December 10, 2013
nwpss north face online mens dark red jackets down vest of the year is run by the royal observatory
Of the country why it will make food more expensive They call drought the
slow-Motion disaster, and for good reason.While earthquakes and volcanoes strike
in a moment, and hurricanes unfold over a few days, a drought is simply a day
without rain that becomes two days without rain then a week then a month and
then longer.The damage worsens by the hour, but it can take weeks or even months
before the effects of drought become visible in cracked soil, stunted crops and
dried up lakes.Even then, there none of the explosive drama that marks other
natural disasters.Truly is historic.The national climatic data center reports
that 55% of the country is now in moderate to extreme drought, making this the
biggest dry spell since 1956, and it already rivals some years from the dust
bowl of the 1930s.Department of agriculture(Usda)Reporting this week that only
31% of the corn crop can be rated as good or excellent, down 9 percentage points
from last week.As one scientist told the new yorker elizabeth kolbert this week,
trying to farm in the caked-Dry soil of usually fertile states like indiana or
illinois is like in hell.That where the more than 99% of americans who aren
farmers will begin to feel the impact of this drought.Corn is already above $7 a
bushel, and soybeans-Another major staple crop used for animal feed and
fuel-Aren far behind.So you might expect the corn on the cob at the local
supermarket might get a little pricier.But of course the effects go far beyond
the simple cost of an ear.Corn is the base of the american food pyramid, used in
everything from meat-Corn is a staple grain for chickens and cattle-To cereal to
even gatorade and ring dings.In his bookthe omnivore dilemma, michael pollan
concisely quotes a food researcher who notes that americans like corn chips on
legs.Rising temperatures and drought create fears of a new dust bowl) So if
american corn gets more expensive-And unless the drought miraculously lifts,
there every reason to expect it will-Just about everything else on our table
will as well, as richard volpe, an agricultural economist with the usda, told
cnn: Corn is a major input for retail food.Corn is used to make feed for all the
animals in our food nwpss north face online
mens leopard green jackets ski supply chain.As this drought reduces the
harvest of corn, that would drive up the price of feed for animals and then in
turn meat products. How big an impact more expensive corn will have on the
family grocery bill isn clear.As volpe goes on To note, it not a 1-To-1
relationship-A 50% increase in the price of field corn might raise the cost of
food by 1%.That largely because for every $1 that an american spends on food,
perhaps 14 to 15 cents of it actually goes to, well, food.Thanks to our highly
artificial and subsidized diets, things like packaging, processing and
advertising all take up more of the food dollar than simple field corn.Americans
are insulated from the spikes in crop prices, both by marketing and by
government subsidies.It also helps that even while corn prices are going up
thanks to the drought, oil prices have fallen significantly over the past few
months-Sparing parched farmers greater expense and putting downward pressure on
inflation. The rest of the world, though, isn as lucky.In countries like mexico
or kenya, where much of the population lives day by day and eats plain tortillas
and bread, the cost of food really is the cost of food.Economy may turn out to
be minor.Farmers who depend on rain in much of the midwest could face a ruined
crop that would sink their season earnings.That in turn will impact the bottom
line of companies like john deere that sell to farmers.At the same time,
however, agricultural incomes have been surprisingly high over the past couple
of years, which should give many farmers a cushion.And those farmers fortune
enough to live in areas that haven been crippled by the drought stand to benefit
hugely from high crop prices.Overall, though, agriculture is a relatively small
part of the overall national economy-Just 1.2%-So while the drought won help the
struggling economic recovery, it won sink it either. But let be clear:If
catastrophes like the drought of 2012 become more and more common, no economy
will be immune.It too early to say for sure what role climate change may have
played in this drought, and obviously the example of the dust bowl teaches Nwpss UK us that extremely dry periods
were hardly unknown in american history.Already government scientists have said
that climate change made the crippling texas drought of 2011 some 20 times more
likely.The drought of 2012 isn over yet-And it won be the last we face.
More:Climate change plays a role in wildfires-But not the only one Snapshots of
the heavens:Amazing astronomy photos The royal observatory has culled through
over 800 entries from astronomers and astro-Photographers around the world to
release its compilation of the best astronomy photos so far this year.Astronomy
photographer nwpss north face online mens
dark red jackets down vest of the year is run by the royal observatory
greenwich and sky at night magazine.This year competition drew a record number
of entries with a wide array of subjects captured by amateur and professional
photographers from around the globe.
Comments are disabled.
Post is locked.
Posted by: chenchen99 at
02:11 AM
| No Comments
| Add Comment
Post contains 909 words, total size 6 kb.
12kb generated in CPU 0.0086, elapsed 0.1748 seconds.
33 queries taking 0.1629 seconds, 50 records returned.
Powered by Minx 1.1.6c-pink.
33 queries taking 0.1629 seconds, 50 records returned.
Powered by Minx 1.1.6c-pink.