Opus 2011-55, Food prices going up.

I saw a full page add in the Washington Times, National Edition by a group called “Negative Population Growth.”  I have seen it before but this time I looked a little closer.  It gives the appearance of a group that is concerned about excessive immigration, but if you go to their web site you find that they are against population growth in general.  Shades of The Population Bomb by Paul Ehrlich.  One of their concerns was what is being billed as the growing food crisis.

You have seen the headlines about the cost of food going up and the concern that major starvation is ahead.  I found a lot of reasons that called for more government control but I noticed that the problem of government control is not brought up.  Although there are natural issues, I am sure, the biggest problem is not biological, it is political.

During the Great Depression our government destroyed food when people were hungry.  Why?  to keep the price of food up.  Political.  I found several references that Muslim Militias were destroying food in the Sudan, one from a U.N. Source.  Political.  I have heard rumors that in India they government burned food on the docks sent by relief agencies because they were afraid it would undermine local farmers.  Political.  I live in California.  Drive through the central valley and see all of the once fertile farm land growing nothing but weeds.  Why?  Because the environmentalists have cut off the water.  Political.  The cost of moving food is going up because the United States does not drill for oil and keep the price of gasoline down.  Political.  Farmers are taking corn that used to feed people and animals and turning it into ethanol thus causing an increase in the price of corn.  Political.

Are food prices going up?  Yes.  The problem is not a lack of production capacity.  The problem at its heart is political actions of people who desire to control everything and in the process will kill millions.  The law of unintended consequences strikes again.

Do we as Christians need to examine our consumption and self indulgence?  Yes, but not because we are causing a shortage of food for others.  That is more a matter of how we have been voting than how much we have been eating.  Discipline and self control are spiritual goals but eating less will put farm workers out of a job more than it will put bread on their plates.  Voting for people who push a government controlled economy will not only put no bread on their plate but take away the plate too.

homo unius libri