Drought, Wheat, & China
Wheat
Two weeks ago I reported about drought in Argentina and its effect on wheat production there (see Argentina, Drought, & Wheat), but there is a potentially bigger situation that could dramatically impact the USA: China’s drought:
Drought threatens China’s wheat crop
Liu Shanni yanks a yellowed seedling from her plot of wheat, brushes the dusty soil from its withered roots, and tosses it away disdainfully.
“Dead,” she spits. “If it doesn’t rain soon, I’ll have no harvest at all.”
Nor will millions of other peasant farmers in the drought-stricken belt of northern China that normally produces 95 percent of the country’s winter wheat. “Winter crops are entering a critical period,” the head of China’s drought-relief efforts, Er Jingping, said on Tuesday. “If it does not rain in the next 15 days, we will face an even more daunting task.”
The most prolonged drought for half a century has parched fields and stunted crops in this remote village at a particularly difficult time. Many of the residents who normally migrate to the cities, and send money home, have lost their jobs as China’s economic growth slows. Suddenly, the wheat harvest here in Zhaogou matters again as a question of subsistence. http://features.csmonitor.com/environment/2009/02/11/drought-threatens-china%E2%80%99s-wheat-crop/
The Geopolitics of Food Scarcity
One of the toughest things for us to do is to anticipate discontinuity. Whether on a personal level or on a global economic level, we typically project the future by extrapolating from the past. Most of the time this works well, but occasionally we experience a discontinuity that we failed to anticipate. The collapse of civilization is such a case. It is no surprise that many past civilizations failed to grasp the forces and recognize signs that heralded their undoing. More than once it was shrinking food supplies that brought about their downfall.
Does our civilization face a similar fate? Until recently it did not seem possible, but our failure to deal with the environmental trends that are undermining the world food economy — most importantly falling water tables, eroding soils, and rising temperatures — forces the conclusion that such a collapse is possible.
These trends are taking a significant toll on food production: In six of the last eight years world grain production has fallen short of consumption, forcing a steady drawdown in stocks. World carryover stocks of grain (the amount remaining from the previous harvest when the new harvest begins) have dropped to only 60 days of consumption, a near record low. Meanwhile, in 2008 world grain prices have climbed to the highest level ever…
No country is immune to the effects of tightening food supplies, not even the United States.
If China turns to the world market for massive quantities of grain, as it recently has done for soybeans, it will undoubtedly look to the United States, which dominates world grain exports. For US consumers, the prospect of competing for the US grain harvest with 1.3 billion Chinese consumers with fast-rising incomes is a nightmare scenario. It would be tempting for the United States to restrict exports, but this is not an option with China which now holds well over one trillion US dollars. Like it or not, US consumers will share their grain with Chinese consumers regardless of how high food prices rise.
If the food crisis worsens, national restrictions on grain exports coupled with various bilateral arrangements could tie down much of the exportable supply of grain, making it increasingly difficult if not impossible for weaker, less affluent countries to find grain to import. Many countries heavily dependent on imports could be left out, and the result would be hundreds of millions of desperate people. Desperate people do desperate things: They riot, they fight over food, they overthrow governments, and they mass migrate to more food-secure countries.
In many countries the social order has already begun to break down in the face of soaring food prices and spreading hunger. Deadly food riots broke out in a number of countries in 2008. In Egypt several people died in fights in government-subsidized bread lines. Food riots in Yemen turned deadly, taking at least a dozen lives. In Cameroon the food riot death toll was twice as high. http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,606937,00.html
One of the many problems of going into debt is that the creditors expect to be paid back.
The more wheat that China buys, the higher the cost to American consumers. Furthermore, China has the potential to buy up all the wheat that the USA produces–and while politically I do not believe this will be allowed to happen–if it did, we could have starvation in the USA. And if the politicians stop China from making those purchases, the entire USA economy could massively collapse if China dumped its USA dollar (including treasury bills and even stocks) holdings in retaliation.
The USA has embarked on slippery and very dangerous path with its borrow our way out of this crisis mentality. And while I believe it may work for a while, it is setting the USA up for sudden destruction.
To learn more of what is ahead for the USA and China, please prayerfully read and study the following articles:
Physical Preparation Scriptures for Christians. We all know the Bible prophecies famines. Should we do something?
Anglo – America in Prophecy & the Lost Tribes of Israel Are the Americans, Canadians, British, Scottish, Welsh, Australians, Anglo-Southern Africans, and New Zealanders descendants of Joseph? Where are the lost ten-tribes of Israel? Who are the lost tribes of Israel? Will God punish the U.S.A., Canada, United Kingdom, and other Anglo nations? Why might God allow them to be punished first?
China, Its Biblical Past and Future, Part 1: Genesis and Chinese Characters This article provides information showing that the Chinese peoples must have known about various accounts in the Book of Genesis up until their dispersion after the Tower of Babel.
China, Its Biblical Past and Future, Part 2: The Sabbath and Some of God’s Witness in China When did Christianity first come to China? And is there early evidence that they observed the seventh day sabbath?
Asia in Prophecy What is Ahead for China? Is it a “King of the East”? What will happen to nearly all the Chinese, Russians, and others of Asia? China in prophecy, where?
Does God Have a 6,000 Year Plan? What Year Does the 6,000 Years End? Was a 6000 year time allowed for humans to rule followed by a literal thousand year reign of Christ on Earth taught by the early Christians? When does the six thousand years of human rule end?
Prophecies of Barack Obama? Are there biblical and non-biblical prophecies about Barack Obama. Did Nostradamus predict Barack Obama dealing with the Antichrist? Might Barack Obama set the stage for the kings of the North and South as his timing and at least one Shiite prophecy suggests? This is the longest and most detailed of the articles here at COGwriter related to prophecy and Barack Obama.
Barack Obama, Prophecy, and the Destruction of the United States Some claim that Barack Obama is the prophesied “son of Kenya”. Might Bible prophecy be fulfilled since he is to be the USA president?
End of Mayan Calendar 2012–Might 2012 Mean Something? There is a Mayan calendar prediction for change in 2012. 2012 changes were also centuries ago predicted by the Hopi Native Americans (the Hindus may have some predictions for the next decade as well). Do these Mayan/Hindu/Hopi prophecies have any value? Why might Satan have inspired this date? Does the Dresden codex show destruction of the earth by flood? Can the great tribulation start before 2012?
Can the Great Tribulation Begin in 2009, 2010, or 2011? Can the Great Tribulation begin today? When is the earliest that the Great Tribulation can begin? What is the Day of the Lord?
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