All over the news tonight again! Food Shortages

[Burbert]

Yeah, lets tear up all the railroads and truck everything. That would be a truly Canadian comedian idea, haul it all by truck. Truck drivers can purchase their d.l.s and haul grain to Vancouver. Look out highways, and byways, we have a truly self regulated open market system. You think the highway to Ft MC MONEY is bad, you ain't seen nothing yet. Get outta the way, we got us a convoy, rubber ducks! Save the world, truck it!

[LWeber]

I forgot the system is serving you well. When the RR's and the CWB stop buying your KY - it won't feel as pleasant to you as it does today - or does your health plan cover that?

[Burbert]

Here is another idea, that will excite marketeers. Why not put grain in a pipeline and send it West. There is a huge line, almost complete, that has ripped through Jasper Park,(what a mess) this Winter. Grain and oil, flowing out of Canada as fast as it can be produced, value added elsewhere, then thrown out to World markets. Win/win, we all make lots and lots of cash! Down with the railroads, up with everything else, including hot air ballons, hauling containers over the Rockies!

[Ron]

So Burbert I take it you are in favour of not driving the malt plants, pasta plants and other value added enterprises out of Western Canada by the CWB?

Just poking the bear with a stick

This weather is geting to me


SCREW THE CW(oh, never mind)

[charliep]

Back to the original topic.

Will note that often when the main stream media picks up on something, the supply problem is often just about over.

Will note for the most, northern hemishere winter wheat crops look in pretty good shape and will be in full harvest in June/July. Ukraine is already talking about increasing their export licenses.

Rice production in the parts of S.E. Asia I was in is mainly a May to September period (their rainy season). High prices will likely have farmers there spending more time and money on their crops. Won't solve the problem over night but will begin the process.

Off topic but weird being in S.E. Asia in March. The sun is right over top of the equator then so at noon you have almost no shadow (sun straight over top of you).

Will note the impact on the demand side as well. At home, Statcan highlighted lower hog inventories. More rationalization coming in the livestock which means less feed grain consumed both here in Canada and in the world.

Obviously, world attention is now on northern hemisphere spring seeded crops.

[furrowtickler]

Burbot, you are on a world beyond pluto man.

[Vader]

Charlie, if you think the supply problems are nearly over, you may have forgotten ethanol. Remember oil is now touching $120.00 per barrel and gasoline may be going to $1.50 a liter. What does that do for the profitability of ethanol plants and the demand for grain.

The US used about 80 million tonnes of corn last year for ethanol. Just imagine what the US is spending on oil imports. That factor alone will drive their renewable fuel strategy. The "noise" about food shortages will not deter the construction of more ethanol and bio-diesel facilites. The recently passed RFS will continue to fuel the industry. Eventually there could be 160 million tonnes of grain going into ethanol. If they get the technology for cellulosic ethanol that will take some acres away from food production to produce crops like swithgrass.

This roller coaster ride is not over yet.

[Vader]

I meant switchgrass.

[Vader]

Let me ask a question.

If you could produce biodiesel/ethanol to run your farm machinery and the cost was very close to the price of fuel from your supplier, who would you rather pay to produce your fuel, the oil company or yourself?

How many here would rather continue using fossil fuels because they feel that it is a crime against humanity to convert food into fuel?

Now in general terms you might say that the consumer should decide whether grains are made into food or fuel based on their buying decisions and what they are willing to pay for the two products.

However my question is slightly different, since on our farms we can control directly whether a portion of our grain production goes into biofuels. In fact you could base this decision, not on the simple economics of price substitution between fossil fuels and biofuels. You might decide that even if the biofuel option was slightly more costly the price disadvantage may be more than offset by the increase in grain prices resulting from a reduction of grain supplies. You might call this a form of "supply management". If farmers collectively chose this option just how much grain could we cause to disappear into our tractors, combines, and picup trucks? If a corresponding amount of fossil fuel became surplus along with the associated refining and retailing capacity would that have an impact on fuel prices? Since most markets respond to supply and demand you could argue that as a result of farmers not using all that fossil fuel they would not be contributing to the demand driven increases in the price of gas at the pump.

Just to further rationalize this move consider that a hundred years ago every farmer in North America used a portion of their production to fuel the horsepower on their farms. What percentage of your production did that consume?

Ultimately the whole world will have to find alternative sources of energy. Perhaps the average citizen could, with a major conservation effort, largely convert to renewables. It is unlikely that farmers will be able to till the soil using wind power. It is just a fact that it takes a certain amount of energy to produce energy, or to put it another way that a certain amount of "drag" is involved in energy production. And food is energy. Farming and food production is not free. There is no perpetual motion machine that can plant and harvest our crops.

So let me repeat the question and direct it to the consumers of food.

Farmers need to consume energy to produce food. Would you find fault with farmers for producing their own energy to guarantee your food supply in an environment of spiralling fossil fuel costs?

Just like oil production where a certain percentage of the oil is left in the resevoir because of the laws of nature, so too the productive capacity of an acre of ground must be reduced by that amount of energy required to fuel the process.

[Vader]

If any of you have read Ayn Rand's satire called "Atlas Shrugged" you will remember that part of the hypothesis of the book was a machine that could produce abundant free energy. Well it appears that many people have read this book and are trying to sell the concept back to the general public at a profit. I found this post on engadget.com

Steorn: inventors of infinite energy, destroyers of laws of thermodynamics?
by Ryan Block, posted Aug 18th 2006 at 11:48AM

We're sure most of you are well aware of the first law of thermodynamics, which states that energy cannot be created or destroyed, and the second law, which states that putting energy into a system will always result in a loss in potential output -- these are the reasons why everybody buys gas, why we pay for electricity, and in many ways why the world economy is shaped the way it is. Which is why whenever someone comes along and says they've developed a technology that undermines hundreds of years of scientific study with the ability to create boundless amounts of free energy with no emissions, well, you have to imagine we'd cry snake oil -- but it would seem Steorn, claimers of such an absurdity, has already launched a PR campaign to circumvent naysayers such as ourselves. In fact, the Irish tech company issued an ad in The Economist announcing a challenge to 12 of the worlds' finest scientists -- to be chosen by them (hey, is Hwang Woo-suk available?) -- to step forward and disprove their infinite clean energy technology. And once their technology isn't disproved -- and they obviously believe that it won't be disproved -- they'll begin licensing it to the world's energy companies (and charitably freely licensing it for rural water purification and electricity generation). If it's the real deal then after all the congratulations are all over and we've reevaluated the fundamental underpinnings of physics as we know it, perhaps all humanity's energy ailments are finally going to come to a close. But the chances it could be a large PR hoax toying with our desperate need to revamp our global energy situation? Well, let's just hope Steorn proves us all wrong and changes science forever.