Running Out of Food

Today the UN reported that the world’s food supply is shrinking. This will lead to higher prices for most foods which will adversely affect the poorest people in the world who struggle to buy enough food to ward off starvation. The author points to governmental programs setup by wealthy countries to pay farmers not to fully utilize their land in order to keep prices artificially high. Subsidies also contribute to this. This biggest cause for this food shortage problem is that farmers are growing crops to turn into “biofuels” instead of food.

Apparently the best solution they can come up with is for rich countries to give coupons to poor countries that they can trade for discounts on seeds and stuff from the rich countries. I vote we just ban ethanol fuels, eliminate all governmental involvement in agriculture, and let the markets work things out. Forest land can be cleared for more farms, dams can be built to better irrigate farmland, and farmers can use all their available land to grow crops when the government isn’t there to bribe them no to.