Adventists for Tomorrow

bob_2

Member

Registered: 12-28-08

Posts: 3,790

7. The Rent-A-Country

7. The Rent-A-Country <BR> <BR><blockquote><hr size=0><!-quote-!><font size=1><b>quote:</b></font><p>Take a moment to consider breakfast, the most important meal of the day. Maybe you grabbed a banana or ate a bowl of granola. Whatever it was, chances are that some — if not all — of your morning meal came from a country you don&#39;t live in. <BR> <BR>Food isolationism is dead. It collapsed in a messy, public heap last year when oil hit $100-plus per bbl. and the world&#39;s crush on biofuels pushed food prices to unprecedented highs. Thirty-six nations needed food aid. Twenty-five imposed export bans or restrictions to keep staple crops like rice and wheat at home. As prices shot up 50%, food riots erupted in Haiti, killing at least five, and eventually brought down the government. <BR> <BR>And then something else happened. A few diplomats and business leaders quietly boarded their jets and got to work. Countries like Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar and South Korea — well-off states without enough good land or water to feed their people — started to look outside their borders. &#34;It&#39;s economically not viable to grow food in the desert,&#34; says David Hallam, deputy director of trade and markets for the U.N.&#39;s Food and Agriculture Organization. &#34;They said, &#39;If we can&#39;t grow our own food, we&#39;ll grow it somewhere else.&#39;&#34;  <BR> <BR>...<!-/quote-!><hr size=0></blockquote> <BR> <BR>http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,1884779_1884782_1884761,00.html <BR> <BR>&#40;Message edited by Bob_2 on April 01, 2009&#41;