:34 pm

Hard Farmer , … When GOD is separated from government judgment follows and it’s always economic Job 2:4..All that a man has he will give for his life.In fact there’s going alot of envy and hatred coming your way from all these hungry people. Go to SHTF site .An article yesterday written by a man who survived the Bosnian war called it survivalist hatred. Self sufficient guys like you become targets of hate because the hungry are quick to blame others for their own misery. You seem to know alot about farming but you are not well read or experienced in real survival.If it makes you feel any better neither am I but I am learning. Maybe you should be getting ready for the hungry , murdering groups of.people that will be coming to your farm to kill and take whatever they can instead constantly telling all these lovely little stories.If that pisses you off ……GOOD.You need to come back to reality.Now before you reply go read the article at SHTF.

indialantic
indialantic
June 5, 2014 7:39 pm

Well said, hardscrabble.

hardscrabble farmer
hardscrabble farmer
June 5, 2014 7:43 pm

You sound angry, like maybe you’ve made a lot of bad choices. I won’t question your faith, but from the standpoint of the “by their fruits ye shall know them”, you come across as the opposite of a Christian. There doesn’t appear to be a lot of love in your heart.

Not my concern.

And while I am certain that many good, decent people will likely suffer at the hands of angry mobs, they won’t get everyone. Plenty of genocides in the past have yielded the largest population of human beings in recorded history, so there’s always that…

And I’m as ready for what is coming as anyone else, but I’m not waiting in fear. We all die, nothing lasts forever and only the Earth abides, but while I’m here I intend on living a life filled with ‘lovely little stories’.

Best to you, as always.

Sensetti
Sensetti
June 5, 2014 7:54 pm

Stucky as I was reading the article I said I bet the looters were black and you confirmed my suspicion. How did I know?

Econman
Econman
June 5, 2014 8:22 pm

Hell is much too nice a place for Central Bankers.

Llpoh
Llpoh
June 5, 2014 8:36 pm

The US has around 1 billion arable acres. It takes approx. 1/3 acre of arable land per person. The US can feed 3 billion people. The issue in the long term is how to distribute the food, and how to best use the land. Feeding grain to cattle is not a long term option. Growing corn for ethanol is not either.

Take a look at Egypt as an example of a country that is screwed. 60 million people. .17 arable acres per person.

Food will eventually be as powerful a commodity as oil. The US needs to get on board that train.

Llpoh
Llpoh
June 5, 2014 8:54 pm

bb – seriously, what the fuck is wrong with you. Nobody respects you, you offer nothing of value, your spend all your time abusing folks and passing judgement on their beliefs.

Do this site a favor – either add some value or fuck off. There have been times you have shown you can add some value, but lately all you do full time is show your ass. I suppose it is fun for you, or why else would you do it?

By the way, when I say I have no respect for someone, I mean it. There is nothing worse I can, or ever have, said about someone. You are in rare company.

hardscrabble farmer
hardscrabble farmer
June 5, 2014 9:17 pm

Actually, it’s New England.

And bb is right on a lot of levels. People will be angry, they will resent those who have and those who prepare and who knows what kind of bad things are yet to come, I just don’t want to spend whatever time I have worrying about it. Every day I do what I can to make things better, keep my word, love my family and live in the moment. If that makes me unrealistic or living in denial, then that’s a cross I’ll have to carry, but I at least I don’t ask for anyone to subsidize my fantasy.

And believe me for every double rainbow there’s and empty box of band-aids. I just to like to whine about the bad stuff because I think everyone has their own problems to worry about. I used to be angry and it didn’t do me any good and like Zerohedge says, on a long enough timeline, the survival rate is zero. Best to ride that timeline out with a smile on your face.

bb
bb
June 5, 2014 10:00 pm

Lipoh , what value do you bring.?I hear the same shit from you over and over.It always the same with you.I don’t need your like ,respect or anything else from you.Your are not GODs gift to business. I come to this site to get good economic information.That’s it.I play with people because I am bored and I enjoy it especially when people are so foolish. If you can’t take little bit of shit I send your way what are you going to when the real SHTF Happens.?When people no long have to play the game and be nice.?

Llpoh
Llpoh
June 5, 2014 10:10 pm

bb – you are just a piece of shit. All you do is shit on the site. That is the only reason you hang around. You are the turd that will not flush. You do not play with folks, you insult them, you demean them, you question their background and integrity.

I have no idea what you do nor what you really stand for, no idea what you have accomplished or tried to accomplish.

You fuck with the most respected people on the site.

Seriously, what I flush after my morning dump is more valuable than what you have become.

Llpoh
Llpoh
June 5, 2014 10:27 pm

Add Japan to the list of countries that is food screwed. They can only produce 39% of their food requirements. Oops.

I have long said that the US has an enormous strategic opportunity re providing food, at very high prices, to the world. It will require the US to alter its consumption patterns, but the power it can wield with respect to providing food to a starving world could be awesome indeed. .

Leobeer
Leobeer
June 5, 2014 10:28 pm
Bullshit Sommelier
Bullshit Sommelier
June 5, 2014 11:20 pm

Hardscrabble Farmer rings true. Llpoh, not so much. Wealthy titans of the manufacturing world wouldn’t get so perturbed over anonymous insults. Come clean llpoh, the truth shall set you free!

bb
bb
June 6, 2014 2:37 am

Lipoh , I Fuck with the most respected people. on this site …..according to whom?You.I generally do respect. most people on this site .You just don’t like my way of responding to some people . Besides I am the one that gets fuck with most of the time.I’m the one that gets called all kinds of names . I’m the one.that hit with so much abuse and you know I think that Ok.I can take disrespect and not being liked .It’s no big deal for me and that is what really brothers you.I can take the shit and I can give it out.You seem to want or have to have respect from people. If you don’t respect me good ,it you don’t like me good.So what. I am not leaving.As long as Admin let’s me stay . I am staying..Good night Lloph

Econman
Econman
June 6, 2014 2:41 am

Every student I’ve had figures out deflation is inevitable with advancing technology, but they also question why the media always paints deflation as some unending evil to be conquered.

As if people riot over their money becoming worth more? Whoa, that $1 million house is now $30,000? Let’s burn down the town & riot! Lobster is now 5 for 1? I’m not going to take that!

I always have to explain how deflation would kill the bankers & wipe out all their phony skimming schemes, so they inflate away until the economy implodes.

Econman
Econman
June 6, 2014 2:54 am

“The more jammed up we are, the more our anxiety increases, like livestock raised in confinement.”

That is 1 reason why the govt likes the poor, especially minorities, to live in “the projects”. People on top of each other tends to cause every little grievance to be blown out of proportion. Throw in poverty, uneducation, deindustrialization / no jobs, & it’s no wonder the ghettos are crime ridden. It amazes me people are surprised.

That mentality is spreading to rural areas now & affecting poor whites too, especially areas where meth & drugs are big business. The US government uses welfare to keep these people passified. Eventually, when they can no longer print up funny $ to shut these people up, out come the FEMA camps.

overthecliff
overthecliff
June 6, 2014 11:18 am

LIpoh, we all admire your well reasoned debates with bb. No nonsense like personal attacks.

bb
bb
June 6, 2014 12:44 pm

Lipoh , see overthecliff admirers and respects you .Happy now ,say Weeeeee.Doesn’t matter that you know nothing about this person.Doesn’t matter that if overthecliff knew you in person he would probably hate you or you him.You know nothing about these people or me for that matter yet you crave and demand respect from complete strangers.

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