Global Food Supply development in a decade, how Russia & FSU feed Asia and the Arab World

[senheiser]

http://www.anglia.ac.uk/ruskin/en/h... Observatory_Country Resource Maps Report.pdf

2011 Food Price Spikes Helped Trigger Arab Spring, Researchers Say

n a year of protests in the Arab world, high food prices helped to make oppression, corruption and poverty under autocratic leaders even more intolerable.

“Prices are so expensive," said one protester about Egypt's leaders. " What shall we do right now? We have to stay until they are gone and give a chance to others who can satisfy our needs.”

Price spike

The political fires that burned across North Africa, many say, were kindled in Russia last summer. Extreme drought triggered wildfires and destroyed one-third of the country’s wheat harvest. Russia refused to export the rest of its harvest. Markets panicked and food prices shot up.


Wildfires destroyed one-third of Russia's wheat harvest last summer, cutting off Russian wheat exports, which caused prices to shoot up.


“Definitely, it is one of the causes of the Arab Spring,” says Shenggen Fan, director-general of the International Food Policy Research Institute.

In 2008, the last time global food prices spiked, Egypt was one of several countries hit by food riots and demonstrations.

Fan believes the return of high prices in 2011 offers some important lessons. "Food price hikes will come more often, and more frequent. So this is the first lesson we learned. Second, food prices obviously will remain very high.”

Food prices will remain high and volatile, Fan says, because demand for food is increasing and supply is not keeping up. This year the world population hit seven billion, with another two billion expected by mid-century. People in emerging economies like China are eating more meat, which requires more animal feed.

 

[senheiser]

 

[ephone]

Historical food related problems due to weather have been the main reason that replaced the old dynasty with new dynasty.

 

[Fukuoka]

The food problem in Egypt was very temporar and after the ousting of Mubarak, the food strangely come back

It was of course a coup of MOSSAD/CIA to ignite the arab spring

 

[tranquilium]

Historical food related problems due to weather have been the main reason that replaced the old dynasty with new dynasty.

That's really just China, where the earlier dynasties managed to sort out the feudal problem associated with land-holding nobility and used civil servants as administrators instead. Every other places in the world ran with a feudal system where succession wars and even religious conflict plays a much more prominent role. There is a reason Chinese dynasties lasts significantly longer than its foreign counterpart.

You are right in modern days though, hunger is one of the main triggers for civil disorder and can certainly lead to down fall of a nation as demonstrated by Arabic springs.

 

[ephone]

China's dynasty's transition has a lot to do with food shortage due to abnormal natural disaster.

That's really just China, where the earlier dynasties managed to sort out the feudal problem associated with land-holding nobility and used civil servants as administrators instead. Every other places in the world ran with a feudal system where succession wars and even religious conflict plays a much more prominent role. There is a reason Chinese dynasties lasts significantly longer than its foreign counterpart.

You are right in modern days though, hunger is one of the main triggers for civil disorder and can certainly lead to down fall of a nation as demonstrated by Arabic springs.