Are we facing a global food crisis?
Food Crisis Facts
1. At any given time in the United States, food chain stores have enough food on hand to last a day and a half. 2. In the United States, there is enough processed food (food for purchase to eat or cook and eat) to last the entire population only 4 days. 3. The amount of our crops that the United States government is using to produce fuel would feed 350 million people. 4. Today, half the world's population live in countries where the water table is falling. Falling water tables mean less water for crops and less food for a growing population. Fast-growing cities are also competing with farmers for irrigation water. 5. In spite of the new technologies available to farmers, crop yields are not increasing. Crop yields have been flat for the past 14 years, while world population is still increasing. 6. Countries all over the world are losing crop land. For every five million cars added to a Country's fleet, roughly one million acres must be paved to accommodate them. And cropland is often the loser. Less cropland means less food. 7. According to the World Bank, 44 million people around the globe have been pushed into extreme poverty since last June because of rising food prices. 8. The way that we produce our food is very heavily dependent on oil. The way we transport our food is very heavily dependent on oil. When you have skyrocketing oil prices, our entire food production system becomes much more expensive. If the price of oil continues to stay high, we are going to see much higher food prices and some forms of food production will no longer make economic sense at all. 9. Since last June, the price of wheat and corn have double, the price of soybeans has increased 50 percent, and the price of orange juice has double since 2009.
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