Besides bad weather and bugs what are some of the reasons for the massive food shortages?

Ethanol seems like an easy culprit.

Also I feel like the US's historical use of farm subsidies has something to do with it but I cant quite figure out how. Any help?

too many fat americans?

There is no food shortage. The Ministry of plenty has recently announced a increase in the chocolate ration to 20 grams.

well wheat is way up in price. not sure if there is a shortage of wheat though. is there a short of wheat? maybe farmers are switching from corn to wheat for feed cause of ethanol? maybe wheat is going up in price but no shortage?

I don't know about shortages, but if you want to end them you should end all trade barriers asap.

GRUNCH

Government interference in the free market.

[QUOTE=surftheiop;3862794]Besides bad weather and bugs what are some of the reasons for the massive food shortages?

Ethanol seems like an easy culprit.

[QUOTE]

Energy demands are up so food prices are up. After all food is energy.

Stu

Then why are you posting in this thread? Save it the forums on governmentisevil.com

OP, the answer is basically:

- Higher meat consumption in developing countries as they get wealthier. Meat is highly inefficient and requires 7x the energy in grains to produce the same amount of energy.
- Ethanol production, both subsidized in the US and free market in Brazil. It competes for crop land
- Bad growing seasons in a number of big food producing countries, likely linked to global warming
- Free market failbirding as the big traders and warehousers have let stockpiles run down in recent years for bigger profits in a time of plenty.

The points are from this article:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/07/op...hp&oref=slogin

i heard on npr about some like 20ish year rat overpopulation cycle that hit this year. they pwned lots of crops. forget what country

These are the biggies, other factors include:

- population growth
- less land available to farm due to golf courses and other leisure development
- low level of aquifers due to overuse
- governments realising their stock to use ratios are lower than they have been for decades and trying to stop the reduction in stockpiles (particularly india and china)
- some producing countries have banned exports deciding they need the food themselves...