141 Ss Food Prices Generic Redux

Food Prices DA DDI 2008 Culpepper Generic

Index Index........................................................................................................................................................................1 1NC..........................................................................................................................................................................4 1NC..........................................................................................................................................................................5 1NC..........................................................................................................................................................................6 Uniqueness..............................................................................................................................................................7 Uniqueness..............................................................................................................................................................8 Generic Link...........................................................................................................................................................9 Biofuels Link........................................................................................................................................................10 Biofuels Link.........................................................................................................................................................11 Biofuels Link........................................................................................................................................................12 Biofuels Link........................................................................................................................................................13 Biomass Link........................................................................................................................................................14 Cassava Ethanol Link..........................................................................................................................................15 Corn Ethanol Link...............................................................................................................................................16 Geothermal Link..................................................................................................................................................17 Hydropower Link.................................................................................................................................................18 Photovoltaic Link.................................................................................................................................................19 Solar Power Link.................................................................................................................................................20 Solar Power Link.................................................................................................................................................21 Wind Power Link.................................................................................................................................................22 Internal Link – Ag Industry Spillover...............................................................................................................23 Internal Link – Global Spillover........................................................................................................................24 Internal Link – Land Use = Higher Food Prices...............................................................................................25 Internal Link – Land Use = Higher Food Prices...............................................................................................26 Internal Link – Land Use = Higher Food Prices...............................................................................................27 Internal Link – Land Use = Higher Food Prices...............................................................................................28 Internal Link – Malnourishment........................................................................................................................29 Internal Link – Small Business Collapse...........................................................................................................30 Internal Link – US Foreign Food Aid................................................................................................................31 Famine Impact Ext..............................................................................................................................................32 High Food Prices Bad..........................................................................................................................................33 1

Food Prices DA DDI 2008 Culpepper Generic High Food Prices Bad..........................................................................................................................................34 China Impact Module..........................................................................................................................................35 China Impact Uniqueness...................................................................................................................................36 Economy Impact Module....................................................................................................................................37 Economy Impact Module....................................................................................................................................38 GMO Impact Module..........................................................................................................................................39 GMO Impact Module..........................................................................................................................................40 GMO Impact Module..........................................................................................................................................41 GMO Impact Ext.................................................................................................................................................42 Hegemony Impact Module..................................................................................................................................43 Hegemony Impact Module..................................................................................................................................44 HIV/AIDS Impact Module..................................................................................................................................45 HIV/AIDS Impact Module..................................................................................................................................46 Poverty Impact Module.......................................................................................................................................47 Poverty Impact Ext..............................................................................................................................................48 Terrorism Impact Module...................................................................................................................................49 Terrorism Impact Module...................................................................................................................................50 Terrorism Impact Ext..........................................................................................................................................51 War Impact Module.............................................................................................................................................52 Biofuel Impact Ext – Poverty..............................................................................................................................53 Biofuels Impact Ext – Starvation........................................................................................................................54 Ethanol Impact Ext – Biodiversity.....................................................................................................................55 Ethanol Impact Ext - Economy..........................................................................................................................56 Ethanol Impact Ext – Ocean Death Module......................................................................................................57 DA Turns Case – Land Use  Greenhouse Gases............................................................................................58 Aff Answers...........................................................................................................................................................59 Aff Answers...........................................................................................................................................................60 Aff Answers...........................................................................................................................................................61 Aff Answers...........................................................................................................................................................62 Aff Answers...........................................................................................................................................................63 Aff Uniqueness.....................................................................................................................................................64 Aff Uniqueness.....................................................................................................................................................65 2

Food Prices DA DDI 2008 Culpepper Generic Aff Uniqueness.....................................................................................................................................................67 Aff Uniqueness.....................................................................................................................................................68 Aff Uniqueness.....................................................................................................................................................69 Aff Uniqueness.....................................................................................................................................................70 Aff Answers – AT: Biofuels Link........................................................................................................................71 Aff Answers – AT: Biofuels Link........................................................................................................................72 Aff Answers – AT: Ethanol Link.........................................................................................................................73 Aff Answers – AT: Geothermal Power Link......................................................................................................74 Aff Answers – AT: Solar Power Link.................................................................................................................75 Aff Answers – AT: Solar Power Link.................................................................................................................76 Aff Answers – AT: Wind Power Link.................................................................................................................77

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1NC Food prices have stabilized, but are on the brink of increase Reuters, 7-16-08, “food prices steady, inflation push eases,” http://www.reuters.com/article/reutersEdge/idUSL1663313220080716?pageNumber=2&virtualBrandChannel=0, KAPUSTINA LONDON (Reuters) - Food commodity prices have now stabilized after surging early this year while a weak dollar may reduce inflationary pressures in many countries, a senior United Nations economist said on Wednesday. "It looks like from March onwards we have arrested the rise. It has basically remained flat," economist Abdolreza Abbassian of the Rome-based U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization told Reuters in a telephone interview. Abbassian said the weakness of the dollar was also becoming an increasingly important influence, reducing the cost of food commodities in national currency terms for many importers. "It is good news as long as commodity prices don't go up and offset the gain in the exchange rate. For countries which are not pegged to the dollar, at least they are not importing inflation," he said. The FAO's monthly Food Price Index for June, to be published later this week, is set to be close to May's revised 216.0 and below the peak of 217.8 set in March, he said. The June total would still, however, be more than 40 percent higher than the same month last year reflecting a sharp jump in cereals, oils and fats prices. "Overall it appears the market has stabilized, albeit at very high levels," he said. Abbassian said there may also be scope for cereal prices to fall as crops are harvested during the next few months.

Alternative energy trades off with massive amounts of arable land Steven Milloy, 10-1-07, “Renewable Energy Harms Environment, Says Leading Environmental Activist,” http://www.heartland.org/Article.cfm?artId=21985, KAPUSTINA Rockefeller University's Jesse Ausubel, a prominent environmental advocate, has stunned other environmental activists by reporting in the July International Journal of Nuclear Governance, Economy, and Ecology that the use of renewable energy is wrecking the environment. "Renewables are not green," is how Ausubel begins the article. It is a remarkable statement coming from someone who beat his fellow Greens to global warming alarmism by at least 10 years. Ausubel's Rockefeller University biography says he "was one of the main organizers of the first U.N. World Climate Conference (Geneva, 1979) which substantially elevated the global warming issue on scientific and political agendas" and that he "played major roles in the formulation of both U.S. and world climate-research programs." Hydroelectric Land Use In his new article, Ausubel calculated the amount of energy produced by various renewable energy sources--including hydroelectric, biomass, wind, and solar power--in terms of power output per square meter of land disturbed. For example, if you could collect the average annual rainfall of the 900,000 square kilometer Canadian province of Ontario-about 680,000 billion liters of water--and store it behind a dam 60 meters tall, you would produce a regular output of about 11,000 megawatts of electricity--which is only about 80 percent of the output of Canada's 25 nuclear power stations, Ausubel says. In other words, this works out to a power production rate of 0.012 watts per square meter of land. It would take 1 square kilometer of land to provide enough electricity for about 12 Canadians, according to Ausubel. He says this inefficiency is a key reason environmentalists have reduced their demands for greater use of hydroelectric power. 'Criminal' Biomass According to Ausubel, biomass is even more harmful. Large-scale power generation from biomass would require "vast areas be shaved or harvested annually," Ausubel says. It would take 2,500 square kilometers of prime Iowa farmland to produce as much electricity from biomass as from a single nuclear power plant. "Increased use of biomass fuel in any form is criminal," Ausubel stated in a media release. "Every automobile would require a pasture of 1-2 hectares," he noted.

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1NC Shifting land use from crops to alternative energy increases food prices Martin Khor, economist and Director of the Third World Network (network of environmental experts based in Malaysia), 10-29-07, “The Era of Cheap Food Is Over,” The Star online, http://thestar.com.my/columnists/story.asp?file=/2007/10/29/columnists/globaltrends/19309056&sec=Global%20Trends

[Tandet]

But structural changes are underway which could well maintain relatively high nominal prices for many agricultural products over the coming decade,” said the report summary. The most important change is “the growing use of cereals, sugar, oilseed and vegetable oils to produce fossil fuel substitutes, ethanol and bio-diesel. “This is underpinning crop prices and, indirectly through higher animal feed costs, also the prices for livestock products.” The shift of land use from food to fuel is ringing alarm bells. On Oct 26, the United Nations’ rapporteur on the right to food, Jean Ziegler, told a press conference in New York that there should be a five-year moratorium on bio-fuels “as it is a crime against humanity to convert food crops to fuel. “Bio-fuels are driving up food prices at a time when there are 854 million hungry people in the world.”

High food prices cause global famine and food shortages Hubpages, October 2007, “The Rise in Global Food Prices Is Famine Inevitable,” http://hubpages.com/hub/The-Rise-in-GlobalFood-Prices-Is-Famine-Inevitable Food riots in some countries recently also show that the situation is serious and if something is not done soon a lot of people in the world would starve. Take a look at what some of the experts had to say about this emerging problem: World Bank: Zoellick Calls For Coordinated Effort To Cope With Rising Food Prices Josette Sheean, Director of the UN World Food Programme "We are seeing a new face of hunger. We are seeing more urban hunger than ever before. We are seeing food on the shelves but people being unable to afford it." Robert Zoellick, President of the World Bank "Food policy needs to gain the attention of the highest political levels because no one country or group can meet these interconnected challenges. We should start by helping those whose needs are absolutely most immediate. The UN's World Food Programme says that they require at least $500 million of additional food supplies to meet emergency calls. The US, the EU, Japan and other countries must act now to fill that gap - or many people will suffer and starve."

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1NC Food shortages cause extinction Douglas S. Winnail, Ph.D., MPH, ’96, “On the Horizon”: Famine, From the World Ahead, Sep/Oct, http://www.survivalplus.com/foods/page0004.html Perhaps you have been too busy to notice, but the concern about our global food supply is real! Major news magazines are reporting that after a quiet few decades, talk of a world food crisis is again in the air. Government leaders, economists and scientists are seriously pondering such sobering questions as: Does the world face a global shortage? and Will the world starve? There is a growing sense of urgency. In November 1996 the United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization will convene a World Food Security Summit in Rome. The conference was called due to growing concerns that shrinking world food reserves, rising prices and the declining production of food grains could be the precursors of an imminent food security crisis. Dr. Jacques Diouf, the FAO Director-General, has stated, "The very survival of humanity depends on world food security ". Just what does the future hold for humanity? Will there be enough food to go around? What does a look at all the evidence indicate? And how will this issue affect your life in the months and years ahead? HOW LONG BEFORE THE CUPBOARD IS BARE? Numerous sources document that global supplies of rice, wheat, corn and other key commodities have dwindled to their lowest levels in years . The U.N. recently warned that food stocks stand far below the minimum needed to provide for world food security. The world's grain harvest has not increased in any of the last five years, and since 1992 world grain consumption has exceeded production... this year--for the first time since World War II--there are basically no surplus stocks in government-owned reserves. The tight supplies have led to steep price increases for wheat, rice, and corn. Grain stockpiles have fallen particularly fast in the U.S. and the European Union as a result of agricultural reforms that have focused on reducing overproduction and selling off surpluses--primarily to China--to gain revenue from exports. Bad weather and a string of poor harvests in grain producing areas of the world have also contributed to the dwindling reserves. A CRISIS AHEAD? Opinions are sharply divided over what the future may hold. The world's food economy may be shifting from a longaccustomed period of overall abundance to one of scarcity and that food scarcity will be the defining issue in the future. The lack of growth of the world grain harvest since 1990 coupled with the continuing growth in world population and the increased likelihood of crop-damaging heat waves in the years ahead at least carries the potential of severe food shortages.

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Uniqueness Trends prove global food security is stable Pingali and Stringer [Prabhu, Director of Agriculture and Economic Analysis Division – FAO, and Randy, Chief of the Comparative Agriculture Development Service – FAO, “Food Security and Agriculture in the Low Income Food Deficit Countries: 10 Years After the Uruguay Round”, 6-23, http://www.ecostat.unical.it/2003agtradeconf/Invited%20papers/Pingali%20and%20Stringer.PDF] From a longer term perspective, food security progress has been nothing short of remarkable. The proportion of people in developing countries living with average daily food intakes of less than 2200 kcal fell from 57 percent in the early 1960s to just 10 percent by the end of the century. During this period, per capita food supplies increased by more than 70 percent in China and Indonesia; by more than 50 percent in Pakistan and the Republic of Korea; and by more than 30 percent in Brazil, Burkina Fasso, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Jamaica, Mauritania and the Philippines.

Food Security Increasing Pingali and Stringer [Prabhu, Director of Agriculture and Economic Analysis Division – FAO, and Randy, Chief of the Comparative Agriculture Development Service – FAO, “Food Security and Agriculture in the Low Income Food Deficit Countries: 10 Years After the Uruguay Round”, 6-23, http://www.ecostat.unical.it/2003agtradeconf/Invited%20papers/Pingali%20and%20Stringer.PDF] How serious is the food insecurity problem? At the global level, the long term trends of many food security indicators have been positive. For example, the prevalence of undernourishment in developing countries fell from 28 percent of the total population in 1979-81 to 17 percent in 1998-2000. In addition, The average global kcal/person/day grew by 19 percent since the mid-1960 to reach 2800 kcal, with the developing country average expanding by more than 30 percent. As consumption increased, diets shifted towards more meat, milk, eggs, vegetables oils and away from roots and tubers. Livestock products, vegetables and sugars now provide 28 percent of total food consumption in the developing countries, up from 20 percent in the mid 1960s (FAO 2003a).

Key areas Food Security Stable Pingali and Stringer [Prabhu, Director of Agriculture and Economic Analysis Division – FAO, and Randy, Chief of the Comparative Agriculture Development Service – FAO, “Food Security and Agriculture in the Low Income Food Deficit Countries: 10 Years After the Uruguay Round”, 6-23, http://www.ecostat.unical.it/2003agtradeconf/Invited%20papers/Pingali%20and%20Stringer.PDF] Much of this past progress in the developing country aggregate food consumption numbers and undernutrition indicators are influenced decisively by the significant gains made by the most populated countries -- those with populations of more than 100 million, including Brazil, China, India, Indonesia, Nigeria and Pakistan (FAO 2003a). Bangladesh is the only developing country with more than 100 million people where per capita food consumption remains very low. Brazil, China and Indonesia now have daily food consumption levels in the 2900 to 3000 kcal range. China reduced the number of undernourished by 74 million since 1990-92. Ghana, Nigeria, Peru, Thailand and Viet Nam have all achieved reductions of more than 3 million.

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Uniqueness Food prices are decreasing now and will drop further in the near future Financial Times, 5-22-08, “Food prices forecast to stay high for 10 years,” http://www.lexisnexis.com/us/lnacademic/results/docview/docview.do?docLinkInd=true&risb=21_T4178132253&format=GNBFI&so rt=BOOLEAN&startDocNo=1&resultsUrlKey=29_T4178132256&cisb=22_T4178132255&treeMax=true&treeWidth=0&csi=29384 7&docNo=11 [Tandet] But the Agricultural Outlook 2008-2017, due to be published next week, does offer a respite in the short term, forecasting prices will ease from this year's record levels, according to a summary seen by the Financial Times. "Food prices would be considerably higher in nominal terms than in the past but below the current records," said an official familiar with the report. Compared with average prices for 2005-07, the report forecasts that in 2017 the price of wheat, adjusted for inflation, will be 2 per cent higher, rice 1 per cent higher and corn 15 per cent higher. Oilseed prices are expected to be up 33 per cent. The price projections imply falls from the current records but suggest that food inflation will continue to be a long-term problem, particularly for poor countries. "Without exception, average real prices are likely to remain above those observed during 1985-2007," said the report summary. The OECD said the projections were preliminary numbers. Alexander Müller, an assistant director-general at the FAO in Rome, said the world needed to get used to higher food prices. "In the near future, we will have to live with higher prices for agricultural commodities." The new estimates of elevated prices in the long term come as the cost of food shows the first tentative signs of stabilising after surging more than 50 per cent in the past 12 months. In April the FAO's food index registered its first drop in 15 months and officials said prices appeared to be "reaching a peak". Wheat prices have fallen by 40 per cent since their February record, soyabean prices have also dropped, and corn and rice prices have stabilised at around their recent record levels.

Food prices have peaked – expert consensus indicates that they will fall Financial Times, 5-18-08, “Soaring food prices show signs of easing,” http://www.lexisnexis.com/us/lnacademic/results/docview/docview.do?docLinkInd=true&risb=21_T4178132253&format=GNBFI&so rt=BOOLEAN&startDocNo=1&resultsUrlKey=29_T4178132256&cisb=22_T4178132255&treeMax=true&treeWidth=0&csi=29384 7&docNo=14 [Tandet] The soaring food prices that have triggered global political and economic turmoil over the past year have finally shown the first tentative signs of stabilising. The United Nation's Food and Agriculture Organisation food price index, considered the best measure of global food inflation, saw its first decline in 15 months in April, as wheat, dairy, sugar and soyabean prices fell. Jose María Sumpsi, the FAO's assistant directorgeneral, told the Financial Times this week that with the exception of corn and rice, food inflation appeared to be "reaching its peak", although he did not expect prices to start falling. His comments, which are supported by other senior UN officials, and the drop in the index are the most encouraging signs since the global food crisis broke out last summer but they do not mean the problems are over. The FAO index for April, to be published later this month, fell to 216.7 points, down from a revised 217 points in March, after rising 52 per cent in the past 12 months, according to an official who has seen the index. The last time the FAO food index posted a monthly drop was in January 2007, but that proved a blip. This time officials are more confident that some prices will stop rising or even fall as farmers plant more crops to take advantage of record prices amid better weather than last year.

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Generic Link Alternative energy takes up agricultural land, which jacks food prices Chicago Tribune Online, 5-5-08, “ethanol not a real solution,” http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/chioped0505byrnemay05,0,5109689.story When no one was looking, the "world food crisis" elbowed out "global climate change" as our planet's Numero Uno calamity. As if that weren't bad enough, we now discover that the two are connected; with this attempt to fix the climate by shifting away from fossil fuels to more "eco-friendly" renewable fuels, we have ended up starving people in Africa and Asia. Seems like we can hardly settle on one cataclysm before another one demands our attention. Food riots have broken out around the world; grain-producing countries have banned exports to feed their own people; food prices in the U.S. and around the world have gone through the roof. The UN—its usual bold self—created a task force to study the matter. What shall we do, what shall we do? We can start by yanking the idiotic and elephantine government aid given to ethanol production, today's biofuel of choice. Farmland previously planted with corn for food and feedstock for cattle now is planted with corn for ethanol. The 15 percent of total corn acreage that in 2005 went into ethanol production has rocketed to an expected 33 percent this year as farmers abandon wheat and other grains to cash in. Naturally, the increasing scarcity of wheat—the staff of life—has driven up its price. And because the U.S. is the world's breadbasket, those higher prices and shortages rebound throughout the world. Just how much ethanol is at fault is an unsettled point of contention, with farmers and ethanol producers whining to Congress, "don't blame us." But a study by the Washington-based International Food Policy Research Institute estimates that biofuels—principally ethanol—have accounted for a quarter to a third of the recent food price increases.

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Biofuels Link Increased biofuel use creates price hikes that spill over into the rest of the agriculture sector and beyond C. Ford Runge, Professor of Applied Economics at the University of Minnesota and fellow at the Hubert H. Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs, and Benjamin Senauer, Ph.D. and Professor of Applied Economics at the University of Minnesota and former CoDirector of The Food Industry Center, May/June ’07, “How Biofuels Could Starve the Poor,” Foreign Affairs Magazine, http://www.foreignaffairs.org/20070501faessay86305/c-ford-runge-benjamin-senauer/how-biofuels-could-starve-the-poor.html [Tandet] With the price of raw materials at such highs, the biofuel craze would place significant stress on other parts of the agricultural sector. In fact, it already does. In the United States, the growth of the biofuel industry has triggered increases not only in the prices of corn, oilseeds, and other grains but also in the prices of seemingly unrelated crops and products. The use of land to grow corn to feed the ethanol maw is reducing the acreage devoted to other crops. Food processors who use crops such as peas and sweet corn have been forced to pay higher prices to keep their supplies secure -costs that will eventually be passed on to consumers. Rising feed prices are also hitting the livestock and poultry industries. According to Vernon Eidman, a professor emeritus of agribusiness management at the University of Minnesota, higher feed costs have caused returns to fall sharply, especially in the poultry and swine sectors. If returns continue to drop, production will decline, and the prices for chicken, turkey, pork, milk, and eggs will rise. A number of Iowa's pork producers could go out of business in the next few years as they are forced to compete with ethanol plants for corn supplies.

ETHANOL JACKS FOOD PRICES, CRUSHING CONSUMER WAGES Canadian Press, 10-22-07, “Ethanol demand to push food prices 5% higher next year: economist,” http://www.cbc.ca/news/story/2007/10/22/ethanol-rubin.html, KAPUSTINA The United States' policy of subsidizing ethanol to reduce its dependence on foreign oil is causing higher food prices in Canada as well as the U.S., the chief economist of CIBC World Markets says. "When you add it all up, it's fairly significant because food inflation is already well over four per cent, and we would expect it to move higher as more and more corn production is diverted to ethanol as is required under President Bush's plan," Jeff Rubin said Monday. "When you overlay that with the inflationary hit from oil itself, they're going to produce the hottest inflation numbers that we've seen yet this cycle." The U.S. federal and state governments provide massive subsidies — $8 billion US last year — to encourage ethanol producers to expand and corn farmers to supply the crops to make the fuel. The growing diversion into ethanol has resulted in a 60 per cent rise in corn prices in the past two years, Rubin said. This affects most food categories, since corn is not only a direct product for human consumption but is a major animal feed whose cost affects meat prices. Derivatives such as corn syrup and corn starch are ingredients in a vast array of processed foods and drinks. Corn-based staples like tortillas have become more costly, along with other grains, fruits and vegetables that are pushed aside as farmers cash in on corn. Canadians can expect their food prices to be squeezed as the United States "is a major, major corn exporter to the rest of the world," Rubin said. He predicts food costs will be rising at a rate of over five per cent next year and seven per cent by 2009, adding that for poor Americans, food already consumes nearly 40 per cent of their spending. "If wages don't respond, then it's a real wage cut for most folk because there aren't a whole lot of substitutes for food and energy," he said.

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Biofuels Link Biofuels exacerbate world hunger – increased biofuel demand means 1.2 billion people will be starving by 2025 C. Ford Runge, Professor of Applied Economics at the University of Minnesota and fellow at the Hubert H. Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs, and Benjamin Senauer, Ph.D. and Professor of Applied Economics at the University of Minnesota and former CoDirector of The Food Industry Center, May/June ’07, “How Biofuels Could Starve the Poor,” Foreign Affairs Magazine, http://www.foreignaffairs.org/20070501faessay86305/c-ford-runge-benjamin-senauer/how-biofuels-could-starve-the-poor.html [Tandet] Realistically, however, resorting to biofuels is likely to exacerbate world hunger. Several studies by economists at the World Bank and elsewhere suggest that caloric consumption among the world's poor declines by about half of one percent whenever the average prices of all major food staples increase by one percent. When one staple becomes more expensive, people try to replace it with a cheaper one, but if the prices of nearly all staples go up, they are left with no alternative. In a study of global food security we conducted in 2003, we projected that given the rates of economic and population growth, the number of hungry people throughout the world would decline by 23 percent, to about 625 million, by 2025, so long as agricultural productivity improved enough to keep the relative price of food constant. But if, all other things being equal, the prices of staple foods increased because of demand for biofuels, as the IFPRI projections suggest they will, the number of food-insecure people in the world would rise by over 16 million for every percentage increase in the real prices of staple foods. That means that 1.2 billion people could be chronically hungry by 2025 -- 600 million more than previously predicted. The world's poorest people already spend 50 to 80 percent of their total household income on food. For the many among them who are landless laborers or rural subsistence farmers, large increases in the prices of staple foods will mean malnutrition and hunger. Some of them will tumble over the edge of subsistence into outright starvation, and many more will die from a multitude of hunger-related diseases.

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Biofuels Link Biofuels massively trade off with food production and increase prices Joachim von Braun, 6-12-08, director general of the International Food Policy Research Institute, Testimony before the United States Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, http://www.ifpri.org/pubs/testimony/vonbraun20080612.asp, KAPUSTINA Feedstock makes up the principal share of total biofuel production costs. It accounts for 50-70 percent and 70-80 percent of overall costs for ethanol and biodiesel, respectively (IEA 2004). Net production costs, which refer to all costs related to production (including investments), differ widely across countries. For instance, Brazil produces ethanol at about half the cost of Australia and one-third the cost of Germany. However, feedstock costs have increased by 50 percent and more during the past few years, impinging on comparative advantage and competitiveness. While the biofuel sector will contribute to price changes, it will also be a victim of changes in feedstock prices. The high price of energy is a key factor behind rising food prices. Energy and agricultural prices have become increasingly intertwined. With oil prices at an all-time high and the U.S. government subsidizing farmers to grow crops for energy, U.S. farmers have massively shifted their cultivation toward biofuel feedstocks, especially corn (see Table 1), often at the expense of soybean and wheat cultivation. An IFPRI study by Mark Rosegrant (2008) did a comparison between a simulation of actual demand for food crops as biofuel feedstock through 2007 and a scenario simulating biofuel growth at the rate of 1990-2000 before the rapid takeoff in demand for bioethanol. This approximates the contribution of biofuel demand to increases in grain prices from 2000 to 2007. The percentage contribution of biofuel demand to price increases during that period is the difference between 2007 prices in the two scenarios, divided by the increase in prices in the baseline from 2000 to 2007. The increased biofuel demand during the period, compared with previous historical rates of growth, is estimated to have accounted for 30 percent of the increase in weighted average grain prices. The biggest impact was on maize prices, for which increased biofuel demand is estimated to account for 39 percent of the increase in real prices. Increased biofuel demand is estimated to account for 21 percent of the increase in rice prices and 22 percent of the rise in wheat prices (Rosegrant 2008).

Increased ethanol use means farmers will grow less food for profit Oil & Gas Journal, 4-28-08, “the new imperative, p. 19, lexis, KAPUSTINA Promoters of fuel ethanol from grain and of diesel esters from oil seeds and other agricultural products insist that energy costs explain most of the food-price jump. Land-use changes show those claims to be self-serving nonsense. Farmers naturally dedicate acreage to crops that markets value most. In the US, that means corn, demand and prices for which are soaring because of mandates for heavily subsidized fuel ethanol. Farmers consequently are growing less wheat, soybeans, and other food crops, so those prices are soaring, too. Analogous patterns are evident elsewhere as governments push biofuels--supposedly to fight pollution, lower emissions of greenhouse gases, and extend oil supply but mostly to enrich farmers.

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Biofuels Link Ethanol increases food prices, and other countries model what the US does, jacking food prices globally Associated Press, 4-30-08, “Stop biofuels to fight word hunger, food scientists say,” http://www.cbc.ca/world/story/2008/04/30/tech-corn-prices.html, KAPUSTINA Some top international food scientists Tuesday recommended halting the use of food-based biofuels, such as ethanol, saying it would cut corn prices by 20 per cent during a looming world food crisis. But even as the scientists were calling for a moratorium, U.S. President George W. Bush urged the opposite. He declared the United States should increase ethanol use because of national energy security and high gas prices. The conflicting messages Tuesday highlighted the ongoing debate over food and fuel needs. The three senior scientists with an international research consortium pushing a biofuel moratorium said nations need to rethink programs that divert food such as corn and soybeans into fuel, given the burgeoning worldwide food crisis. The group, CGIAR, is a global network that uses science to fight hunger. It is funded by dozens of countries and private foundations. If leading nations stopped biofuel use this year, it would lead to a price decline in corn of about 20 per cent and wheat of about 10 per cent by 2009-10, said Joachim von Braun, who heads the International Food Policy Research Institute in Washington, D.C., the policy arm of CGIAR. Von Braun and the other scientists said work should be stepped up on the use of non-grain crops, such as switchgrass, for biofuel.Another scientist, not associated with the group, agreed with their call for a halt on the use of grain for fuel."We need to feed the stomach before we need to feed our cars," said Rattan Lal, an Ohio State University soil sciences professor who in the past has been a critic of some of CGIAR's priorities. "We have one billion people who are food insecure. We can't afford the luxury of not taking care of them and taking care of gasoline." In an interview after the CGIAR teleconference, von Braun said the United States and other countries have to make a hard choice between fighting high fuel prices and fighting world hunger. "If you place a high value of food security for poor people, then the conclusion is clear that we step on the brake awhile," von Braun said. "If you place a high value on national energy security, other considerations come into play." Energy security is what Bush emphasized in his news conference. When asked about the conflict with world hunger and the rising cost of food at home, he said the high price of gasoline would "spur more investment in ethanol as an alternative to gasoline." "And the truth of the matter is, it's in our national interest that our farmers grow energy, as opposed to us purchasing energy from parts of the world that are unstable or may not like us," Bush said. Still, Bush said the international food crisis "is of concern to us" and said the U.S. government earlier this month added another $200 million in food aid. Ethanol production spurs corn prices: World Bank A World Bank study has estimated that corn prices "rose by over 60 per cent from 2005-07, largely because of the U.S. ethanol program" combined with market forces. Other nations, such as South Africa, have stopped or slowed the push to ethanol. But because the United States is the world's biggest producer, if it does nothing, other nations' efforts will not amount to much, von Braun said. Von Braun said many issues are causing the food crisis, especially market forces and speculation, but that biofuel use also ranks high among the causes. Scientists say the diversion of corn and soybeans for fuel helps force prices higher, and removes farm land from food production. Ethanol supporters say the corn used for fuels is the type only fed to livestock. However, other experts say it leads to higher livestock feed prices, thus higher food prices. Because of this issue, legislators in Missouri are considering lifting a requirement that fuel in that state contain 10 per cent ethanol. Just how big biofuel's effect is on food prices depends on who is talking. Bush said it's responsible for about 15 per cent of the rise in costs. U.S. Department of Agriculture spokesman Keith Williams put it closer to 20 per cent. A soon to be released International Food Policy Research Institute analysis blames 30 per cent of the overall food price rise from 2000-2007 on biofuels. An industry-funded study put the food cost rise from biofuels at four per cent.

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Biomass Link Biomass uses large amounts of land that should be used for crops – it takes 120 square meters to provide enough power for 1 square meter of a city Jesse H. Ausbel, Director of the Program for the Human Environment and Senior Research Associate at The Rockefeller University, ’07, “Renewable and Nuclear Heresies,” International Journal of Nuclear Governance, Economy, and Ecology, phe.rockefeller.edu/docs/HeresiesFinal.pdf [Tandet] Imagine, as energy analyst Howard Hayden has suggested, farmers use ample water,  fertiliser, and pesticides to achieve 12,000 watts thermal per hectare (10,000 square  metres). Imagine replacing a 1000MWe nuclear power plant with a 90% capacity factor.  During a year, the nuclear plant will produce about 7.9 billionkWh. To obtain the same electricity from a power plant that burns biomass at 30% heat-to-electricity efficiency,  farmers would need about 250,000 hectares or 2500 square kilometres of land with very high productivity. Harvesting and collecting the biomass are not 100% efficient; some  gets left in fields or otherwise lost.  Such losses mean that in round numbers a 1000MWe nuclear plant equates to more than 2500 square kilometres of prime land. A typical Iowa county spans about 1000 square  kilometres, so it would take at least two and a half counties to fire a station. A nuclear  power plant consumes about ten hectares per unit or 40 hectares for a power park.  Shifting entirely from baconburgers to kilowatts, Iowa’s 55,000 square miles might  yield 50,000MWe. Prince Edward Island might produce about 2000MWe.  The USA already consumes about ten and the world about 40 times the kilowatt  hours that Iowa’s biomass could generate. Prime land has better uses, like feeding the hungry. Ploughing marginal lands would require ten or 20 times the expanse and  increase erosion. One hundred twenty square metres of New Brunswick or Manitoba  might electrify one square metre of New York City. 

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Cassava Ethanol Link Cassava-based ethanol production threatens food security in sub-Saharan Africa by removing a staple crop C. Ford Runge, Professor of Applied Economics at the University of Minnesota and fellow at the Hubert H. Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs, and Benjamin Senauer, Ph.D. and Professor of Applied Economics at the University of Minnesota and former CoDirector of The Food Industry Center, May/June ’07, “How Biofuels Could Starve the Poor,” Foreign Affairs Magazine, http://www.foreignaffairs.org/20070501faessay86305/c-ford-runge-benjamin-senauer/how-biofuels-could-starve-the-poor.html [Tandet] The production of cassava-based ethanol may pose an especially grave threat to the food security of the world's poor. Cassava, a tropical potato-like tuber also known as manioc, provides one-third of the caloric needs of the population in sub-Saharan Africa and is the primary staple for over 200 million of Africa's poorest people. In many tropical countries, it is the food people turn to when they cannot afford anything else. It also serves as an important reserve when other crops fail because it can grow in poor soils and dry conditions and can be left in the ground to be harvested as needed. Thanks to its high-starch content, cassava is also an excellent source of ethanol. As the technology for converting it to fuel improves, many countries -- including China, Nigeria, and Thailand -- are considering using more of the crop to that end. If peasant farmers in developing countries could become suppliers for the emerging industry, they would benefit from the increased income. But the history of industrial demand for agricultural crops in these countries suggests that large producers will be the main beneficiaries. The likely result of a boom in cassava-based ethanol production is that an increasing number of poor people will struggle even more to feed themselves.

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Corn Ethanol Link Corn ethanol takes field space from other crops, increasing crop prices globally and causing global poverty and food insecurity C. Ford Runge, Professor of Applied Economics at the University of Minnesota and fellow at the Hubert H. Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs, and Benjamin Senauer, Ph.D. and Professor of Applied Economics at the University of Minnesota and former CoDirector of The Food Industry Center, May/June ’07, “How Biofuels Could Starve the Poor,” Foreign Affairs Magazine, http://www.foreignaffairs.org/20070501faessay86305/c-ford-runge-benjamin-senauer/how-biofuels-could-starve-the-poor.html [Tandet] The industry's growth has meant that a larger and larger share of corn production is being used to feed the huge mills that produce ethanol. According to some estimates, ethanol plants will burn up to half of U.S. domestic corn supplies within a few years. Ethanol demand will bring 2007 inventories of corn to their lowest levels since 1995 (a drought year), even though 2006 yielded the third-largest corn crop on record. Iowa may soon become a net corn importer. The enormous volume of corn required by the ethanol industry is sending shock waves through the food system. (The United States accounts for some 40 percent of the world's total corn production and over half of all corn exports.) In March 2007, corn futures rose to over $4.38 a bushel, the highest level in ten years. Wheat and rice prices have also surged to decade highs, because even as those grains are increasingly being used as substitutes for corn, farmers are planting more acres with corn and fewer acres with other crops. This might sound like nirvana to corn producers, but it is hardly that for consumers, especially in poor developing countries, who will be hit with a double shock if both food prices and oil prices stay high. The World Bank has estimated that in 2001, 2.7 billion people in the world were living on the equivalent of less than $2 a day; to them, even marginal increases in the cost of staple grains could be devastating. Filling the 25-gallon tank of an SUV with pure ethanol requires over 450 pounds of corn -- which contains enough calories to feed one person for a year. By putting pressure on global supplies of edible crops, the surge in ethanol production will translate into higher prices for both processed and staple foods around the world. Biofuels have tied oil and food prices together in ways that could profoundly upset the relationships between food producers, consumers, and nations in the years ahead, with potentially devastating implications for both global poverty and food security.

Corn-based ethanol drives price hikes that spill over and increase other crop prices Mark W. Rosegrant, Director of Environment and Production Technology Division at the International Food Policy Research Institute, 5-7-08, “Biofuels and Grain Prices: Impacts and Policy Responses,” Testimony before the U.S. Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, http://www.ifpri.org/pubs/testimony/rosegrant20080507.asp [Tandet] The role of biofuel policies in the food-price hikes has become particularly controversial. The rapid increase in demand for and production of biofuels, particularly bioethanol from maize and sugarcane, has had a number of effects on grain supply-and-demand systems. Expanded production of ethanol from maize, in particular, has increased total demand for maize and shifted land area away from production of maize for food and feed, stimulating increased prices for maize. Rising maize prices, in turn, have affected other grains. On the demand side, higher prices for maize have caused food consumers to shift from maize (which is still a significant staple food crop in much of the developing world) to rice and wheat. On the supply side, higher maize prices made maize more profitable to grow, causing some farmers to shift from rice and wheat (and other crop) cultivation to maize cultivation. These demand- and supply-side effects have tended to increase the price of rice and wheat and other crops.

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Geothermal Link Geothermal drilling pollutes arable land MIT Scientific Study, 1-22-07, http://geothermal.inel.gov/publications/future_of_geothermal_energy.pdf, KAPUSTINA The major environmental issues for EGS are associated with ground-water use and contamination, with related concerns about induced seismicity or subsidence as a result of water injection and production. Issues of noise, safety, visual impacts, and land use associated with drilling and production operations are also important but fully manageable.

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Hydropower Link Hydropower plants take up huge amounts of land – one square kilometer only provides power for 12 people Jesse H. Ausbel, Director of the Program for the Human Environment and Senior Research Associate at The Rockefeller University, ’07, “Renewable and Nuclear Heresies,” International Journal of Nuclear Governance, Economy, and Ecology, phe.rockefeller.edu/docs/HeresiesFinal.pdf [Tandet] For the USA as a whole, the capacity of all existing hydropower plants is about  97,500MWe, and their average production is about 37,500MWe. The average power intensity – the watts divided by the land area of the USA – is 0.005 watts per square metre, that is, the approximate power that can be obtained from a huge tract of land that drains into a reservoir for a power station.  Imagine the entire province of Ontario, about 900,000 square km, collecting its entire 680,000 billion litres of rain, an average annual rainfall of about 0.8m. Imagine collecting  all that water, every drop, behind a dam of about 60 metres height. Doing so might  inundate half the province, and thus win the support of the majority of Canadians, who  resent the force of Ontario. This comprehensive ‘Ontario Hydro’ would produce about  11,000MW or about four fifths the output of Canada’s 25 nuclear power stations, or about 0.012 watts per square metre or more than twice the USA average. In my ‘flood Ontario’  scenario, a square kilometre would provide the electricity for about 12 Canadians.  This low density and the attending ecological and cultural headaches explain the trend  in most of the world from dam building to dam removal. About 40% of Canada’s immense  total land area is effectively dammed for electrons already. The World Commission on  Dams issued a report in November 2000 that essentially signalled the end of hydropower  development globally. While the Chinese are constructing more dams, few foresee even  ten thousand megawatts’ further growth from hydropower. 

New hydroelectric plants would require 24 million hectares of new land development David Pimental et al., group of scientists studying alternative energies for the American Institute of Biological Sciences, ’94, “Renewable Energy: Economic and Environmental Issues,” BioScience journal, http://www.jstor.org/sici?sici=00063568(199409)44%3A8%3C536%3AREEAEI%3E2.0.CO%3B2-3&cookieSet=1) [Tandet] Hydroelectric plants require land for their water-storage reservoirs.  An analysis of 50 hydroelectric sites  in the United States indicated that  an average of 75,000 ha of reservoir area are required per 1 billion kWh/ yr produced (Table 2). However,  the size of reservoir per unit of elec-  tricity produced varies widely, rang-  ing from 482 ha to 763,000 ha per 1 billion kWh/yr depending upon the  hydro head, terrain, and additional  uses made of the reservoir (Table 2).  The latter include flood control, stor-  age of water for public and irriga-  tion supplies, and/or recreation  (EERC 1984). For the United States  the energy input/output ratio was  calculated to be 1:48 (Table 2); for  Europe an estimate of 1:15 has been  reported (Winter et al. 1992).  Based on regional estimates of land use and average annual energy generation, approximately 63 mil- lion hectares of the total of 917 million ha of land area in the United States are currently covered with reservoirs. To develop the remain- ing best candidate sites, assuming  land requirements similar to those  in past developments, an additional 24 million hectares of land would be needed for water storage (Table 3). Note: ha stands for hectare.

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Photovoltaic Link PV’s are land-inefficient – one liter of nuclear power is equivalent to one hectare of PV cells Jesse H. Ausbel, Director of the Program for the Human Environment and Senior Research Associate at The Rockefeller University, ’07, “Renewable and Nuclear Heresies,” International Journal of Nuclear Governance, Economy, and Ecology, phe.rockefeller.edu/docs/HeresiesFinal.pdf [Tandet] Although negligible as a source of electric power today, photovoltaics also earn a traditional bow. Sadly, PVs remain stuck at about 10% efficiency, with no breakthroughs in 30 years. Today performance reaches about 5–6 watts per square metre. But no economies of scale inhere in PV systems. A 1000MWe PV plant would require about 150  square kilometres plus land for storage and retrieval. Present USA electric consumption would require 150,000 square kilometres or a square almost 400 kilometres on each side.  The PV industry now makes about 600 metres by 600 metres per year. About 600,000  times this amount would be needed to replace the 1000MWe nuclear plant, but only a  few square kilometres have ever been manufactured in total.  Viewed another way, to produce with solar cells the amount of energy generated in one litre of the core of a nuclear reactor requires one hectare of solar cells. To compete at  making the millions of megawatts for the baseload of the world energy market, the cost and complication of solar collectors still need to shrink by orders of magnitude while efficiency soars. 

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Solar Power Link Solar plants require large plots of land- agricultural areas and essential food resources will be destroyed David Pimentel & Marcia Pimentel, 1990, from the Department of Entomology and Division of Nutritional Sciences, respectively, Cornell University, “LAND, ENERGY AND WATER: THE CONSTRAINTS GOVERNING IDEAL U.S. POPULATION SIZE,” http://dieoff.org/page136.htm KAPUSTINA Another factor to consider is that only 0.1% to 0.2% of the total solar energy per hectare can be harvested as biomass in the temperate region (Pimentel et al., 1984). This is because solar energy is captured by plants only during their brief growing season and for three-quarters of the year most plants are not growing (ERAB, 1981). To solve this problem will necessitate the use of relatively large land areas and large capital equipment investments for conversion of the energy into usable form. This same biomass vegetation provides the food and shelter for a wide variety of important natural biota that help keep our natural environment healthy. Some species recycle wastes and nutrients, others help clean our air, soil, and water of pollutants. Without sufficient biomass these essential processes would stop. Yet at our present population level, to sustain our lives and activities we are burning 40% more fossil energy than the total amount of solar energy captured by all plant biomass (ERAB, 1981). Clearly, our consumption of resources, especially nonrenewable fossil fuels, is out of balance with our supplies. The plain fact is that we are depleting these resources at an alarming rate and we now need to find and develop other energy sources. Because almost three-quarters of the land area in the United States is devoted to agriculture and commercial forestry (USDA, 1987), only a relatively small percentage of our land area is available for harvesting biomass and other solar energy technologies to support a solar energy-based U.S. economy. The inevitable conclusion is that the availability of land will be the major constraint to the expanded use of solar energy systems because land is needed for solar energy, and this need cannot encroach on that needed by agriculture, forestry, and natural biota in the ecosystem. Our expanding human population can be expected to put increasingly great pressure on land availability and use. The amount of land required to provide solar-based electricity for a city of 100,000 people illustrates the land constraints. To provide the needed 1 billion kWh/yr from wood biomass would require maintaining 330,000 hectares of permanent forest (Table 3). Even hydropower is, in part, land based, because on average it requires 13,000 hectares of land for an adequate size reservoir. Then too, the land used for the reservoir is often good, productive agricultural land (Pimentel et al., 1984). Thus, solar energy and hydropower have serious land and environmental limitations. Note that nuclear and coal-fired power plants, including mining, require relatively small areas of land compared to biomass and hydropower production.

Solar power requires large areas of land John C. Mankins, former manager of NASA’s Advanced Concepts Studies Office of Space Flight, ’97, “A fresh look at space solar power: New architectures, concepts and technologies,” Advanced Projects Office of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6V1N-3TDH483V&_user=4257664&_rdoc=1&_fmt=&_orig=search&_sort=d&view=c&_acct=C000022698&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=4 257664&md5=25671813feddd13175814cc6a164b28c [Tandet] All solar power concepts - space-based or terrestrial - inherently require large areas. Since the sun provides about 1365 watts per square meter of energy at the Earth’s orbit, generating a megawatt with a 20% efficient array requires an area of about 3700 square meters. However, the SPS concept that emerged by 1979 was not only large, it was also infrastructurerich because it was based upon the large, astronaut-erected space platform concepts that were common of this era in which Gerard O’Neil and others envisioned the eventual construction of vast, artificial cities in space.

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Solar Power Link Solar plants would take up land plots the size of England Steven Milloy, 10-1-07, “Renewable Energy Harms Environment, Says Leading Environmental Activist,” http://www.heartland.org/Article.cfm?artId=21985, KAPUSTINA Solar power is also quite a land hog, according to Ausubel. As photovoltaic cells are only 10 percent efficient and have seen no real breakthroughs in 30 years, U.S. electric consumption would require a 150,000 square kilometer area of photovoltaics--an area the size of England--plus additional land for electricity storage and retrieval. The photovoltaic industry would have to step up its production by 600,000 times its current output to produce the same amount of power as is generated by a single 1,000 megawatt nuclear plant.

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Wind Power Link Wind power uses lots of land – the entire state of Texas would have to be covered to provide enough electricity Jesse H. Ausbel, Director of the Program for the Human Environment and Senior Research Associate at The Rockefeller University, ’07, “Renewable and Nuclear Heresies,” International Journal of Nuclear Governance, Economy, and Ecology, phe.rockefeller.edu/docs/HeresiesFinal.pdf [Tandet] Although, or because, wind provides only 0.2% of US electricity, the idol of wind  evokes much worship. The basic fact of wind is that it provides about 1.2 watts per square metre or 12,000 watts per hectare of year-round average electric power. Consider,  for example, the $212 million wind farm about 30 kilometres south of Lamar, CO, where  108 1.5MWe wind turbines stand 80 metres tall, their blades sweeping to 115 metres.  The wind farm spreads over 4800 hectares. At 30% capacity, peak power density is the  typical 1.2 watts per square metre. One problem is that two of the four wind speed regimes produce no power at all. Calm air means no power of course, and gales faster than 25 metres per second (about  90 kilometres per hour) mean shutting down lest the turbine blow apart. Perhaps three  to ten times more compact than biomass, a wind farm occupying about 770 square kilometres could produce as much energy as one 1000MWe nuclear plant. To meet 2005 US electricity demand of about four million MWhr with around-the-clock-wind would have required wind farms covering over 780,000 square kilometres, about Texas plus Louisiana, or about 1.2 times the area of Alberta. Canada’s demand is about 10% of  the USA and corresponds to about the area of New Brunswick.  For linear thinkers, a single file line of windmills has a power density of about  5 kilowatts per metre. If Christo could string windmills single file along Rocky Mountain  ridges half way from Vancouver to Calgary, about 1200km, the output would be about  the same as one of the four Darlington CANDU units.  Rapidly exhausted economies of scale stop wind. One hundred windy square metres, a good size for a Manhattan apartment, can power a lamp or two, but not the clothes  washer and dryer, microwave oven, plasma TVs or computers or dozens of other devices  in the apartment, or the apartments above or below it. New York City would require every square metre of Connecticut to become a windfarm if the wind blew in Hartford as in  Lamar. The idol of wind would decarbonise but will be minor. 

Wind farms would take up land plots the size of Texas Steven Milloy, 10-1-07, “Renewable Energy Harms Environment, Says Leading Environmental Activist,” http://www.heartland.org/Article.cfm?artId=21985, KAPUSTINA Wind power, Ausubel's study shows, is much less land-intensive than biomass, but that's not saying much. A 770 square kilometer area would produce only as much electricity as a single 1,000 megawatt nuclear plant. A wind farm the size of Texas would be required to extract, store, and transport annual U.S. energy needs. "Every square meter of Connecticut" would have to be turned into a wind farm just to provide all of New York City's electricity demands, Ausubel notes.

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Internal Link – Ag Industry Spillover Increased price of one crop causes farmers to plant more of that crop and less of other crops, jacking prices across the ag sector The Guardian, 5-30-08, “Burning food: why oil is the real villain in the food crisis,” http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/may/30/biofuels.food

[Tandet]

But the effect is not limited to maize. Price rises in one commodity inevitably spill over to other crops. Farmers switch from producing wheat and other grains as the price of corn rises, reducing the supply of other cereals. Similarly, increasingly expensive corn encourages food manufacturers to switch to other grains, and livestock producers to feed their animals with other foods. Soybeans, for example, are used for cattle feed when the price of corn goes up. The IMF thinks that 40% of the inflation in soybean costs is directly down to the expansion in biofuels around the world.

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Internal Link – Global Spillover Global markets are intertwined – price hikes in the US spill over to the rest of the world Brendan Barrett, Ph.D. in environmental urban planning and member of the IUCN Commission on Education and Communication, 7-4-08, “What in the World Is Propelling Food Prices?”, United Nations University, http://ourworld.unu.edu/en/2008/07/04/why-arefood-prices-going-up/#authordata [Tandet] It is very easy, when surrounded by supermarkets full of goods, to believe that this is simply a problem for the developing world. It is certainly true that the immediate impact and consequent food riots have been in developing countries. However, global markets have become increasingly intertwined. The FAO warns that the “linkages and spill-over effects from one market to another have greatly increased in recent years, not only among agricultural commodities, but across all commodities and between commodities and the financial sector.”

High food prices spill over from one market to commodities markets and financial sectors globally FAO, Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (a division of ECOSOC), November ’07, Food Outlook: Global Market Analysis, “HIGH PRICES AND VOLATILITY IN AGRICULTURAL COMMODITIES,” http://www.fao.org/docrep/010/ah876e/ah876e13.htm [Tandet] The persistent upward trend in international prices of most agricultural commodities since last year is only in part a reflection of a tightening in their own supplies. Global markets have become increasingly intertwined. As a result, linkages and spillover effects from one market to another have greatly increased in recent years, not only among agricultural commodities, but across all commodities and between commodities and the financial sector. Market-oriented policies are gradually making agricultural markets more transparent and, in the process, are elongating the financial opportunities for increased portfolio diversification and reduction in risk exposures. This is a development that is taking place just as financial markets around the world are experiencing the most rapid growth, driven by plentiful international liquidity. This abundance of liquidity reflects favourable economic performances around the world, notably among emerging economies, low interest rates and high petroleum prices. These developments have paved the way for massive amounts of cash becoming available for investment (by equity investors, funds, etc.) in markets that use financial instruments linked to the functioning of agricultural commodity markets (e.g. future and option markets). The buoyant financial markets are boosting asset allocation and drawing the attention of speculators to such markets, as a way of spreading their risk and pursuing of more lucrative returns. Such influx of liquidity is likely to influence the underlying spot markets to the extent that they affect the decisions of farmers, traders and processors of agricultural commodities. It seems more likely, though, that speculators contribute more to raising spot price volatility rather than their levels.

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Internal Link – Land Use = Higher Food Prices Drops in production of grains jacks food prices globally – food prices are based on grain supplies Tampa Tribune, 1-20-96, “Grain shortage growing problem,” Nation/World pg. 1, Lexis [Tandet] On a global scale, food supplies - measured by stockpiles of grain - are not abundant. In 1995, world production failed to meet demand for the third consecutive year, said Per Pinstrup-Andersen, director of the International Food Policy Research Institute in Washington, D.C. As a result, grain stockpiles fell from an average of 17 percent of annual consumption in 19941995 to 13 percent at the end of the 1995-1996 season, he said. That's troubling, Pinstrup-Andersen noted, since 13 percent is well below the 17 percent the United Nations considers essential to provide a margin of safety in world food security. During the food crisis of the early 1970s, world grain stocks were at 15 percent. "Even if they are merely blips, higher international prices can hurt poor countries that import a significant portion of their food," he said. "Rising prices can also quickly put food out of reach of the 1.1 billion people in the developing world who live on a dollar a day or less." He also said many people in low-income countries already spend more than half of their income on food.

Loss of agricultural land provokes high food prices The Times, British newspaper, 6-26-08, “We can feed the world: look at all the space,” http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/guest_contributors/article4214797.ece

[Tandet]

This thesis does not stand up to examination. Have a look at this statistic: the total landmass cultivated for arable crops in 2006, according Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (FAO), was 1.402 billion hectares - or 14 million sq km. In other words, all the world's cereals and vegetables are grown on an area equivalent to the USA and half of Canada. A further 34 million sq km - equivalent to the rest of North America, South America and two thirds of Australia - is given over to grazing, much of it extensive, unimproved grassland. The rest of the world - equivalent to the whole of Europe, Asia, Africa, Indonesia plus a third of Australia - is not used for food production in any way. Some of this land, of course, is desert, mountain or rainforest, which either cannot be used for agriculture at all or would require irrigation, engineering or clearance. But a vast amount of it could quite easily be converted into agriculture, but has until now not been needed. Take Russia, which, apart from its northern fringe of tundra, spans the temperate belt. Just 7 per cent of Russia is turned over to arable crops, and another 5 per cent to grazing. Moreover, the quantity of agricultural land in Russia is shrinking: 23 million hectares of arable land - equivalent to the whole of Britain - have been abandoned since the end of communism. For Russia, read the world: the background to rising food prices is the shrinkage of global agriculture over the past decade and a half.

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Internal Link – Land Use = Higher Food Prices Higher food prices are a direct result of land use changes Jerri Husch, Ph.D. in sociology, professor at University of Massachusetts, and UNDP expert, 4-23-08, “Rising Food Prices – What Should Be Done?”, http://www.ifpri.org/pubs/bp/bp001.asp [Tandet] Although this is an excellent analysis, it works from an economic perspective that unfortunately omits another critical reason for the crisis...land use and changing patterns of agricultural production. It is important to remember that much of the world’s poor also used to maintain their nutritional intake through the use of small plot farms and kitchen gardens...plus a chicken, goat or cow or two. The buying up of land...or the renting of land to large agribusiness for factory farming have also affected how much of the world's population can feed itself. When Ghanian women lost their poultry cooperatives due to the lack of capital...they also lost more than their livelihood...they lost the battle to produce their own food stuff....now they can barely afford chicken....which is surplus US. The food crisis is a land use crisis...and that is much deeper than simply an economic crisis in supply and demand.

Land is limited – alt energies take up agricultural land, driving up food prices The Mail, British newspaper, 6-19-08, “Demand for green biofuels pushing up food prices, Government report warns,” http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1027787/Demand-green-biofuels-pushing-food-prices-Government-report-warns.html 'The real problem is the sheer scale of the EU’s biofuels target. Finding enough land to grow 10 per cent of Europe’s road transport fuel will be bad for people and bad for wildlife. So-called sustainability criteria won’t solve this alone. 'European Government’s must drop these targets and concentrate on cutting fuel use by improving public transport and insisting that all new cars use petrol much more smartly. Most of the biofuels now in use are derived from food crops such as corn, palm, soya and rapeseed. In America around a third of all corn is used for fuel, while half of Europe's vegetable oil goes towards biofuel production. The draft report, by Prof Ed Gallagher of the Renewable Fuels Agency, called for more research into the impact of biofuels on food supplies and land use before the Government sets new targets. It also said distinctions should be made between the current first generation of biofuels made from food crops, and future 'second generation' which could be based on non-food crops or plants which grow on ground unsuitable for conventional crops. Critics say biofuels take up land that would otherwise be used for food, reducing food supplies and driving up prices. The grain needed to fill the tank of a 4x4 car could feed one person for a year, they say. They also warn that valuable rain-forests in South America and Asia are being destroyed to create land to meet the demand for biofuels. And they say that the carbon emissions from growing and transporting the fuels are high.

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Internal Link – Land Use = Higher Food Prices Decrease in agricultural land drives up food prices Joachim von Braun, April 2008, director general of the International Food Policy Research Institute, “Rising Food Prices: What Should Be Done?” IFPRI Brief, http://www.ifpri.org/pubs/bp/bp001.pdf, KAPUSTINA The combination of new and ongoing forces is driving the world food situation and, in turn, the prices of food commodities. One emerging factor behind rising food prices is the high price of energy. Energy and agricultural prices have become increasingly intertwined (see figure). With oil prices at an all-time high of more than US$100 a barrel and the U.S. government subsidizing farmers to grow crops for energy, U.S. farmers have massively shifted their cultivation toward biofuel feedstocks, especially maize, often at the expense of soybean and wheat cultivation. About 30 percent of U.S. maize production will go into ethanol in 2008 rather than into world food and feed markets. High energy prices have also made agricultural production more expensive by raising the cost of mechanical cultivation, inputs like fertilizers and pesticides, and transportation of inputs and outputs.

Less agricultural land decreases supply and increases prices Center for Agricultural and Rural Development, Summer 2008, “Breaking the Link Between Food and Biofuels,” http://www.card.iastate.edu/iowa_ag_review/summer_08/article1.aspx, KAPUSTINA Biofuel feedstocks can have both direct and indirect effects on food supplies. If biofuels are produced from feedstocks that would have been used for food, then biofuels directly reduce potential food supplies. This reduction occurs even if feedstock price increases result in an expansion of supply because the expanded feedstock supply will typically reduce the supply of other food crops. For example, U.S. corn used to produce ethanol reduces the amount of feed available for livestock. The large expansion in the supply of corn in response to ethanol's growth reduces the amount of acres planted to soybeans in the United States. In aggregate, there are fewer acres devoted to food production than there would be in the absence of biofuels. The resulting price increase from the reduction in supply will induce farmers to expand planted acres. If the new acres would not otherwise have been cultivated, then there are greenhouse gas consequences from the newly tilled acres that can be attributed to expanded biofuels. The greenhouse gas emissions from tilling new land can dramatically reduce the net reductions that can be achieved with biofuels.

Increase in population means more food is needed- use of land for other purposes jacks food prices USA Today, 2-11-08, “Global demand lifts grain prices, gobbles supplies,” http://www.usatoday.com/money/industries/food/200802-11-food-prices_N.htm, KAPUSTINA The driving force behind higher food prices: More people in developing countries are earning more money and living better. And the first step to a better standard of living is a better diet. It's a phenomenon called Engel's law, named after the 19th-century German economist, Ernst Engel. Engel's law says that as incomes increase, people spend a smaller percentage of their incomes on food — but they also switch from cheaper to more expensive food. Grains make up around 60% of the diet in low-income Asian nations, North Africa and the former Soviet republics. Vegetable oil is about 12% of the diet in Sub-Saharan Africa and about 10% in some Asian and Latin American countries, according to the U.S. Agriculture Department. The vegetable oil share of diets is growing as more processed foods are available in lowincome countries. People in developing countries are also starting to eat more meat, and that drives up demand for grains. It takes about eight times as much corn to produce the same number of calories from meat as from bread, says Homi Kharas, senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. Surging demand for food and feed has tightened grain stocks. The U.S. Agriculture Department, for example, pegs U.S. wheat stockpiles at the lowest level since shortly after World War II. Farmers are reporting tight supplies of seeds for planting. And, says Bob Lee, manager of Fidelity Select Consumer Staples, planting more grain isn't as easy as it may sound. "There's only so much arable land in the world," Lee says. "It's not just pouring capital at the problem; you have to find appropriate land, too. 27

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Internal Link – Land Use = Higher Food Prices Diverting land to alternative energy decreases food supply, while demand continues to rise. Imbalance increases food prices VOA News, 5-16-08, “Market Forces Impact World Food Prices,” http://www.voanews.com/english/NewsAnalysis/200805-16-voa5.cfm, KAPUSTINA . "There are real supply and demand side factors, which are aggravated by speculation, by restrictions on trade. On the supply side, we've had bad news in terms of rice harvests in Australia, in Japan and a few other countries that have diminished the supply, at least temporarily. We also have had a switch to biofuels that has pulled land out of food production, most importantly corn. We are diverting land to produce some biofuels," says Baker. "On the demand side, we are seeing growth. We are seeing increased demand from China and India as they grow wealthier." David Lehman of the CME Group, a commodities firm that formed after last year's merger of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange and the Chicago Board of Trade, says growing wealth in developing countries like China and India means more demand. "It's hard for the rest of the market to fathom just what impact that would have. There are billions of people in that part of the world that suddenly have more disposable income. So there's greater demand for meat, which is greater demand for livestock feed, for corn and soybeans. It's very difficult for the market to know how quickly that supply will be needed. And high prices do that," says Lehman. "That's exactly the role of the market."

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Internal Link – Malnourishment Higher food prices reduce access to food, leading to irreversible gaps in health and productivity and malnourishment Mark W. Rosegrant, Director of Environment and Production Technology Division at the International Food Policy Research Institute, 5-7-08, “Biofuels and Grain Prices: Impacts and Policy Responses,” Testimony before the U.S. Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, http://www.ifpri.org/pubs/testimony/rosegrant20080507.asp [Tandet] Higher food prices reduce the poor's access to food, which has possible long-term, irreversible consequences for health, productivity, and well-being—particularly if higher prices lead to reduced food consumption by infants and preschool children. If the current biofuel expansion continues, calorie availability in developing countries is expected to grow more slowly; and the number of malnourished children is projected to increase, even though agricultural value added in these regions would also accelerate as a result of higher farm incomes.

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Internal Link – Small Business Collapse Small businesses are at a crisis point – if food prices rise further, small businesses will collapse Retail Bakers of America, March ’08, “Statement on Wheat Crisis,” http://www.rbanet.com/RBA%20Statement.pdf. [Tandet] There is a “CRISIS” happening to bakers of every type and size. Commodities prices for every item we use are out of control and rising faster than we could ever hope to catch them. If there is not some type of relief soon many small businesses will not survive. Wheat prices are putting enormous pressure on the baker’s ability to produce affordable, healthy products for our consumers. RBA and retail bakers are very concerned about the price increases that will have to be passed on to consumers as bakery owners take action to ensure the survival of their businesses. Retail bakers in U.S. are facing escalating costs for commodities that they have never experienced before and that are threatening to overwhelm the entire industry. With critically low reserves and the severe conditions in the wheat markets, the baking industry is at a crisis point. RBA is urging Congress to support an early out of the non-environmentally-sensitive acreage from the Conservation Reserve Program. RBA also urges Congress to ensure an adequate level of strategic grain

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Internal Link – US Foreign Food Aid Higher food prices force cuts in US foreign food aid International Food Policy Research Institute paraphrasing Jonathan Dworken (qualifications in card), 2-12-08, “Rising Food Prices: Implications and Consequences,” http://www.ifpri.org/events/seminars/2008/20080212foodprices.asp [Tandet] Jonathan Dworken, deputy director of the U.S. Agency for International Development’s Office of Food for Peace (FFP), explained that because food prices are rising while food aid funding is staying relatively steady, the level of food aid tonnage and the number of beneficiaries are declining in a context of increasing needs. In the six months preceding February 2008, the price estimates of commodities purchased for FFP’s food aid programs rose by 41 percent. With these higher than anticipated prices, FFP now needs to set aside up to an additional US$120 million for commodities already purchased, or in the process of being purchased, for emergency programs because their prices are higher than anticipated. This means that up to US$120 million must be cut from emergency food aid contributions planned for the second half of the fiscal year.

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Famine Impact Ext. World War 3 results William H. Calvin, Professor of Biology – University of Washington, ’02, “A Brain for All Season”, http://WilliamCalvin.com/BrainForAllSeasons/ NAcoast.htm] The population-crash scenario is surely the most appalling. Plummeting crop yields will cause some powerful countries to try to take over their neighbors or distant lands – if only because their armies, unpaid and lacking food, will go marauding, both at home and across the borders. The better-organized countries will attempt to use their armies, before they fall apart entirely, to take over countries with significant remaining resources, driving out or starving their inhabitants if not using modern weapons to accomplish the same end: eliminating competitors for the remaining food. This will be a worldwide problem – and could easily lead to a Third World War – but Europe's vulnerability is particularly easy to analyze.The last abrupt cooling, the Younger Dryas, drastically altered Europe's climate as far east as Ukraine. Presentday Europe has more than 650 million people. It has excellent soils, and largely grows its own food. It could no longer do so if it lost the extra warming from the North Atlantic.

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High Food Prices Bad High food prices kill half the planet Lester Brown, President – Earth Policy Institute, ‘05, People and the Planet, “Falling Water Tables 'Could Hit Food Supply'”, 2-7 http://www.peopleandplanet.net/doc.php?id=2424] Many Americans see terrorism as the principal threat to security, but for much of humanity, the effect of water shortages and rising temperatures on food security are far more important issues. For the 3 billion people who live on 2 dollars a day or less and who spend up to 70 per cent of their income on food, even a modest rise in food prices can quickly become life-threatening. For them, it is the next meal that is the overriding concern."

Food price fluctuations kill a billion Tampa Tribune, 1-20-96, Lexis That's troubling, Pinstrup-Andersen noted, since 13 percent is well below the 17 percent the United Nations considers essential to provide a margin of safety in world food security. During the food crisis of the early 1970s, world grain stocks were at 15 percent. "Even if they are merely blips, higher international prices can hurt poor countries that import a significant portion of their food," he said. "Rising prices can also quickly put food out of reach of the 1.1 billion people in the developing world who live on a dollar a day or less." He also said many people in low-income countries already spend more than half of their income on food.

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High Food Prices Bad Higher Prices do not cause production Kimberly Ann Elliot, Senior Fellow – Center for Global Development and Peterson Institute for International Economics, ’06, Delivering on Doha: Farm Trade and the Poor, p. 83-85] Higher world prices resulting from agricultural liberalization by rich countries should stimulate increased production and exports by farmers in poor countries with comparative advantage in those products—if the price signal gets to those farmers. But as recent research at the World Bank indicates, border price changes do not always reach remote areas where the costs of getting goods to and from markets are high (Nicita 2004). Government policies, such as overvalued exchange rates or the maintenance of monopolistic state trading companies, can also mute market signals. Unless these domestic challenges are also addressed, potential benefits from trade liberalization may go unrealized. “Connecting the poor to markets” (Lucas and Timmer 2005) requires access to credit and inputs, storage facilities, telecommunications, roads, and ports. Processing facilities, which add value and create jobs for the rural poor, especially for products with higher value added such as meat and dairy and the more dynamic fruit and vegetable sectors, require reliable sources of electricity for refrigeration. In many areas with spotty rainfall, irrigation projects will also be necessary to expand production. Many parts of sub-Saharan Africa need improved seed varieties and methods for dealing with pests. Some of the barriers to getting products to market in developing countries are suggested by the data in table 4.10. The road network in low-income countries is less than a quarter of that in upper-middle-income countries, and only a quarter of those roads are paved. Even in middle-income countries only half the roads are paved, compared with 95 percent in developed countries. Thirty of the 31 land-locked developing countries have low or lower-middle incomes, and most of them are in sub-Saharan Africa. Aircraft departures are much less frequent in lower-income countries, and only about 4 out of 100 people in low-income countries have phones, versus about 1 in 2 in upper-middle-income countries. Further indication of relative trade costs is provided by the costs of insurance and freight, which are on average twice as high for developing-country exports as for developed countries.

High Food Prices Won’t Boost Income Dr. Daryll E. Ray, Professor and Blasingame Chair of Excellence, Director of the Agricultural Policy Analysis Center – University of Tennessee, ’03, “Rethinking US Agricultural Policy: Changing Course to Secure Farmer Livelihoods Worldwide”, Agricultural Policy Analysis Center Report, 8-20, http://www.agpolicy.org/blueprint/APAC%20Report%208-20-03%20WITH%20COVER.pdf] Higher prices alone will not guarantee sustainable livelihoods for the world’s poorest farmers. A range of national and international policies affecting credit, land ownership, technology, transportation, tariff protection and access to markets is essential if agricultural production is to deliver a better future for farmers. However, as this study has shown, the US is exporting poverty with its products by its continuous pursuit of measures that depress prices throughout the world. At the same time, it is jeopardizing its own diversified family-farm base. Policies that assure rock-bottom world prices for staple foods are guarantors of continued economic distress affecting billions of people. Since our policies determine the fate of farmers well beyond our borders, the welfare and future of those farmers must be part of America's goal in crafting new approaches. Changing US policy alone cannot solve the global crisis in agriculture. Most, if not all, major exporting countries will have to recognize that they, too, bear a heavy responsibility to cooperate with the US in a concerted effort to improve farmer livelihoods. If other nations do not recognize this responsibility, it is doubtful that the necessary changes will ever be enacted.

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China Impact Module Increased food prices cause Chinese econ collapse Lester Brown, 1995, founded the Earth Policy Institute. 23 honorary degrees, a MacArthur Fellowship, the 1987 United Nations' Environment Prize, the 1989 World Wide Fund for Nature Gold Medal, and the 1994 Blue Planet. , “Who Will Feed China?” p. 133-4, Worldwatch Institute, KAPUSTINA In the new era, political leaders will be called on to govern under unfamiliar conditions. Their understanding of the world, their values, and their priorities were shaped in a far different age. With the new era comes the need for different priorities in the use of public resources- priorities that recognize food scarcity rather than military aggression as the principal threat to security. In an integrated economy where expanding human demand for food is colliding with the earth’s natural limits, population growth anywhere limits the ability of popular opinion, it will not be in the devastation of poverty-stricken Somalia or Haiti but in the booming economy of China that we will see the inevitable collision between the expanding demand for food and the limits of some of the earth’s most basic natural systems. In addition to raising food prices, the failure to arrest the deterioration of our basic life-support systems could bring economic growth to a halt, dropping incomes and food purchasing power throughout the world. It could lead to political unrest and a swelling of hungry migrants across national borders. Rising food prices and the associated

economic and political disruptions within China could bring that nation’s economic miracle to a premature end.

Chinese economic collapse leads to World War Three – multiple scenarios Tom Plate, professor at UCLA, 6-28-03, ““Neo-Cons A Bigger Risk to Bush Than China,” Straits Times [Tandet] But imagine a China disintegrating - on its own, without neo-conservative or Central Intelligence Agency prompting, much less outright military invasion - because the economy (against all predictions) suddenly collapses. That would knock Asia into chaos. A massive flood of refugees would head for Indonesia and other places with poor border controls, which don't want them and can't handle them; some in Japan might lick their lips at the prospect of World War II Revisited and look to annex a slice of China. That would send Singapore and Malaysia - once occupied by Japan - into nervous breakdowns. Meanwhile, India might make a grab for Tibet, and Pakistan for Kashmir. Then you can say hello to World War III, Asiastyle. That's why wise policy encourages Chinese stability, security and economic growth - the very direction the White House now seems to prefer.

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China Impact Uniqueness China food prices stabilizing now because of good harvest CCTV, 7-16-08, “bumper harvest to stabilize food prices,” http://www.cctv.com/english/20080716/104603.shtml, KAPUSTINA China has been blessed with another summer grain harvest, one that's 2.5 trillion kilograms larger than last year's at more than 120 trillion kilograms. This is the first time China has enjoyed five bumper harvests in a row since 1949, when the People's Republic of China was founded. Analysts say this will help stabilize the food prices and inflation as a whole. Another bumper harvest for grain farmers. They're happy, because the harvest will bring in more money since the price of grain is about the same or a little higher than last year. Farmers say they're willing to grow grain on more land and plan to invest in irrigation systems to grow in a more economical and environmentally-friendly way.

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Economy Impact Module Increased food prices jack interest rates and collapse the economy Asia Times, 6-11-08, “food summit overlooks price-surge ingredient,” http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Global_Economy/JF11Dj04.html, KAPUSTINA The cost, in the form of accelerating energy and food prices, will be borne by ordinary citizens throughout the world. Had the Fed not succumbed to political pressures and followed prudent monetary policies, oil and food prices would have remained relatively stable. By ignoring the contributions of monetary policy to the food crisis at the summit, and with the monetary brake removed, oil and food prices will continue to race to dangerously higher and higher levels, with attendant recessionary effects and aggravation of malnutrition on the global level. Money matters - a lot Economist and French presidential advisor Jacques Rueff, in his book the Age of Inflation (1964), argued that money matters to the point that it can threaten political stability and even civilization. He noted that exceptionally expansionary monetary policy in the US and United Kingdom, through very low interest rates, brought a powerful economic boom in 1927-1929 and ended in a credit crisis and the Great Depression. He showed that a small village could be pushed into famine by creating purchasing power through credit that is not matched by an equivalent supply. Within a few years, the small village will have exhausted its savings capacity and would collapse into starvation. The same image, he contended, applies to the world economy. The result of economic mismanagement, budgetary deficits, war spending and loose monetary policies is inflation, which is the single-worst economic disaster that can afflict a nation or the world economy. Rueff forcefully argued that inflation encourages a quandary and penalizes savings and investment. He emphasized that monetary equilibrium can be maintained only when purchasing power is equal to the value of wealth and no excess liquidities develop in the economy. Excess liquidities will translate immediately into rising prices. His main prophecy was that the world economy would be doomed to succumb into inflationary disorders as long as sound monetary policies were not established. Rueff emphasized the role of the price mechanism in achieving economic efficiency. The setting of interest rates by central banks is a form of price control and in turn causes serious distortions in the economy. Interest rate control, while not feasible under the gold standard, has been criticized by a number of notable economists, including Milton Friedman. Fixing interest rates can force the real market interest rate below the natural interest rate, creating an unlimited demand for loans and igniting a cumulative inflationary process. By forcing nominal interest rates to low levels and real interest rates to a negative range in a bid to create a new speculative housing boom (echoing the style of former Fed chairman Alan Greenspan), the Ben Bernanke Fed is distorting the price mechanism and preventing recession from running its natural course. Given low yields on bonds, and fearing a collapse in the price of bonds, investors have become attracted towards commodity and currency speculation. Moreover, because of low interest rates, the cost of speculating and holding positions in the futures markets has become low while the yields are high. As interest-rate control translates into accelerating oil and food prices, the real economy will be continuously depressed. Subsequently, the US unemployment rate rose to 5.5% in May 2008, and under a combination of the accelerator and multiplier effects, the economy will go deeper into recession in the coming months. While Bernanke's theory of restoring a housing boom in the midst of millions of home foreclosures is a novelty worthy of a Nobel Prize, so far aggressive money expansion has been followed by further collapse of housing prices. Eventually, the turning point in housing prices will be reached when economic desolation spreads and hyperinflation prevails.

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Economy Impact Module Global economic collapse leads to nuke war T. E. Bearden, LTC, U.S. Army (Retired), CEO, CTEC Inc., Director, Association of Distinguished American Scientists (ADAS), Fellow Emeritus, Alpha Foundation's Institute for Advanced Study (AIAS)June 24, 2000 (http://www.seaspower.com/EnergyCrisisBearden.htm) As the collapse of the Western economies nears, one may expect catastrophic stress on the 160 developing nations as the developed nations are forced to dramatically curtail orders. International Strategic Threat Aspects History bears out that desperate nations take desperate actions. Prior to the final economic collapse, the stress on nations will have increased the intensity and number of their conflicts, to the point where the arsenals of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) now possessed by some 25 nations, are almost certain to be released. As an example, suppose a starving North Korea {[7]} launches nuclear weapons upon Japan and South Korea, including U.S. forces there, in a spasmodic suicidal response. Or suppose a desperate China — whose long-range nuclear missiles (some) can reach the United States — attacks Taiwan. In addition to immediate responses, the mutual treaties involved in such scenarios will quickly draw other nations into the conflict, escalating it significantly. Strategic nuclear studies have shown for decades that, under such extreme stress conditions, once a few nukes are launched, adversaries and potential adversaries are then compelled to launch on perception of preparations by one's adversary. The real legacy of the MAD concept is this side of the MAD coin that is almost never discussed. Without effective defense, the only chance a nation has to survive at all is to launch immediate full-bore pre-emptive strikes and try to take out its perceived foes as rapidly and massively as possible. As the studies showed, rapid escalation to full WMD exchange occurs. Today, a great percent of the WMD arsenals that will be unleashed, are already on site within the United States itself {[8]}. The resulting great Armageddon will destroy civilization as we know it, and perhaps most of the biosphere, at least for many decades

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GMO Impact Module High food prices increase support for GMOs International Herald Tribune, 7-8-08, “high food prices may cut opposition to genetically modified food, http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/07/08/business/gmo.php, KAPUSTINA ZURICH - Like many stores in Europe, the Coop chain of supermarkets in Switzerland does not specify whether goods are genetically modified - because none are. But a wave of food-price inflation may help wash away popular opposition to socalled Frankenstein foods.http://www.commondreams.org/archive/wp-content/photos/0708_05_1.jpg “I think there’s a lot of resistance in Switzerland,” said a shopper, Beatrice Hochuli, as she picked out a salad for dinner at a bustling supermarket outside the main Zurich station. “Most people in Switzerland are quite against it.” Consumers, even those from relatively wealthy parts of the world, are rarely first in line to adopt new technologies. Although food prices are up more than 50 percent since May 2006, according to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization’s Food Price Index, Europeans remain wary of foods derived from tinkering with the genetic makeup of plants. But policy makers and food companies are pressing the genetic modification topic in a bid to temper aversion to biotech crops like pesticide-resistant rapeseed for oils and “Roundup-ready” soybeans, which tolerate dousing of the Roundup herbicide. These are crops already common in the United States and other major food exporters like Argentina and Brazil. The European Commission has said that it believes biotech crops can alleviate the current crisis in food supply, although it added in June that expediency should not overrule strict scientific scrutiny of the use of the technology involved. The chairman of Nestlé, the world’s biggest food group, has said it is impossible to feed the world without genetically modified organisms. Meanwhile, the British government’s former chief scientific adviser, David King, has said over the past week that genetically modified crops hold the key to solving the world’s food crisis. He called in a Financial Times interview for a “third green revolution,” in reference to two waves of innovation that helped increase crop yields sharply in Asia over the past 50 years. Climate change and increasing concern about fresh water supplies are helping to fuel interest in new seed varieties likely to be more resistant to drought and able to produce reasonable yields with significantly less water. GM technology still has many opponents, who fear that genetically

modified crops can create health problems for animals and humans, wreak havoc on the environment, and give far-reaching control over the world’s food to a few corporate masters. Yet a European Commission-sponsored opinion poll last month showed slight change in awareness and acceptance of the technology. “For me it is just a matter of time before we get our head around GM,” said Jonathan Banks at the market information company AC Nielsen. “The way people will learn to live with GM is to say ‘we do it product by product and make sure everything is OK,”‘ Banks said. “At the moment we have a knee-jerk reaction which thinks of Frankenstein foods.” The European Union has not approved any genetically modified crops for a decade, and the Union’s 27 member countries often clash on the issue. Outside the EU, Switzerland has a moratorium on growing GM crops, though that authorities have granted permission for three GM crop trials between 2008 and 2010 for research. The market represents a substantial opportunity for biotechnology companies: the European seeds market is worth $7.9 billion, out of a global total of $32.7 billion, according to data from Cropnosis, a consultancy. The global genetically modified seeds market was worth $6.9 billion in 2007 and is set to grow further. Agrochemical companies are riding a wave of high food prices and soaring demand for farm goods, and Monsanto, DuPont and Syngenta have all raised 2008 earnings forecasts. Although high prices are a boon for farm suppliers, much of the cost has been passed on to consumers, sparking protests in many countries including Argentina, Indonesia and Mexico. Others also see opportunity: in June, the chocolate maker Mars, the computer giant IBM and the U.S. Department of Agriculture said they would map the DNA of the cocoa tree to try to broaden the crop’s $5 billion market. In a Eurobarometer opinion poll in March, the number of European respondents saying they lacked information on genetically modified food fell to 26 percent, compared with 40 percent in the previous survey, which took place in 2005. But 58 percent were apprehensive about the use of such crop technology and just 21 percent were in favor, down from 26 percent in a 2006 Eurobarometer survey on biotechnology. “People do change attitudes, just gradually, because they become used to technologies,” said Jonathan Ramsay, spokesman for Monsanto, the world’s biggest seed company. “Consumers are looking at prices, consumers hear the

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GMO Impact Module stories about food production, growing population in the world, and I think people do understand that agriculture needs to be efficient.”

GMOs kill honeybees, which disrupts the ecosystem and results in extinction Hutaff 07 (Matt Hutaff, "Give Bees a Chance," The Simon, May 1, , pg. http://www.thesimon.com/magazine/articles/canon_fodder/01375_give_bees_chance.html), KAPUSTINA Rumor has it Albert Einstein once declared humanity could only outlive the bee by about four years. His reasoning was simple: "no more bees, no more pollination, no more plants, no more animals, no more man." Nothing like entomological doomsday scenarios from a classical physicist, right? Nonetheless, it looks like we're poised to find out if the godfather of relativity is right. Bees are disappearing at an alarming rate, particularly in the United States and Germany. And while it's normal for hive populations to fall during colder winter months, the recent exodus is puzzling beekeepers and researchers around the world. Are we witnessing the death throes of the human race firsthand? Will the bee go the way of the dodo? Not likely, but I'll tell you one thing – whatever's driving the collapse of the bee population, it's man-made. "During the last three months of 2006, we began to receive reports from commercial beekeepers of an alarming number of honey bee colonies dying in the eastern United States," says Maryann Frazier, an apiarist with Penn State University. "Since the beginning of the year, beekeepers from all over the country have been reporting unprecedented losses," including one gentleman who's lost 800 of his 2,000 colonies in less than four months. Those losses are atypical. The usual causes of death, aside from climate, are varroa mites, hive beetles, and wax moths, which infest hives weakened by sickness and malnutrition. Annual casualties tend to hover in the 20th percentile, and beekeepers work with entomologists to protect their investments via antibiotics, miticides, and advanced pest management. Not so today. The current blight has spread across the country rapidly, leaving abandoned hives full of uneaten food and unhatched larvae. Natural predators brave enough to enter behave erratically, "acting in a way you normally don' t expect them to act," says beekeeper Julianne Wooten. And whereas naturally abandoned hives are infested by other insects within a short period of time, hives affected by what is tentatively labeled colony collapse disorder (CCD) are avoided. California and Texas have been hit particularly hard by the sudden disappearance of bees, but dozens of other states are reporting major losses as well. And when you consider bees are big business as well as a critical part of the food chain, that vanishing act is no laughing matter. Consider: bees are essential for pollinating over 90 varieties of vegetables and fruits, including apples, avocados, blueberries, and cherries; pollination increases the yield and quality of crops by approximately $15 billion annually; and California's almond industry alone contributes $2 billion to the local economy, and depends on 1.4 million bees, which are brought in from all over the United States. Bees stimulate the food supply as well as the economy. So what's the cause of colony collapse? Suspicions are pointed in several different directions, including cell phone transmissions and agricultural pesticides, some of which are known to be poisonous to bees. But if these two factors are responsible, why are the deaths not a global phenomenon? The bee collapse began in isolated pockets before progressing rapidly around the nation. If cell phones are to blame, shouldn't the effect have been simultaneous, and witnessed years ago? And if pesticides are strictly to blame, shouldn't beekeepers near major farm systems be able to track those pollutants and narrow the field of possible suspects? Perhaps they have – and the culprit is bigger than we imagine. Several scientists have come forward with the startling claim that genetically modified food – you know, that blessing from above that would solve famine and put food in the belly of every undernourished, Third World child – is destroying bees. How could something so wondrous as pest-resistant corn kill millions upon millions of bees? Simple – by producing so much natural pesticide that bees are either driven mad or away. Most genetically- modified seeds have a transplanted segment of DNA that creates a well-known bacterium, bacillus thuringiensis (Bt), in its cells. Normally Bt is not a problem – it's a naturally-occurring pesticide that's been used as a spray for years by farmers looking to control crop damage from butterflies. And it's effective at helping beekeepers keep bees alive, too – Bt is sprayed under hive lids to keep those pesky wax moths from attacking. But "instead of the bacterial solution being sprayed on the plant, where it is eaten by the target insect, the genes that contain the insecticidal traits are incorporated into the genome of the farm crop," writes biologist and beekeeper John McDonald. "As the transformed plant grows, these Bt genes are replicated along with the plant genes so that each cell contains its own poison pill that kills the target insect. "Canadian beekeepers have detected the disappearance of the wax moth in untreated hives,

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GMO Impact Module apparently a result of worker bees foraging in fields of transgenic canola plants. [And] the planting of transgenic corn and soybean has increased exponentially, according to statistics from farm states. Tens of millions of acres of transgenic crops are allowing Bt genes to move off crop fields." McDonald's analysis stands up under scrutiny. A former agronomist has commented that the one trial of GM crops in the Netherlands quickly led to colony collapse within 100 kilometers of the fields, and it's reasonable to hypothesize nature's pollinators would bear an averse reaction to plants with poison coursing through every stem. "The amount of Bt in these plants is enough to trigger allergies in some people, and irritate the skin and eyes of farmers who handle the crops," writes Patrick Wiebe. "In India, when sheep were used to clear a field of leftover Bt cotton, several sheep died after eating it." If it can kill a sheep, it can certainly kill a bee. What can be done? Precious little if gene-modified plants are the genesis of colony collapse. "There is no way to keep genetically modified genes from escaping into the wild," says Mike Rivero. "Wild varieties of corn in Mexico have been found to contain artificial genes carried by the wind and bees. Indeed it is probable that the gene that makes the plant cells manufacture a pesticide has already escaped, which means this problem will only spread. "This is far more dangerous than a toxic spill, which confines itself to the original spill and the downwind/downstream plumes. A mistake in a gene, once allowed into the wild, can spread across the entire planet." Genetically-modified food is produced by companies such as Monsanto (how many of its scientists do you think drive a hybrid?). Despite a number of tests, the food created by these gene-spliced crops are considered a failure. It consistently makes animals ill, increases liver toxicity, and damages kidneys. What's the incentive to grow this food? What's the incentive to eat it? In our dash to trademark the very building blocks of our food supply, companies experimenting with "upgrading" crops may have irreparably damaged one of nature's most important contributors. Instead of approaching famine from a balanced perspective, corporations have patented the right to subsist. If Einstein's lesser-known theory is right, they have unwittingly become Shiva, the destroyer of worlds

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GMO Impact Ext GMOs are highly toxic to bees and are slowly killing off the population Cummins Professor of Genetics at the University of Western Ontario 07 (Prof. Joe Cummins, "Requiem for the Honeybee: Neoniccotinoid insecticides used in seed dressing may be responsible for the collapse of honeybee colonies," Organic Consumers Association, 24 April 2007, pg. http://www.organicconsumers.org/articles/article_4972.cfm) KAPUSTINA There has been a great deal of concern over the decline of the honeybee across the US, Europe and Australia [1] (The Mystery of Disappearing Honeybees, this series). The United States National Research Council (USNRC) Committee of the Status of Pollinators in North America report [2] focused on the impact of parasites, fungi, bacteria and viruses, but did not pay much attention on the impact of pesticides and genetically modified (GM) crops, which may have lethal or sub-lethal effects on the bee's behaviour or resistance to infection. There have been strong responses to the report. Any suggestion that GM crops and pesticides may be causing the decline of honeybees is met with heated denial from the proponents. Certainly, honeybees are declining both in areas where GM crops are widely grown, and in other areas where GM crops are released in small test plots. Is there a common thread that links both areas? Yes there is, the universal use of systemic pesticide seed dressing in GM crops and conventional crops; in particular, the widespread application of a relatively new class of systemic insecticides - the neonicotinoids - that are highly toxic to insects including bees at very low concentrations. Systemic pesticide seed dressings protect the newly sprouted seed at a vulnerable time in the plant's development. Seed dressings include systemic insecticides and fungicides, which often act synergistically in controlling early seedling pests. The neonicotinoid insecticides include imidacloprid, thiamethoxam, clothianidin, and several others. Imidacloprid is used extensively in seed dressing for field and horticultural crops, and particularly for maize, sunflower and rapeseed (canola). Imidacloprid was detected in soils, plant tissues and pollen using HPLC coupled to a mass spectrometer. The levels of the insecticide found in pollen suggested probable delirious effects on honeybees [3]. For several years since 2000, French and Italian beekeepers have been noticing that imidacloprid is lethal to bees, and the insecticide is suspected to be causing the decline of hive populations by affecting the bee's orientation and ability to return to the hive.

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Hegemony Impact Module Higher food prices bring Chinese out of poverty South China Morning Post, 4-21-08, “Food Price Surge a Blessing, not a Curse,” Lexis

[Tandet]

But despite the widespread air of panic, not everyone agrees that higher food prices are a bad thing, at least for China. According to Stanford University agricultural economist Scot Rozelle and his collaborator Huang Jikun of the Centre for Chinese Agricultural Policy, rising food prices represent nothing less than "an opportunity for China to eliminate rural poverty completely". Dr Rozelle has no doubt at all why Chinese food prices are rising so steeply. He blames the US government's misguided subsidies for biofuels. With the price of oil at a record high of $117US a barrel, as much as 40 per cent of the US corn crop is now being used to produce ethanol, says Dr Rozelle, crowding out food and animal feed cultivation. As a result, prices are going up. "What happens to the oil price happens to food prices," he says (see the first chart below). And what happens to international food prices happens in China. Dr Rozelle has little patience with the often cited argument that because China only imports 1 per cent to 2 per cent of its food, domestic prices are not affected by international fluctuations. He points out that although the state interferes in the pricing of some staples such as wheat and rice, most food prices are set by the market and there are few barriers to international trade. As a result, prices in China closely follow global food prices (see the second chart below). With energy prices expected to remain high indefinitely, that means China had better get used to more expensive food for the foreseeable future. Unlike most observers, however, Dr Rozelle and Dr Huang believe higher food prices have positive implications - provided Beijing can resist the temptation to tinker with the market. Although higher food prices are not popular with city-dwellers, with wages rising at close to a 20 per cent annual rate, few urban workers have been left substantially worse off by the recent increases, says Dr Rozelle. In contrast, the structural shift to more expensive food driven by rising energy prices will encourage investment in the agricultural sector and significantly raise rural incomes.

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Hegemony Impact Module Poverty is keeping China from challenging US hegemony right now – when poverty is eliminated China will rise The Daily, newspaper of Washington University, 2-6-08, “Hegemony decline: is China next?” http://thedaily.washington.edu/2008/2/6/hegemonic-decline/, [Tandet] Thus, the Chinese “threat” hovers over American politics and minds as more than just a subtle afterthought. But is China really capable of hegemonic victory? The short answer is no. China is plagued with problems, so many, in fact, that it’s highly unlikely to ever surpass the United States — or even come close. Once its growth plateaus, the thorns in its side will become more evident. China is beleaguered with high levels of corruption, poverty, HIV infection and extreme pollution. Its monumental economic growth and industrialization have come at a heavy price in the form of environmental pollution. In some parts of the country, there is no more potable water, and in other parts it’s predicted that there will be no water sources within 20 years (if growth continues at this rate). Its massive population only fuels the problem, as natural resources are running low and overpopulation is more conducive to the spread of disease. Without resources, growth is unsustainable and dependency on other countries is inevitable. Furthermore, World Bank findings confirmed that “China’s economy and GDP per capita are 40 percent smaller than earlier analysis had asserted, and that Chinese poverty levels involve 300 million people under the World Bank’s dollar-aday standard rather than 100 million as previously thought,” as noted in the Carnegie Endowment Report. Though one should be wary of statistics and perhaps of the World Bank’s findings, it goes to show that there is a disparity between the perception of China’s success and the reality. The other disparity is economic. China has one of the largest economic disparities between urban areas and rural areas in the world. China also faces a waning communist system, which has been outdated and corrupt for years. Its bureaucracy is so large that little can be done in terms of reform.

Loss of hegemony leads to nuclear war Zalmay Khalilzad, Senior assisnant at RAND Institute and former U.S. ambassador Spring, 1995, The Washington Quarterly, Rethinking Grand Strategy, Losing the Moment? The United States and the World After the Cold War, l/n Under the third option, the United States would seek to retain global leadership and to preclude the rise of a global rival or a return to multipolarity for the indefinite future. On balance, this is the best long-term guiding principle and vision. Such a vision is desirable not as an end in itself, but because a world in which the United States exercises leadership would have tremendous advantages. First, the global environment would be more open and more receptive to American values -democracy, free markets, and the rule of law. Second, such a world would have a better chance of dealing cooperatively with the world's major problems, such as nuclear proliferation, threats of regional hegemony by renegade states, and lowlevel conflicts. Finally, U.S. leadership would help preclude the rise of another hostile global rival, enabling the United States and the world to avoid another global cold or hot war and all the attendant dangers, including a global nuclear exchange. U.S. leadership would therefore be more conducive to global stability than a bipolar or a multipolar balance of power system.

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HIV/AIDS Impact Module High food prices increase prostitution – only way for women to afford food IRIN News, part of the UN Office for the Coordination of Human Affairs, 7-16-08, “AFGHANISTAN: Food prices fuelling sex work in north?,” http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=79278[Tandet] High food prices, drought, unemployment and lack of socio-economic opportunities are pushing some women and young girls in northern Afghanistan into commercial sex work, women’s rights activists and several affected women told IRIN. “I have no way of feeding my children other than by doing this disgusting job,” said 27-year-old Nasima (not her real name), a commercial sex worker in Balkh Province. Clad in a blue `burqa’, Najiba, a sex worker in Mazar-i-Sharrif, the provincial capital of Balkh Province, said she had been pushed into sex work after food prices started rising dramatically in November 2007. “I am a widow and I have to feed my five children. I am illiterate and no one will give me a job. I hate to be a prostitute but if I stop doing this job my children will starve to death,” Najiba told IRIN. Most women who turn to sex work are illiterate widows who lack professional skills to find alternative employment, according to Malalai Usmani, head of a local women's rights non-governmental organisation (NGO) in Balkh. “Extreme poverty and the obligation to feed their dependents have increased prostitution among women,” Usmani said.

Prostitution is the main cause of HIV spread John Bambenek, Jan. 2, 2007, Executive Director of the Tumaini Foundation, "The ACLU is Fighting for the Trafficking of Women Worldwide," http://prostitution.procon.org/, KAPUSTINA "[T]he advocacy for legalized prostitution and AIDS prevention are mutually exclusive. One cannot support the reduction of AIDS infections and support legal prostitution at the same time. Prostitution remains one of the leading vectors for AIDS infection. This is true in the case of both legal and illegal prostitution. Prostitutes, because of their many partners, have a greatly increased risk of exposure to HIV. They are likewise able to spread HIV to many other partners. While a promiscuous society can approach a similar infection rate, prostitution is a leading avenue of spreading HIV. While on its face condoms seem like they could prevent the spread of AIDS, the trust [sic] is that they don’t. HIV infection rates increase in countries that have condom distribution programs. Abstinence programs, on the other hand, has been shown in Uganda to reduce AIDS infections. The simple truth is that when one only has sex with one’s spouse, the risk of AIDS exposure approaches zero."

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HIV/AIDS Impact Module AND, AIDS causes extinction Michael Kibaara Muchiri, Staff Member at Ministry of Education in Nairobi, 3-6-2K, “Will Annan finally put out Africa’s fires?” About 13 million of the 16 million people who have died of AIDS are in Africa, according to the UN. What barometer is used to proclaim a holocaust if this number is not a sure measure? There is no doubt that AIDS is the most serious threat to humankind, more serious than hurricanes, earthquakes, economic crises, capital crashes or floods. It has no cure yet. We are watching a whole continent degenerate into ghostly skeletons that finally succumb to a most excruciating, dehumanizing death. Gore said that his new initiative, if approved by the U.S. Congress, would bring U.S. contributions to fighting AIDS and other infectious diseases to $ 325 million. Does this mean that the UN Security Council and the U.S. in particular have at last decided to remember Africa? Suddenly, AIDS was seen as threat to world peace, and Gore would ask the congress to set up millions of dollars on this case. The hope is that Gore does not intend to make political capital out of this by painting the usually disagreeable Republican-controlled Congress as the bad guy and hope the buck stops on the whole of current and future U.S. governments' conscience. Maybe there is nothing left to salvage in Africa after all and this talk is about the African-American vote in November's U.S. presidential vote. Although the UN and the Security Council cannot solve all African problems, the AIDS challenge is a fundamental one in that it threatens to wipe out [humanity] man. The challenge is not one of a single continent alone because Africa cannot be quarantined. The trouble is that AIDS has no cure -- and thus even the West has stakes in the AIDS challenge. Once sub-Saharan Africa is wiped out, it shall not be long before another continent is on the brink of extinction. Sure as death, Africa's time has run out, signaling the beginning of the end of the black race and maybe the human race. Gender paraphrased

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Poverty Impact Module Price hikes exacerbate poverty in poor countries Christopher B. Barrett, professor of Applied Economics and Management and International Professor of Agriculture, and Paul A. Dorosh, analyst at International Bank for Reconstruction & Development, August ’96, “Farmers' welfare and changing food prices: Nonparametric evidence from rice in Madagascar,” American Journal of Agricultural Economics, http://web.ebscohost.com/ehost/detail?vid=1&hid=14&sid=3199103d-e186-4bb3-afda3287af2d8e1a%40sessionmgr3&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZQ%3d%3d#db=bth&AN=9611122680

[Tandet]

Increased real food prices, an important component of policy reforms in many developing countries, have significant impacts on farmers' welfare. Though real food price increases raise gross incomes of the many farmers who make gross commodity sales, small farm households that are net purchasers of food may suffer substantial instantaneous declines in welfare. The food price dilemma (Timmer, Falcon, and Pearson), reflected in the choice between high food prices to spur production and employment versus low food prices to stimulate consumption by the poor, thus has an acute intrarural dimension, in addition to the more obvious urban/ rural conflict. In Madagascar, many farmers do not participate in product markets as either sellers or buyers, and, for many others, net sales or marketable surplus is fairly small. Nonetheless, the roughly one-third of rice farmers who fall below the poverty line have substantial net purchases of rice, suggesting important negative first-order effects of increases in rice prices on household welfare. More variable rice prices induced by economic reforms likely imposed additional instantaneous welfare losses by threatening household food security and destabilizing incomes. These results contrast with those obtained in methodologically similar studies of Thailand and Cote d'Ivoire which found that changes in food prices had minimal impacts on the rural poor. Madagascar differs because the major food crop, rice, accounts for a much larger share of income and food expenditures than in these wealthier and more agriculturally diverse economies.

Poverty is the deadliest form of structural violence – it’s worse than nuclear war and is the root cause of all other violence James Gilligan, professor of Psychiatry at the Harvard Medical School, Director of the Center for the Study of Violence, and a member of the Academic Advisory Council of the National Campaign Against Youth Violence, ‘96, Violence: Our Deadly Epidemic and its Causes, p. 196

[Tandet]

The finding that structural violence causes far more deaths than behavioral violence does is not limited to this country. Kohler and Alcock attempted to arrive at the number of excess deaths caused by socioeconomic inequities on a worldwide basis. Sweden was their model of the nation that had come closes to eliminating structural violence. It had the least inequity in income and living standards, and the lowest discrepancies in death rates and life expectancy; and the highest overall life expectancy in the world. When they compared the life expectancies of those living in the other socioeconomic systems against Sweden, they found that 18 million deaths a year could be attributed to the “structural violence” to which the citizens of all the other nations were being subjected. During the past decade, the discrepancies between the rich and poor nations have increased dramatically and alarmingly. The 14 to 18 million deaths a year caused by structural violence compare with about 100,000 deaths per year from armed conflict. Comparing this frequency of deaths from structural violence to the frequency of those caused by major military and political violence, such as World War II (an estimated 49 million military and civilian deaths, including those by genocide—or about eight million per year, 1939-1945), the Indonesian massacre of 1965-66 (perhaps 575,000) deaths), the Vietnam war (possibly two million, 1954-1973), and even a hypothetical nuclear exchange between the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. (232 million), it was clear that even war cannot begin to compare with structural violence, which continues year after year. In other words, every fifteen years, on the average, as many people die because of relative poverty as would be killed by the Nazi genocide of the Jews over a six-year period. This is, in effect, the equivalent of an ongoing, unending, in fact accelerating, thermonuclear war, or genocide, perpetrated on the weak and poor every year of every decade, throughout the world. Structural violence is also the main cause of behavioral violence on a socially and epidemiologically significant scale (from homicide and suicide to war and genocide). The question as to which of the two forms of violence—structural or behavioral—is more important, dangerous, or lethal is moot, for they are inextricably related to each other, as cause to effect.

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Poverty Impact Ext High Food Prices Create Poverty Lynne Carolan, Senior Sophister – Trinity College of Dublin, ’06, “Development NGOs and the Liberalisation of Agricultural Policies”, Student Economic Review, 20, http://www.tcd.ie/Economics/SER/sql/download.php?key=36 To begin with it is necessary to establish the five different groupings of developing countries. They include the major agricultural exporters, such as Brazil who belong to the Cairns group; large low-income countries close to self-sufficiency such as India; large and medium-sized net food-importing developing countries, such as Kenya; the small island states that are also net food-importers, including Jamaica; and the least-developed countries who additionally are net food-importers, including Sub-Saharan African countries. It is important to recognise that food exporters and importers are affected differently by food trade liberalisation and therefore are expected to pursue different agendas in the world trade negotiations (Matthews, 2001). There is little disagreement “that overall the agricultural policies of developed countries’ depress world market prices as they stimulate farm production, reduce consumption, and hence result in larger supply and lower demand on world markets” (Tangermann, 2005:3). Many NGO’s view this as sufficient grounds for the liberalisation of agricultural policies. However, the manner in which the agricultural policies of developed countries affects the economic welfare of developing countries depends on whether they are net importers or net exporters of agricultural products. A common misconception is that developing countries are net exporters of agricultural products, and “therefore protection and subsidies by developed countries limit access of the LDCs thereby impacting adversely on the quantity and value of their exports” (Panagariya, 2004:11). However, studies by Valdes and McCalla have found that three fifths of all developing countries are net agricultural importers and Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) projections suggest that this movement towards increasing net imports of agricultural goods is expected to continue into the future. In fact, the FAO estimates that by 2030, developing countries will have a net food trade deficit in excess of USD50 billion (Tangermann, 2005). Middle-income developing countries (such as members of the Cairns group) that are net exporters would gain from the removal of protection and subsidies by developed countries, through increased market access and an increase in world prices. Conversely, as net importers LDCs have access to current depressed prices and if the subsidies and protection were to be eliminated the world prices would rise and the losses to LDCs could be considerable. In addition, under the Everything But Arms initiative of the EU, LDCs already have quota and duty free access to the EU market (with the exception of bananas, rice and sugar), meaning that they can sell their exports at the internal EU price that is artificially high. Generally, the EU domestic price is far more profitable than the price that LDCs are likely to obtain following liberalisation of agricultural policies by developed countries (Panagariya, 2005). To make best use of the gains from trade reform, it is essential that the domestic economies of developing countries be well run. If factor mobilities are inflexible only a fraction of the potential gains from trade will be realised (Anderson, 2004). Many foodimporting countries do not have the capacity to significantly increase their production should developed countries eliminate unfair tariffs and subsidies. The consequence is that trade liberalisation will simply increase their food import bill (Bouet et al, 2004).

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Terrorism Impact Module High food prices lead to a humanitarian crisis that undermines the war on terror Amy Zalman, 5-14-08, Ph.D from NYU in Middle-Eastern Studies, consultant on counter-terrorism for U.S. Central Command, “in Somalia, u.s. war against terrorism backfires,” http://terrorism.about.com/od/globalwaronterror/a/Somalia.htm, KAPUSTINA In the meantime, tens of thousands of Somalis protested rising food prices. According to ReliefWeb: Angry residents stoned shops and cars and set tyres ablaze on 5 - 6 May in protest of shopkeepers' refusal to accept Somali shilling banknotes. At least three people have been confirmed killed and several others injured after government forces opened fire to disperse the demonstrators. Two Crises Are Linked The two crises not only intensify each other, they are directly linked. Anti-government militias, of which Al Shebab is only one, threaten and even kill humanitarian workers attempting to deliver aid. They also threaten their fellow Somalis in a moment of crisis. Following the food riots, Islamist militants "urged Mogadishu traders to accept Somali shillings over US dollars to try to reduce inflation in the country, warning they would punish defaulters," according to Agence France-Presse. The humanitarian crisis is helping to create exactly the sort of instability that can be exploited by militias seeking greater control over the general population. This outcome is certainly the exactly opposite of the intended effect of U.S. efforts to slow the spread of Al Shebab by killing them. But it is not a mystery. The current U.S. policy in the Horn of Africa (and in the "war on terror" more broadly) is exclusively focused on groups or actors that can be said to be linked to Al Qaeda--and their removal. All other issues--such as humanitarian issues--are recognized, but secondary. The current situation in Somalia is a direct result of this focus, which has resulted in the U.S. using a military strategy to contain the Union of Islamic Courts / Al Shebab at all costs. It would be more fruitful, from a policy perspective, to approach Somalia and its many actors holistically. The humanitarian crisis and the political crisis are one and the same, and multiple actors have an impact on it including Ethiopian troops allied with the transitional government and militias and warlords beyond al Shebab.

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Terrorism Impact Module Terrorism leads to extinction Mohamed Sid-Ahmed, political analyst for the ‘Al-Ahram’ newspaper, Fall ’04, “Extinction!”, http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2004/705/op5.htm A nuclear attack by terrorists will be much more critical than Hiroshima and Nagazaki, even if -- and this is far from certain -- the weapons used are less harmful than those used then, Japan, at the time, with no knowledge of nuclear technology, had no choice but to capitulate. Today, the technology is a secret for nobody. So far, except for the two bombs dropped on Japan, nuclear weapons have been used only to threaten. Now we are at a stage where they can be detonated. This completely changes the rules of the game. We have reached a point where anticipatory measures can determine the course of events. Allegations of a terrorist connection can be used to justify anticipatory measures, including the invasion of a sovereign state like Iraq. As it turned out, these allegations, as well as the allegation that Saddam was harbouring WMD, proved to be unfounded. What would be the consequences of a nuclear attack by terrorists? Even if it fails, it would further exacerbate the negative features of the new and frightening world in which we are now living. Societies would close in on themselves, police measures would be stepped up at the expense of human rights, tensions between civilisations and religions would rise and ethnic conflicts would proliferate. It would also speed up the arms race and develop the awareness that a different type of world order is imperative if humankind is to survive. But the still more critical scenario is if the attack succeeds. This could lead to a third world war, from which no one will emerge victorious. Unlike a conventional war which ends when one side triumphs over another, this war will be without winners and losers. When nuclear pollution infects the whole planet, we will all be losers.

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Terrorism Impact Ext High food prices spawn terrorism David Zetland, 1-22-08, economist with an M.S. in Agricultural & Resource Economics, “ethanol and terrorism,” http://aguanomics.com/2008/01/ethanol-and-terrorism.html, KAPUSTINA A startling change is unfolding in the world’s food markets. Soaring fuel prices have altered the equation for growing food and transporting it across the globe. Huge demand for biofuels has created tension between using land to produce fuel and using it for food. A growing middle class in the developing world is demanding more protein, from pork and hamburgers to chicken and ice cream. And all this is happening even as global climate change may be starting to make it harder to grow food in some of the places best equipped to do so, like Australia. In the last few years, world demand for crops and meat has been rising sharply. It remains an open question how and when the supply will catch up. For the foreseeable future, that probably means higher prices at the grocery store and fatter paychecks for farmers of major crops like corn, wheat and soybeans. Bottom Line: US policies (on ethanol, trade, etc.) to make farmers richER are driving up food costs for the poor in developing countries. The poor get frustrated and turn on their lousy governments (often lousy because they have friends like the US who give aid and can ignore their people). Frustration means terrorism, and thus we can say that ethanol programs promote terrorism! End the stupidity!

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War Impact Module Increase in food prices disrupts the global economy and results in war AFP, 4-12-08, “IMF warns rising food prices raising risk of war,” http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5hL9XafrtiaulCYdcHwk4eonPFGw, KAPUSTINA "Hundreds of thousands of people will be starving ... (leading) to disruption of the economic environment," StraussKahn told a news conference at the close of the IMF spring meeting here. Development gains made in the past five or 10 years could be "totally destroyed," he said, warning that social unrest could even lead to war. "As we know, learning from the past, those kind of questions sometimes end in war," he said. If the world wanted to avoid "these terrible consequences," then rising prices had to be tackled. Skyrocketing prices on rice, wheat, corn and other staple foods like milk particularly hurt developing nations, where the bulk of income is spent on the bare necessities for survival.

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Biofuel Impact Ext – Poverty Biofuel production trades off with food production, increasing poverty Joachim von Braun, 6-12-08, director general of the International Food Policy Research Institute, Testimony before the United States Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, http://www.ifpri.org/pubs/testimony/vonbraun20080612.asp, KAPUSTINA The rapid expansion of ethanol and biodiesel has increased dependency on natural vegetation and crops grown specifically for energy. Biofuel production has also introduced new food-security risks and new challenges for the poor, particularly when resource constraints have lead to trade-offs between food and biofuel production and rising food prices. For the further development and use of biofuels, it is necessary to carefully assess the impact of different technologies, products (ethanol, bio-diesel, bio-gas), and feed stocks (e.g. sugar cane, corn, oilseeds, palm oil, agricultural waste and biomass). Energy and agriculture in a broader conceptual framework A comprehensive policy framework will be fundamental to developing biofuels in such a way that they contribute to energy security, climate change mitigation, and environmental sustainability, and at the same time they do not negatively affect food prices and the food security of the poor. The three main domains upon which biofuels have an impact—namely the political/social, the economic, and the environmental—interact when agriculture and energy become more closely linked through the production of biofuels (Figure 1). This interaction will lead to changes in the dynamics of agriculture as well as changes in the impact on households, businesses, and the private sector. Participants in the biofuel discussion come from many sectors and include farmer representatives, the energy industry, global environmental movements, large capital funds, and science and technology lobbies. The extent to which biofuels remain on the agenda will depend on political pressures and security concerns. High levels of rent seeking as well as political lobbying are part of the picture, and their impact can be seen in the current subsidy and trade policies adopted by some countries. The implemented biofuel subsidies are regressive and anti-poor because low-income households lose much on the food consumption side if food prices rise, and gain little on the energy side if energy prices decline.

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Biofuels Impact Ext – Starvation Increased food prices from biofuels lead to global malnutrition and starvation Joachim von Braun, 6-12-08, director general of the International Food Policy Research Institute, Testimony before the United States Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, http://www.ifpri.org/pubs/testimony/vonbraun20080612.asp, KAPUSTINA Poor people are impacted by biofuels as consumers in food and energy markets, producers of agricultural commodities in small businesses, and workers in labor markets. The increase in agricultural demand and the resulting increase in agricultural prices will affect poor people in different ways. Some poor farmers could gain from this price increase. However, net buyers of food, which represent the majority of poor people, would respond to high food prices with reduced consumption and changed patterns of demand, leading to calorie and nutrition deficiencies. Under the two IMPACT scenarios, the increase in crop prices resulting from expanded biofuel production is also accompanied by a net decrease in availability and access to food. Calorie consumption is estimated to decrease across regions under all scenarios compared to baseline levels (Figure 2). Food-calorie consumption will fall the most in Sub-Saharan Africa, where calorie consumption is projected to decrease by more than 8 percent if biofuels expand drastically. As a result of rising food prices, cuts will likely be made to food expenditures, exacerbating diet quality and micronutrient malnutrition. A study of the effects in an East Asian setting suggests that a 50-percent increase in the price of food, holding income constant, will lead to the decline of iron intake by 30 percent. As a result, the prevalence of micronutrient deficiency among women and children will increase by 25 percent (Bouis 2008). Studies also show that current malnutrition of mothers and children has long lasting effects (Lancet 2008) and will show in deteriorated health and income decades later.

Biofuel investments kill food production and revert the poor of developing nations into malnutrition IFPRI (International Food Policy Research Institute, 2008, http://www.ifpri.org/themes/bioenergy/bioenergybro.pdf, KAPUSTINA The effects of growing biofuel demand are interwoven with tightening grain markets, which reflect demographic shifts and improved diets. In developing countries, as populations grow and incomes rise, diet preferences are shifting from staple crops to higher-value products like meat and dairy. As a result, the demand for grain- and protein-based animal feed is soaring and competing with food needs. These changes have led to increasing pressures on global agricultural markets and higher food costs. Poor people in both rural and urban areas are disproportionately vulnerable to these forces because they spend a large share of their incomes on food. Biofuels subsidies in developed countries tend to drive up food prices, thus reducing consumption and nutritional well-being for net buyers. The higher prices for commodities resulting from biofuel feedstock production can mean higher incomes for some farmers in developing countries and better agricultural wages for laborers, although the question of distribution among winners and losers remains. Another outcome for developing countries could be increased pressure on fragile natural resources on which poor farmers depend, potentially further degrading land and stressing limited water supplies.

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Ethanol Impact Ext – Biodiversity Farmland will not increase enough to keep up with increased ethanol use - the plan forces tradeoffs with land for fragile crops C. Ford Runge, Professor of Applied Economics at the University of Minnesota and fellow at the Hubert H. Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs, and Benjamin Senauer, Ph.D. and Professor of Applied Economics at the University of Minnesota and former CoDirector of The Food Industry Center, May/June ’07, “How Biofuels Could Starve the Poor,” Foreign Affairs Magazine, http://www.foreignaffairs.org/20070501faessay86305/c-ford-runge-benjamin-senauer/how-biofuels-could-starve-the-poor.html [Tandet] Proponents of corn-based ethanol argue that acreage and yields can be increased to satisfy the rising demand for ethanol. But U.S. corn yields have been rising by a little less than two percent annually over the last ten years, and even a doubling of those gains could not meet current demand. As more acres are planted with corn, land will have to be pulled from other crops or environmentally fragile areas, such as those protected by the Department of Agriculture's Conservation Reserve Program.

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Ethanol Impact Ext - Economy Ethanol use crushes state economies- Texas proves The Wall Street Journal, 4-25-08, “States’ Rights: Texas to Fight Feds’ Biofuels Mandate?, http://blogs.wsj.com/environmentalcapital/2008/04/25/states-rights-texas-to-fight-feds-biofuels-mandate/, KAPUSTINA More fireworks between states and the Feds over U.S. energy policy. But for once, it’s not California rattling sabers. It’s the heart of the oil–and cow–patch. Texas could be the latest state to flex its muscles against Washington mandates, Dow Jones Newswires reports. Gov. Rick Perry, concerned about high food prices, is considering asking for an exemption for Texas from federal biofuel mandates that call for steadily increasing production over the next 16 years. Skyrocketing food prices around the world, from more expensive tortillas in Mexico to rice hoarding in Asia, have redoubled concerns about the wisdom of biofuels, already buffetted by doubts over their green credentials. The potential showdown mirrors what is happening in Europe, where countries like the U.K. and Germany have questioned European biofuel mandates. Of course, in Texas, the food-versus-fuel debate can turn into feed-versus-fuel. Dow Jones reports: “Ultimately, food prices are reaching high levels, so we’re looking at this as an option for reducing that burden,” said Allison Castle, a spokeswoman for Gov. Perry. Texas is the leading producer of beef, she said, so elevated prices of corn for cattle feed place a burden on the state’s economy.

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Ethanol Impact Ext – Ocean Death Module Increases in biofuel farmland stop current cycles of healthy crop rotation, creating nitrogen runoff that kills ocean life C. Ford Runge, Professor of Applied Economics at the University of Minnesota and fellow at the Hubert H. Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs, and Benjamin Senauer, Ph.D. and Professor of Applied Economics at the University of Minnesota and former CoDirector of The Food Industry Center, May/June ’07, “How Biofuels Could Starve the Poor,” Foreign Affairs Magazine, http://www.foreignaffairs.org/20070501faessay86305/c-ford-runge-benjamin-senauer/how-biofuels-could-starve-the-poor.html [Tandet] Should corn and soybeans be used as fuel crops at all? Soybeans and especially corn are row crops that contribute to soil erosion and water pollution and require large amounts of fertilizer, pesticides, and fuel to grow, harvest, and dry. They are the major cause of nitrogen runoff -- the harmful leakage of nitrogen from fields when it rains -- of the type that has created the so-called dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico, an ocean area the size of New Jersey that has so little oxygen it can barely support life. In the United States, corn and soybeans are typically planted in rotation, because soybeans add nitrogen to the soil, which corn needs to grow. But as corn increasingly displaces soybeans as a main source of ethanol, it will be cropped continuously, which will require major increases in nitrogen fertilizer and aggravate the nitrogen runoff problem.

All life is dependent on the oceans – if it dies, we die NOAA, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, ’98, “Perspectives on Marine Environmental Quality Today,” http://www.yoto98.noaa.gov/yoto/meeting/mar_env_316.html The ocean plays a critical role in sustaining the life of this planet. Every activity, whether natural or anthropogenic, has far reaching impacts on the world at large. For example, excessive emissions of greenhouse gases may contribute to an increase the sea level, and cause potential flooding or an increase in storm frequency; this flooding can reduce wetland acreage and increase sediment and nutrient flows into the Gulf of Mexico, causing adverse impacts on water quality and reducing habitat for commercial fisheries. This in turn drives up the cost of fish at local markets nationwide. The environment and the economic health of marine and coastal waters are linked at the individual, community, state, regional, national and international levels. The interdependence of the economy and the environment are widely recognized. The United States has moved beyond viewing health, safety, and pollution control as additional costs of doing business to an understanding of broader stewardship, recognizing that economic and social prosperity would be useless if the coastal and marine environments are compromised or destroyed in the process of development (President’s Council on Sustainable Development, 1996). Much about the ocean, its processes, and the interrelationship between land and sea is unknown. Many harvested marine resources depend upon a healthy marine environment to exist. Continued research is needed so that sound management decisions can be made when conflicts among users of ocean resources arise. Although much progress has been made over the past 30 years to enhance marine environmental quality and ocean resources, much work remains. The challenge is to maintain and continue to improve marine water quality as more people move to the coasts and the pressures of urbanization increase. Through education, partnerships, technological advances, research, and personal responsibility, marine environmental quality should continue to improve, sustaining resources for generations to come. "It does not matter where on Earth you live, everyone is utterly dependent on the existence of that lovely, living saltwater soup. There’s plenty of water in the universe without life, but nowhere is there life without water. The living ocean drives planetary chemistry, governs climate and weather, and otherwise provides the cornerstone of the lifesupport system for all creatures on our planet, from deep-sea starfish to desert sagebrush. That’s why the ocean matters. If the sea is sick, we’ll feel it. If it dies, we die. Our future and the state of the oceans are one.”

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DA Turns Case – Land Use  Greenhouse Gases Land use changes immediately double greenhouse gas levels C. Ford Runge, Professor of Applied Economics at the University of Minnesota and fellow at the Hubert H. Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs, and Benjamin Senauer, Ph.D. and Professor of Applied Economics at the University of Minnesota and former CoDirector of The Food Industry Center, 5-28-08, Foreign Affairs, “How Ethanol Fuels the Food Crisis,” http://www.foreignaffairs.org/20080528faupdate87376/c-ford-runge-benjamin-senauer/how-ethanol-fuels-the-food-crisis.html [Tandet] In early 2008, two articles in Science showed that forests or grasslands converted for the production of biofuels will immediately incur a "carbon debt," due to the release of carbon dioxide from biomass and soil. This long "payback" for biofuels is disappointing in light of the urgency of global warming. The second Science study demonstrated that biofuel production often displaces crops, moving them to new areas where further land-use conversions are required. In the Corn Belt of the Midwest, biofuels helped to convert nearly 20 million acres from soybean production to corn production in 2007, pushing soybean prices higher while encouraging extensive applications of nitrogen and phosphorus fertilizers that run off into lakes and streams, enter the Mississippi River, and eventually reach the Gulf of Mexico where they have created an oxygen-starved "dead zone." The authors found that such land-use changes nearly double greenhouse emissions over 30 years, and increase greenhouse gases for 167 years.

Land changes produce 420 times more CO2 than the amount they would reduce David Tilman et al., McKnight Presidential Chair in Ecology (professor) at University of Minnesota, 2-7-08, “Land Clearing and the Biofuel Carbon Debt,” http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/sci;319/5867/1235?maxtoshow=&HITS=10&hits=10&RESULTFORMAT=&fulltext=biof uels+carbon+debt&searchid=1&FIRSTINDEX=0&resourcetype=HWCIT [Tandet] Increasing energy use, climate change, and carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from fossil fuels make switching to lowcarbon fuels a high priority. Biofuels are a potential low-carbon energy source, but whether biofuels offer carbon savings depends on how they are produced. Converting rainforests, peatlands, savannas, or grasslands to produce food crop– based biofuels in Brazil, Southeast Asia, and the United States creates a "biofuel carbon debt" by releasing 17 to 420 times more CO2 than the annual greenhouse gas (GHG) reductions that these biofuels would provide by displacing fossil fuels. In contrast, biofuels made from waste biomass or from biomass grown on degraded and abandoned agricultural lands planted with perennials incur little or no carbon debt and can offer immediate and sustained GHG advantages.

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Aff Answers 1. Spike in prices is short-term, ethanol net beneficial for agriculture – experts agree Domestic Fuel News, 3-9-07, “feed fight on the hill,” http://domesticfuel.com/2007/03/09/feed-fight-on-the-hill/, KAPUSTINA The livestock and poultry producers also were united in their call for reducing or eliminating incentives for biofuels production. “This means we are calling for sunsetting the existing blenders tax credit and the ethanol import tariff as scheduled in 2010 and 2009 respectively,” said Ernie Morales, a cattle feeder and rancher from southwest Texas, who spoke for the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association. However, in separate press conferences Thursday, the chairmen of the House and Senate Agriculture Committees disagreed. Senate Ag Committee Chairman Tom Harkin of Iowa, always a strong advocate for livestock producers, said, “I understand maybe where they’re coming from, but I think these things have a way of leveling out.” He believes the anticipated increase in corn acreage this year will help bring prices down to more manageable levels. House Ag Committee Chairman Collin Peterson of Minnesota pointed out that grain producers are finally getting a fair price for their crop. “What people fail to recognize is that over the last number of years, corn prices have been substantially below the cost of production and the livestock industry has benefited from this,” said Peterson. Several of the livestock industry witnesses at the hearing admitted that the situation is likely short term and that much of the current concern is due to the unprecedented rapid growth in ethanol production. As Iowa dairy producer Rob Wonderlich, testifying on behalf of Dairy Farmers of America, told the committee, “This biofuels revolution occurred very quickly and did not allow … the livestock industries to properly adapt, which has sent a shock across the industries in the form of increased operating costs.”

2. Food prices now are the highest in history Lester Brown, 7-14-08, Brown has authored or coauthored 50 books. In May 2001, he founded the Earth Policy Institute. 23 honorary degrees, a MacArthur Fellowship, the 1987 United Nations' Environment Prize, the 1989 World Wide Fund for Nature Gold Medal, and the 1994 Blue Planet., “higher food prices are here to stay,” http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/jul/14/food.energyefficiency, KAPUSTINA These days it is hard to pick up a newspaper without seeing an article on soaring food prices and their consequences. In recent months, wheat, rice, corn and soybean prices have soared to historic highs, doubling or tripling those of two years ago. The world is in the grip of the most pervasive food price inflation in history. In seven of the last eight years, world grain consumption has exceeded production, forcing a drawdown in stocks. As a result, world carryover stocks of grain have dropped to 54 days of consumption, the lowest on record. In contrast to past spikes in grain prices, today's escalating prices are not the result of temporary weather-induced shortfalls. They are trend driven. On the demand side, the relentless growth of the world population is adding 70 million more consumers each year. One need not be an agronomist to see that this trend eventually leads to trouble.

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3. Land use claims exaggerated- profiteering and corruption responsible for food prices Jeff Mahoney, 5-1-08, “is it just me or am I getting paranoid?,” columnist for the spectator, http://www.thespec.com/opinions/columnists/171785, KAPUSTINA The global warming deniers accuse environmentalists of lies and exaggerations. Then they themselves fan the myth of a supposedly massive, wholesale conversion of foodlands to ethanol production. This is probably not happening, certainly not at the levels the global warming deniers are claiming. What conversion there is plays only a small part, if any, in the current scare over food prices and how they relate to oil prices. Behind the smokescreen theory of repurposed foodlands, one will find the usual suspects -- global profiteering, stock market jiggery, and corporate bookmakers taking their vigorish out of a cynically manipulated casino of supply and demand.

4. Turn- high food prices key to sustaining agriculture South China Morning Post,”stronger food prices boost rural communities,” 4-28-08, p. 10, lexis, KAPUSTINA Likewise, unaccountable and power-hungry international institutions like the IMF now wish to set themselves up as the global food price policeman, and it is using the spectre of war due to high food prices to justify its grab for power ("Soaring food prices raise risk of war, warns IMF", April 14). Having seen the great job it did in "saving" Southeast Asia from itself in the late 1990s, I hope that the countries of the region tell the IMF to mind its own business. Higher food prices are likely to keep poorer farmers on the land, within their existing communities where they have strong family welfare and cultural links. While urbanisation and industrialisation are inevitable trends, unrestrained urbanisation without a strong enough urban economy to absorb rural labour is one of the greatest security threats that developing countries face. Artificially rigging commodity prices at a low level destroys rural economies and thwarts rural entrepreneurs who are the driving force of economic development in the countryside. Faltering rural economies result in farmers walking off the land, mass internal and international migration, conflicts over resources and explosions in urban slum populations. These outcomes are far more likely to lead to armed conflict than urban housewives complaining about the price of pork chops.

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Aff Answers 5. A. Rising food prices key to African economy Business Day, 7-14-08, “Food crisis is a long-term opportunity for Africa,” http://www.businessday.co.za/articles/topstories.aspx?ID=BD4A801230 THE global food crisis presents Africa with great threats — and great opportunities. African countries have traditionally had some of the worst-performing agricultural sectors. Despite many possessing natural advantages, 35 of 48 sub-Saharan African economies are net food importers. While east Asian countries have tripled, and Latin American countries doubled, agricultural yields in the past four decades, Africa has lagged well behind — African cereal yields are estimated by the Food and Agriculture Organisation to be 66% below the global average. The reasons for this are clear: war, instability, lack of clarity about land title, low investment in people and management systems, and the absence of technology. Africa uses only 13% of the global average amount of fertiliser per hectare. Africa’s irrigated farming area is estimated at 14% of the potential against 49% globally. It is also using only 43% of the arable land with rain-fed potential. Such low productivity coupled with poor infrastructure and high transport costs poses a threat to Africa’s long-term development by making the export of surpluses to the cities more difficult. Coupled with rising food prices, this could be a catalyst for political tension, especially in urban areas. Whereas the average African household spends more than half of its income on food, those in Europe are likely to spend a third of that. One third of Africans, about 300-million people, are already malnourished. And as Kenyan Prime Minister Raila Odinga has put it: “A hungry man is an angry man.” The relationship between agriculture performance, development and trade is important. For almost half of sub-Saharan countries, transport payments absorb more than 20% of foreign earnings from exports. For some landlocked nations, these costs absorb more than half. Particularly significant is the negative impact of poor transport infrastructure on rural development, making it difficult for African farmers to specialise in high-value crops for export. Rising fuel costs make this even more difficult, and not only in freighting food in, and high-value exports out. Heating charges for greenhouses, production costs and the expense of refrigeration have all risen, too. But many of the trade costs are caused by things comparatively easy to fix, including inefficient customs and clearance procedures, themselves the product of an overbearing and inefficient bureaucracy, and uncompetitive policy environment. While African governments expend enormous energy on negotiating fresh trade access, they spend comparatively little time fixing the things directly within their power, such as customs opening hours. It is no good producing stuff if it is held up at ports. Agriculture is, so far, another story of unrealised African potential. Growth in this sector is not only a means to improving overall social welfare among the 600-million people engaged in production, but is also a means to mitigate development risks. While estimates predict Africa’s gross domestic product growth for the next three years to be more than 5% (compared to 3,4% globally), Africa is likely to remain hostage to commodity performance, given its significant oil and mining dependence. Africa’s food crisis is thus a short-term problem and a long-term opportunity. Much is known about how to create the conditions for a “green revolution”. Realising the opportunity will of course happen only in those countries that have a comparative climatic advantage. But this also depends on getting a number of other things right, demanding good policy and sound management. Land ownership needs to be clearly defined since private ownership enables the collateralisation of property. Production needs to be scaled up through the creation of larger holdings and improved access to fertilisers, technology, machinery and markets. And agriculture production and marketing needs to be commercialised — it has to be responsive to local and international markets and prices. Overall, knowledge and management are central to seizing the opportunities. This hinges on political and institutional improvement and greater political stability. If Africa cannot enable this revolution without external assistance, it should at least identify its capacity needs and partners to fill these gaps as a matter of urgency. Commercial rather than donor support can provide a sustainable method sensitive to market trends, as Mozambique’s enviable experience with tobacco extension and production in Tete province illustrates.

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Aff Answers In the short term, rising food prices are bad news for those whose main expense is food. But higher long-term prices could be a catalyst for higher investment in this sector, financially, legally and in policy and management terms. The revival of African agriculture offers a route to development for 180-million small farmers.

B. Africa's economy drives the global economy China View 6-6-08 (Chinese newspaper, "Africa drives forward world economy: WEF participants", http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2008-06/06/content_8318186.htm) The African economy is becoming robust and energetic and will complement with the world economy as it is turning out to be one of the economic driving forces worldwide, said participants at the ongoing World Economic Forum on Africa held here. The world major economies are optimistic about African economic growth, which is offering the world huge investment opportunities in the sectors of infrastructure, petroleum and mining, agriculture, power, telecommunications, tourism and finance, said Sultan Ahmed Bin Sulayem, chairman of the Dubai World company of the United Arab Emirates. Sulayem expects that total investment in the continent's infrastructure facilities will hit 250 billion U.S. dollars in the coming 10 years, as most African countries are putting construction of infrastructures on priority lists. This is a favor to the world economy, he said. He said that Africa will keep its growth momentum and will become not only driving force pushing forward the world economy, but also energy center or "world factory" in the future.

C. Global economic collapse leads to nuke war T. E. Bearden, LTC, U.S. Army (Retired), CEO, CTEC Inc., Director, Association of Distinguished American Scientists (ADAS), Fellow Emeritus, Alpha Foundation's Institute for Advanced Study (AIAS)June 24, 2000 (http://www.seaspower.com/EnergyCrisisBearden.htm) As the collapse of the Western economies nears, one may expect catastrophic stress on the 160 developing nations as the developed nations are forced to dramatically curtail orders. International Strategic Threat Aspects History bears out that desperate nations take desperate actions. Prior to the final economic collapse, the stress on nations will have increased the intensity and number of their conflicts, to the point where the arsenals of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) now possessed by some 25 nations, are almost certain to be released. As an example, suppose a starving North Korea {[7]} launches nuclear weapons upon Japan and South Korea, including U.S. forces there, in a spasmodic suicidal response. Or suppose a desperate China — whose long-range nuclear missiles (some) can reach the United States — attacks Taiwan. In addition to immediate responses, the mutual treaties involved in such scenarios will quickly draw other nations into the conflict, escalating it significantly. Strategic nuclear studies have shown for decades that, under such extreme stress conditions, once a few nukes are launched, adversaries and potential adversaries are then compelled to launch on perception of preparations by one's adversary. The real legacy of the MAD concept is this side of the MAD coin that is almost never discussed. Without effective defense, the only chance a nation has to survive at all is to launch immediate full-bore pre-emptive strikes and try to take out its perceived foes as rapidly and massively as possible. As the studies showed, rapid escalation to full WMD exchange occurs. Today, a great percent of the WMD arsenals that will be unleashed, are already on site within the United States itself {[8]}. The resulting great Armageddon will destroy civilization as we know it, and perhaps most of the biosphere, at least for many decades

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Aff Answers 6. Decreasing food supply allows developing countries the chance to increase their own crop yields to fill the gap Juergen Zattler, Deputy Director General for Germany’s Multilateral and European Development Policy, 7-1608, Interview with the New Vision, “High Food Prices Good for Farmers,” http://www.newvision.co.ug/D/8/220/639470 The German government is trying to implement specific programmes for most vulnerable people in countries that are worst hit by the food crisis. This will include offering conditional cash transfers. We are also committed to increasing official development assistance by 2010 by 0.35% of gross domestic product. The World Bank and the International Monetary Fund are also ready to give additional financing in the form of budgetary support to increase the funds available in these countries to cover the food bill. The global food crisis is threatening to reverse the EU’s commitment to halve poverty and hunger by 2015. Why then is the EU and the US offering farm aid? I must say that at the moment there are no export subsidies from the EU and the US to support our farmers because of the current global food prices. One has to be aware that the high food prices are not only negative, they are also positive because this represents a huge chance for developing countries to increase agricultural production particularly for export to gain more.

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Aff Uniqueness CCD, increasing global demand, the declining dollar, bad weather, and ethanol production all contribute to higher prices Tri-State Observer, 7-18-08, “Prices Will Keep Rising,” http://www.tristateobserver.com/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=10275&mode=thread&order=0&thold=0 Do you like carrots? How about broccoli, onions, pumpkins, squash, peaches, pears, apples, blueberries, avocados, walnuts, almonds or cherries? These crops, among others, can't grow without honeybees.The number of bees has been dramatically declining over the last few years. Starting in October 2006, Colony Collapse Disorder wiped out 30% to 90% of bee hives. The losses continued last year through this year with over 30% of hives being destroyed in both 2007 and 2008.According to the USDA, while colony losses are not unexpected during winter weather, the magnitude of loss suffered by some beekeepers was highly unusual. In 1995-96, Pennsylvania beekeepers lost 53 percent of their colonies without a specific identifiable causeThe exact cause of Colony Collapse Disorder is not known. Since roughly 75% of flowering plants rely on pollination to help them reproduce, bees are an important link in the chain that produces much of the food that we eat. Without bees to pollinate crops, the crops can't bear fruit, causing crop yields to drop.World Demand for FoodThere is a growing demand for food around the world with the emergence of a middle class in such places as China, Latin America, Africa and the Middle East. With more disposable income, these people demand more and a greater variety of food. These middle classes will likely continue to increase, placing more pressure on world food prices. A growing number of countries have sharply curbed food exports in order to ensure an adequate supply of food at affordable prices for their country. It puts pressure on world food availablity and prices including those foods being imported to the U.SThe Declining DollarThe dollar has fallen against other world currencies over the past year. When the dollar goes down in value against other currencies, any dollar-denominated commodity tends to go up in price.Part of the huge increase in oil prices can be attributed to the fall of the value of the dollar against other currencies. In the same way, most major food commodities are traded in dollars, which makes foreign-produced food more expensive.Bad WeatherRecent flooding in the Midwest and Corn Belt has prevented farmers from planting soybeans and damaged the corn crop, which had recently been planted. Analysts have estimated that there may be a shortfall of 15% or more in grain produced this year compared to last year due to the flooding."This year’s weather is very disconcerting considering our knowledge about the effects of climate change on weather conditions and we hope that this does not become a trend towards more volatile weather in the future," said Keith Dittrich, Chairman of the Board of the American Corn Growers Association.The bad weather hasn't been limited to the U.S. Poor weather has reduced overall global food production from South America ,Canada, the European Union and Eastern Europe over the last couple of years. A drought has resulted in a major Australian wheat decline.The Stock MarketSpeculation's role in increased food prices is hotly debated, but it appears that investors have taken an interest in food prices and are playing a larger role in the commodity markets.As food supplies tighten, there is a good chance that speculators will increase in the hope of making a quick buck, further adding to the problem.EthanolWith the rise of oil prices, U.S. ethanol production has greatly increased. It's expected that over 30% of the U.S. corn crop will go toward ethanol production this year.According to Benjamin Gisin of Touch the Soil magazine, "Quietly, but unmistakably, farmland in America is becoming more precious as its scarcity is recognized. Recent USDA statistics reveal farm real estate values jumped by 120 percent in the last 10 years. Out of this mix of farmland, the value of land for pasture has jumped 137 percent."With such a large portion of the corn crop going to ethanol production, there will be increased competition for the food in other uses, such as feed for cattle and dairy cows, manufactured foods like cereals and foods sweetened with corn syrup.All indications are that food will get more scarce and expensive and you should be preparing. It's time to stock up your pantry.

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Aff Uniqueness Asian starvation proves—high food prices are already hitting world markets Martin Spring, On Target, 7-15-08, MoneyWeek, “The solution to the food crisis: market forces,” http://www.moneyweek.com/file/50470/the-solution-to-the-food-crisis-market-forces.html Food prices are at the centre of the global economic crisis. A billion Asians who spend at least 60% of their income on food now face starvation. There have already been food riots in several dozen countries, and I fear there is worse to come. As I commented last month, the credit squeeze is largely incomprehensible to ordinary folk – but they instantly feel the pain of soaring prices at food stores. Governments blatantly manipulate official inflation figures by ignoring "temporary" factors such as the costs of food, energy, real estate and taxes – all the ones that really matter. But consumers are not fooled, and everywhere now look ready to chuck ruling parties out of power.

Ethanol production has already pushed every aspect of the agricultural sector to record highs Matt Woolsey, Forbes.com, 7-18-08, “America's Increasingly Unaffordable Cities,” http://www.forbes.com/realestate/2008/07/18/inflation-unaffordable-cities-forbeslifecx_mw_0718realestate.html Using an inflation study done for Forbes.com by Moody's Economy.com, we looked at the 40 largest metro areas in the U.S. to see where prices were growing fastest. The numbers reflect those from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) and Moody's figures on price change between January 2008 and June 2008. They track everything from the price of food, taxes, transportation and medical care to entertainment, education and mortgage payments. The reasons for inflation often seem convoluted and overly complex. Food prices are up in part because of demand from the ethanol industry, which relies on corn to produce the fuel. This has helped spike the price of corn, which in turn makes anything made from corn, or products from the livestock that eats it, more expensive. While the credit crisis and real estate debacle has been in the headlines lately, there is something else brewing in the background. The global food crisis will likely gather much more attention in the years to come as shortages in arable land, climate change, and overpopulation could potentially send food prices through the roof. The food crisis could possibly bring on the threat of famine to many more parts of the world and it could crush the earnings of businesses that are directly or indirectly impacted by rising food prices.

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Food Prices DA DDI 2008 Culpepper Generic Food prices have been and will continue to increase at alarming rates, thanks to a larger world population and a decrease in both arable land and fresh water supplies Jared Irish, Archer Financial Services, “Surviving the Global Food Crisis,” 7-18-08, http://www.insidefutures.com/article/72373/Surviving%20the%20Global%20Food%20Crisis.html Although food and energy are considered by the Federal Reserve to be too volatile and unimportant to be included in the CPI, the fact is that prices of these commodities have been increasing at an accelerating rate. Highlighting the situation was the recent news that the Consumer Price Index just hit 5 percent, which is the highest level in 26 years. Food prices are up 70 percent in the last year alone. Some well respected individuals have questioned the intentions of the authorities undertaking the practice of stripping the food and energy prices from the index and changing the way it is calculated. As the average consumer is already on a tight budget, the threat of accelerating food prices should be of great concern to both individuals and businesses that are most impacted by rising food prices. Over the past 50 years we have witnessed an explosion in the world’s population. In 1959 it was about 3.0 billion. Today the world population is close to 7 billion. It has more than doubled in the last 50 years and is increasing at a rate of 250,000 per day. Not only is the population increasing, the per capita consumption of grain intensive meats is accelerating, as well. Over the last 30 years China's average consumption of meat averaged about 20 kilograms per capita. Recent data has shown that meat consumption in China has now increased to 60 kilograms per capita. Of the earth's 57.5 million square miles of land, approximately 7.65 million square miles are arable. However, arable land is currently being lost at the rate of over 38,610 square miles annually. Due to pollution, environmental changes, and excessive stress on the land we are facing soil erosion and degradation of the world’s water supply. It is estimated that 400 of China's 600 largest cities are short of water. According to the United Nations, more than half of humanity will be living with water shortages, depleted fisheries and polluted coastlines within 50 years because of a worldwide water crisis.

Unfavorable weather has jacked up prices all over the food industry Seeking Alpha, 7-18-08, Oil and Food Prices Likely To Remain High and Volatile,” http://seekingalpha.com/article/85693-oil-and-food-prices-likely-to-remain-high-and-volatile Oil and food prices are likely to remain high and volatile as low inventories and capacity margins are expected to persist for some time, the International Monetary Fund says in its latest World Economic Outlook. Oil production is expected to remain broadly stagnant, as much of the small amount of new capacity coming on stream is likely to be offset by further production declines in existing fields, the IMF says. In food markets, rising biofuels production and continued strong net demand from emerging and developing economies should continue to exert pressure on some prices. In the oil market, the strong upward momentum in prices has reflected a sluggish supply response against the backdrop of already stretched spare capacity at the start of the global recovery. There is now widespread realization that production and distribution capacity will be slow to build up, reflecting soaring investment costs, technological, geological, and policy constraints, as well as the rundown of existing fields. This is expected to perpetuate very low spare capacity and tight market conditions. Turning to food commodities, the recent price surges reflect a confluence of factors. Demand growth—partly reflecting the strong growth in emerging and developing economies noted earlier—has generally outstripped supply growth for many food commodities over the past 8–10 years, notably major grains and edible oils. The general upward pressure on prices has been strongly reinforced by a number of developments since 2006: * Unfavorable weather conditions reduced harvest yields in both 2006 and 2007 in an unusually large number of countries. Wheat harvests, in particular, had been adversely affected, which led to a sharp bidding-up of wheat prices, with spillovers into close substitutes (particularly rice).

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Aff Uniqueness The IMF confirms—food prices are soaring with no signs of slowing down Sam Fleming, Daily Mail, 7-18-08, iStockAnalyst, http://www.istockanalyst.com/article/viewiStockNews+articleid_2411437~title_High-Oil-and-Food-Prices.html There will be no let-up from "high and volatile" oil and food prices, the International Monetary Fund warned. The Washington-based IMF hiked its global inflation forecasts in an economic update, warning central banks need to keep a hawkish eye on price pressures. Consumer prices will rise 3.4pc this year in advanced economies and a blistering 9.1pc in the developing world.

Food prices have risen 8.2% in the last year alone, and are continuing to rise Naomi Fairfax, RedOrbit, 7-17-08, “Price Rises Bite Families; Food Costs at 18-Year High,” http://www.redorbit.com/news/business/1483322/price_rises_bite_families_food_costs_at_18year_high/ Nelson families are facing an increasing battle to put food on the table, with new statistics showing that soaring food prices have reached an 18-year high.Statistics New Zealand's latest food price index figures show a rise of 8.2 percent in the year to June - the highest annual increase since June 1990, when a rise of 10 percent was recorded after a GST increase the previous July.The increase has prompted renewed calls for the Government to help struggling families.Andrew and Tasha Goodale, of Stoke, would support any move to reduce the increasing cost of putting food on their table for children Connor, 3, and Alyssa, 18 months.Mr Goodale, a production manager at a joinery company, said he worked an extra job for four months of the year to increase the family's income."Trying to feed a family of four on fresh veges is very difficult. Broccoli is more than $3 a head."They have switched to frozen vegetables to cut the weekly food bill.The family buys three or four bottles of milk a week, and said the increase in dairy prices had been particularly noticeable. It also concerned them that soft drink was so cheap in comparison."They should take a dollar off milk and put it on fizzy drink," Mr Goodale said.The statistics show that on an annual basis, grocery food prices rose 12.1 percent, with milk up 22 percent, cheddar cheese 62 percent, bread 15 percent and butter 87 percent.Fruit and vegetables were up 9 percent for the year while meat, poultry and fish rose 4.4 percent.

Restaurants are already suffering under exorbitant prices David Bogoslaw, Business Week, 7-18-08, “Food Companies: Recipes for Tough Times,” http://www.newschannel5.com/Global/Story.asp?S=8698734 From soup to nuts, these are difficult times for food manufacturers. Spikes in energy prices have pushed up the costs of plastic packaging and transportation, while unprecedented surges in corn and wheat prices have also taken a toll on profits. On the other side are cash-strapped consumers who are reining in spending or switching to cheaper private-label foods in an effort to stretch their paychecks. Having already teased out costs through greater automation, shrinking inventory, and tighter logistics, manufacturers are now looking for new ways to improve, or just preserve, profit margins. Although they have no choice but to pass on higher costs to customers, they are now able to do it in smarter ways-by raising prices on only the least price-sensitive items instead of whole product lines or tailoring prices to various levels of demand in local markets, for example. Foodmakers are also tweaking product presentation and packaging in an effort to boost sales volumes.

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Aff Uniqueness In 2008, food prices made their largest single jump since 1991, and the cost of living rose to its highest since 1982 Shobhana Chandra and Timothy R. Homan, Reporter for Chicago Daily Reporter, 7-16-08, Bloomberg.com,http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601068&sid=aytt_8EhMyRE&refer=home U.S. consumer prices surged 5 percent in the past year, the biggest jump since 1991, just as households struggled with falling home values and the credit crunch.Spiraling expenses for food and fuel spurred the increase in June, the Labor Department said today in Washington. The cost of living rose 1.1 percent from May, more than forecast and the second-largest rise since 1982. Separate figures showed industrial production rose more than estimated because of the end of a strike at American Axle & Manufacturing Holdings Inc. and increased electricity output.Price gains accelerated last month even after stripping out energy and food, underscoring the challenge for Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke as he attempts to steer the economy through the slowdown and credit crisis. Treasuries fell.``This is a problem for the economy; it's even worse for the Fed,'' said Joel Naroff, president of Naroff Economic Advisors Inc. in Holland, Pennsylvania. ``Inflation numbers are high enough that under different circumstances the Fed would be hiking rates.''Excluding food and energy, so-called core costs climbed 0.3 percent in June from the previous month and 2.4 percent from a year before.Yields JumpBenchmark 10-year note yields rose to 3.93 percent at 4:20 p.m. in New York, from 3.82 percent late yesterday. The Standard & Poor's 500 Stock Index advanced 2.5 percent to close at 1,245.36, after earnings from Wells Fargo & Co. topped analysts' estimates.Consumer prices were forecast to rise 0.7 percent, according to the median estimate of 79 economists in a Bloomberg News survey. Projections ranged from gains of 0.2 percent to 1.1 percent. Costs excluding food and energy were forecast to rise 0.2 percent, the survey showed.Bernanke told lawmakers in semiannual testimony on the economy yesterday and today that inflation risks have ``intensified.'' At the same time, he dropped his June assessment that risks to the economic expansion had diminished, indicating policy makers aren't ready to raise interest rates to contain expenses.``We don't think they're going to raise rates now -- until June next year now is our forecast -- until basically the economy starts to get some footing,'' Beth Ann Bovino, senior economist at Standard & Poor's in New York, said in an interview with Bloomberg Radio. ``Right now the beast is what's going to happen with the economy.''Exceeding ForecastsPrices were forecast to climb 4.5 percent in June from a year earlier, according to the survey median.A separate report today said confidence among U.S. homebuilders dropped to 16 this month, a record low. Readings for current sales, expected sales and buyer traffic in the National Association of Homebuilders/Wells Fargo sentiment index also were at all-time lows.``The magnitude of the housing bubble was unprecedented, and the corrective process promises to be a long and painful one,'' Joshua Shapiro, chief U.S. economist at Maria Fiorini Ramirez Inc. in New York, said in a note to clients.The Fed said today that production at factories, mines and utilities increased 0.5 percent last month after dropping 0.2 percent in May. Capacity utilization, which measures the proportion of plants in use, rose to 79.9 percent from 79.6 percent.Strike's ResolutionThe resolution of a threemonth strike by General Motors Corp.'s largest axle supplier, American Axle, probably helped lift auto output. Excluding autos, factory output fell 0.1 percent for a second month.Wholesale costs rose 1.8 percent in June, the most in seven months, the Labor Department reported yesterday. From a year ago, prices climbed 9.2 percent, the biggest surge since 1981.Companies, unable to fully recover ballooning raw-material costs by raising prices, have cut staff and reduced equipment purchases as profits shrink.KimberlyClark Corp., the maker of Huggies diapers and Scott paper towels, said earnings for this year will trail its previous forecast as expenses rise more than twice as fast as predicted,``Inflation has outpaced our ability to offset higher costs in the near term through price increases, cost reductions and other measures,'' Thomas Falk, the Dallas-based company's chief executive officer, said this week in a statement.Price IncreaseProcter & Gamble Co., the maker of Tide detergent and Head & Shoulders shampoo, last week said it'll raise prices as much as 16 percent due to higher costs for plastic, energy and paper. The increases start in September and are the Cincinnati-based company's steepest in at least 18 months.Energy expenses jumped 6.6 percent, the biggest gain since November. Gasoline soared 10.1 percent and fuel oil jumped 10.4 percent.The cost of fuel will continue stoking price pressures. Crude oil futures reached a record $147.27 a barrel on July 11 and have risen almost 90 percent in the past year. Regular gasoline, which topped $4 a gallon for the first time in June, kept rising this month, AAA figures show.The consumer price index is Labor's broadest gauge of costs. Almost 60 percent of the CPI covers prices consumers pay for services ranging from medical visits to airline fares and movie tickets.Food ExpensesFood prices, which account for about a fifth of the CPI, increased 0.8 percent, driven by the biggest gain in the cost of vegetables in almost four years.The report showed that food and fuel weren't the only items on the rise. Costs for airline fares jumped 4.5 percent, the most since 2001.

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Aff Uniqueness Food prices are 54% higher than in 2008, and grain prices are at a 30 year high Moises Velasquez-Manoff, Staff Writer of The Christian Science Monitor, 7-18-08, “Diet for a more-crowded planet: plants,” http://features.csmonitor.com/environment/2008/07/18/diet-for-a-more-crowded-planet-plants/ In the first quarter of 2008, grain prices climbed to a 30-year high. On average, food prices are 54 percent higher than in 2007. Grains have gone up 92 percent. Hungry mobs, hard-pressed to afford staples, rioted in Haiti, Mexico, and Bangladesh. Experts point to a “perfect storm” of speculation, hoarding, drought in Australia, and diversion of grain to biofuels as culprits in the global food crisis. But for some, the skyrocketing grain prices fulfill a longstanding prediction: A growing world population has more buying power. The newly affluent eat more meat. A rising share of the world’s agricultural output goes to animals. While grain supplies are more than adequate to feed everyone now, say experts, the current price spike shows that even an adequate supply doesn’t preclude hunger for the world’s poor. And in the future, a day may come when there isn’t enough grain for both humans and livestock – at least not at the US consumption rate. Add to this the environmental impacts of modern industrial-scale meat production, and many wonder: With a predicted world population of 9.5 billion by midcentury, are we all destined to be vegetarians?

All over the world countries are witnessing the sting of food price hikes Simon Montlake, The Christian Science Moniter, 7-14-08, “Indonesia's answer to rising food prices,” http://www.csmonitor.com/2008/0715/p07s01-wosc.html With a milling plant and a hectare of rice paddy, Aan Suharlan is fully invested in Asia's favorite food staple. Rice put his two grownup children through school and has given him status in his village. But when he sees other farmers plow over their rice fields, he knows why they're giving up on the grain. "It's expensive to plant rice because of high production and labor costs. It's difficult to find laborers here – everyone wants to work in the factories," he says. For months, the soaring price of food – especially rice – has been on everyone's lips after international prices nearly tripled between January and April. Prices have since eased off, but the shock waves continue to reverberate across Asia, where politicians are talking up food security and tariff protection. In theory, higher global prices should mean more income for rice farmers here on Java, the breadbasket of this archipelago nation of 228 million who together eat around 32 million tons a year. Some of the benefits are trickling down to farmers, but they may not be enough to halt the steady shrinkage of rice paddy, which agriculturalists say is one factor driving up prices.

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Aff Uniqueness Arizona proves—high food costs are already putting farmers in difficult situations WMICENTRAL.COM, 7-18-08, “Arizona retail food prices up 18 percent from a year ago,” http://www.wmicentral.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=19858714&BRD=2264&PAG=461&dept_id=506173&rfi= 6 Arizona food costs up 18 percent from a year ago; farmers' input costs as much as 50 percent higher. Retail food prices at the supermarket increased in the first quarter of 2008, according to the latest Arizona Farm Bureau Federation Marketbasket Survey. The informal survey shows the total cost of 16 basic grocery items was $53.53, up more than 8 percent or $4.33 from the fourth quarter of 2007, comparatively the American Farm Bureau Federation survey was $45.03, up about 8 percent or $3.42 during the quarter. Of the 16 items surveyed in Arizona, ten increased, five decreased and one kept the same average price compared to the 2007 fourthquarter survey. The national survey shows 11 items increased, four decreased and one stayed the same. Compared to one year ago, the overall cost for the Arizona marketbasket items shows an increase of about 18 percent. To access an entire menu focused on those items down in price and designed around saving on your food budget in addition to more tips on stretching your food dollar, go to www.azfb.org and look for the Fill Your Plate logo on the homepage. Once you select Fill Your Plate you'll find the "Stretch Your Food Dollar" menu and the additional tips. In Arizona a 5-pound bag of flour showed the largest quarter-to-quarter increase, up $1.13 to $3.69 or 44 percent. Other items that increased in price were: One pound of bacon, up 93 cents to $3.69 a pound; mild cheddar cheese up 90 cents to $4.82 a pound; ground chuck up 57 cents to $3.99 a pound; a gallon of whole milk up 50 cents to $4.15; 32 oz. corn oil up 48 cents to $3.37; 32 oz. vegetable oil up 32 cents to $3.08; center cut pork chops up 30 cents per pound to $ 5.29; a dozen large eggs up 27 cents to $2.72 and 32 oz. Kraft mayonnaise up 16 cents to $3.72. Nationally, a 5-pound bag of flour also showed the largest price increase, up 69 cents to $2.39 followed by cheddar cheese, up 61 cents to $4.71 per pound. "The $1.13 increase in a five pound bag of flour reflects the continued strength in the wheat markets," says Arizona Farm Bureau President Kevin Rogers. "Plus, when looking at all other food market items you recognize that more than a third of the increased food costs this quarter is attributed to your oil-based products including mayonnaise." In Arizona, russet potatoes showed the greatest decrease in price down 61 cents to $2.25 for a 5-pound bag; whole fryers were down 24 cents to $1.45 a pound; toasted oat cereal, down 17 cents to $3.25 for a 10-oz box; red delicious apples, down 14 cents to $1.62 a pound and a 20-oz loaf of white bread, down 7 cents. Prices remained the same on a sirloin tip roast at $4.99 a pound. Prices remained steady on beef due to local supply and meat processing here in Arizona. While retail grocery prices have gradually increased, the share of the average food dollar that America's farm and ranch families receive has dropped over time. "In the mid-1970s, farmers received about one-third of consumer retail food expenditures on average. That figure has decreased steadily over time and is now just 22 percent, according to Agriculture Department statistics," said American Farm Bureau Economist Jim Sartwell. Using that percentage across the board, the Arizona farmer's share of this quarter's $53.53 marketbasket total would be $11.78. "We're being hit with high prices like everyone else," adds Arizona Farm Bureau's Rogers. "Arizona farmers and ranchers are paying 10 to 50 percent more for a range of inputs and supplies compared to just over a year ago. Fertilizer and fuel top the list with the cost for each up as much as 50 percent. And, our returns are not keeping pace." Arizona Farm Bureau member, mother of four and educator Leigh Hurst suggests she's making an even more concerted effort to save on her food budget. "With the rising cost of living and managing a family it's become more critical than ever to be stewards of our family financial resources." Aside from the typical recommendations of tracking weekly sales circulars from grocery stores and using coupons, Hurst, who taught in the public school system and is a certified master food preserver, even suggests using food preservation techniques such as canning, drying and freezing. "Plus, I don't hesitate to stock up when I find a great deal. But remember that a food item on discount is not a bargain if no one will eat it or it spoils before it can be consumed."

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Aff Answers – AT: Biofuels Link Biofuels don’t cause high food prices – alt causes like meat consumption, low ag productivity, and ethanol subsidies The Guardian, 5-30-08, “Burning food: why oil is the real villain in the food crisis,” http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/may/30/biofuels.food

[Tandet]

So can we confidently convict biofuels of the charge of causing a very large part of the spikes in food prices? Not quite. Few will dispute that biofuels have made the problem worse, but the roots of food price inflation are far deeper and even more worrying. The first factor is one happily raised by the US ethanol industry. It points out that their refineries are using far less corn than is needed to meet the increasing demand from Chinese consumers for meat. One lobbying document points out that Chinese meat consumption per person has doubled in the last decade or so, rising almost to European levels. This increase has required an extra 200m tonnes of grain per year to feed the animals, twice what will be used in 2008 in US ethanol refineries. So rising demand from the growing middle classes in developing countries is driving prices up more than biofuels. FAO data also indicates that more grain has gone to feed animals in the past 10 years, although their estimates are less alarming than those from the US ethanol industry. The FAO says the grain being used for animal feed has risen by about a 100m tonnes in the past 10 years, but this compares to an increase of only 70m tonnes in the amount directly consumed by people. This leads on to a second, even more worrying issue that underlies food price inflation. Agricultural productivity is simply not growing fast enough. US government data shows global yields per hectare rose 2% a year between 1970 and 1990 and then fell to 1.1% over the succeeding period. Productivity enhancements over the next 10 years are expected to average less than 1% a year. Since world population growth is averaging somewhat over 1%, we are heading for global hunger, with biofuels only hastening the speed. We can see this in production data from the FAO: the amount of available grain for every person in the world edged downwards last year. The world could try to compensate for faltering productivity growth by expanding the area given over to crops, but this runs the risk of increasing the rate of worldwide deforestation, already causing a fifth of global CO2 emissions. Lastly, we must consider a thorny economic issue. Government legislation in the US and the European Union – as well as their large subsidies - may have created the ethanol industry, but the refineries can now stand on their own financial feet. With oil at $135 a barrel, it is very profitable to turn the starch in maize into motor fuel. Simply put, food is worth more as petrol than it is on the table, even if the subsidies are removed. The only way of stopping farmers selling their grain to the refineries would be to introduce an outright ban on adding ethanol to petrol. The IMF may be correct that the rise of biofuels has caused much of the world's recent food price inflation. But now that we know how to make ethanol efficiently from foodstuffs, it is sky-high oil costs that are keeping up the price of agricultural commodities. For a sustained reduction in food prices, we need oil prices to fall to much lower levels. This would also reduce fertiliser and diesel expenses, helping to restrain the upward march in agricultural prices.

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Aff Answers – AT: Biofuels Link Biofuels don’t impact food prices- studies prove The Inquirer, 7-15-08, “‘Biofuels not to blame for food crisis,” http://www.inquirer.net/specialfeatures/riceproblem/view.php?db=1&article=20080715-148509, KAPUSTINA MANILA, Philippines — The US National Biodiesel Board and the Manila-based Asian Institute of Petroleum Studies Inc. (AIPSI) have both debunked claims that global biofuels development was adversely affecting the food supply and causing food prices to rise steeply. “The research done by US experts and the US Department of Agriculture has proven that biofuels-related feedstock demand has limited impact on the global food supply and pricing,” US NBB chief executive Joe Jobe said. “The presence of biofuels in the market, in fact, was helping keep US gas prices—now at more than $4 a gallon—from going even higher, amid skyrocketing prices in the world market,” Jobe said. For his part, AIPSI managing director Rafael Diaz said that on a global basis, biofuels production was eating up less than 10 percent of the global food supply. This was hardly enough to make a dent on overall supply and to drive food prices up. The food versus fuel debate was even flimsier when applied to the Philippines, he said, since the country, unlike the United States, was not using corn as a feedstock for ethanol production or soybean for biodiesel manufacturing. “To say it has no impact (on the food supply) is naïveté, but to pass on nearly the whole problem of food supply and prices as being the result of biofuels (development and production) is outright ridiculous,” Diaz said in a statement issued Monday.

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Aff Answers – AT: Ethanol Link Ethanol only causes 3% of the price hike – alt causalities Hank Green, founder of ecogeek.com and computer scientist, 5-22-08, “High food prices: ethanol is not the problem,” http://www.ecogeek.org/content/view/1663/70/ [Tandet] I'm the first to admit that the current round of ethanol is not perfect. The rising demand for ethanol has put more land under cultivation, increased water shortages, and increased fertilizer and pesticide use. For all that, corn isn't really a great way to create ethanol, only producing 1.3 units of energy for every 1 unit put into its creation. However, it is NOT responsible for the 40% increase in food prices over the last few years. It might seem like an easy target, but let's start with some logic, and then move into the solid figures. First, how could an increased demand for non-edible corn (used mostly to make high fructose corn syrup and feed for cattle, chicken and pigs) increase prices of pasta in Italy, onions in India and rice in China? Second, is there any other trend, besides the increase in biofuel production that could be blamed for rising food costs. Any trend at all? Possibly a larger, more global, more significant, and much more difficult to deal with trend? Yes, it turns out that there are two such trends. The rising prosperity of people in the world, who are now happy to be eating more (and more meat). And second, the related rise in fuel prices, due to increased demand in developing countries. Of the 40% increase in food prices, about 3% can be attributed to food crops being used in biofuels. At least 8% (PDF) can be attributed to rising costs of fuel used to grow and transport the crops from farms to the grocer. But the big hunk comes in with increased demand.

Ethanol doesn’t jack prices – the weak dollar jacks prices. There’s plenty of land available. Tanpa Tribune, 3-18-08, “Soberly Weighing Advantages Of Higher Ethanol Consumption,” Nation/World pg. 10, Lexis [Tandet] In any case, don't blame ethanol for the soaring price of wheat, corn and other commodities, nor for the rising price of meat. Actually, most corn is eaten by animals. That's why meat prices have risen along with the price of grain. The real villain is the falling dollar. As the dollar loses value, foreign companies buy more U.S. grain. Wheat exports are up more than 60 percent over last year and are still increasing. Currently, we taxpayers subsidize ethanol by 51 cents a gallon. In general, consumers are better off when the market sets prices. The political reality is that crop subsidies won't soon be eliminated, so let's see what our money is buying. The ethanol subsidy cost about $3 billion last year, but the high demand for grain lowered price supports for farmers by $6 billion. And, Dale estimates, the subsidized ethanol reduced the bill for imported oil by $15 billion. Planting more crops for energy on more land raises environmental questions, to be sure, but much farmland is available, especially here in the South.

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Aff Answers – AT: Geothermal Power Link Geothermal power doesn’t use much land – it’s compatible with agriculture Gerald K. Braun, Team Leader for the California Energy Commission (CEC) Public Interest Energy Research (PIER) Renewable Energy Technologies Program Area, and Pete McCluer, independent alternative energy development consultant, ’93, “Geothermal power generation in the United States,” http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/xpls/abs_all.jsp?arnumber=241485 [Tandet] Land use impacts from geothermal power plants are also minimal. Only a few acres must be dedicated to the power plant, well pads, and the geothermal fluid gathering and reinjection piping (Table 2). Agricultural use, livestock grazing, and wildlife are generally compatible with geothermal power plants. With proper siting and trade-offs, geothermal power plants can also be compatible with scenic and recreational land uses.

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Aff Answers – AT: Solar Power Link Solar power doesn’t take a lot of land – it can be built on top of existing structures Randall Parker, Professor of Economics at East Carolina University Greenville, 7-24-07, “Renewable Energy Seen as Harmful to Environment,” http://www.futurepundit.com/archives/004416.html [Tandet] Ausubel finds fault with solar due to land area usage. But if photovoltaics were restricted for use only on existing structures (e.g. on houses, commercial buildings, and even on bridges) then the amount of additional land used could be minimized. The amount of area we'd need for solar power is two Ohios for enough solar power for the entire world. Though that's based on current world energy consumption and 10% efficient photovoltaics. We could create 50% efficient photovoltaics and then only put photovoltaics on human structures and get enough energy.

No link – solar power uses small areas of non-arable land Ron Bengtson, founder and director of American Energy Independence, ’08, “America’s Solar Energy Potential,” http://209.85.215.104/search?q=cache:BQhsE0XXQeEJ:www.americanenergyindependence.com/solarenergy.html+solar+energy+lan d&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=1&gl=us [Tandet] All of California's electricity can be produced from 200 square miles of sunshine; 128,000 acres of desert land. Lake Mead, behind Hoover Dam, covers more than 200 square miles. Given an area the size of Lake Mead, for the production of electricity from solar energy, California would be energy independent. CSP plants seem to use a lot of land, but in reality, they use less land than hydroelectric dams for generating an equivalent electricity output, if the size of the lake behind the dam is considered. The same is true for coal plants. A CSP plant will not use any more land than a coal power plant if the amount of land required for mining and excavation of the coal is taken into consideration. If the sunshine radiating on the surface of an area 100 miles wide by 100 miles long would provide all of the electricity that America needs, every day, why would Americans hesitate to use it? There are millions of open acres in the deserts of America, where the sun’s energy does nothing more than heat rocks and sand everyday.

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Aff Answers – AT: Solar Power Link TURN- solar power provides clean water necessary for agriculture Robert Freling, 3-26-08, executive director of solar electric life fund, “Solar Electric Light Fund Tackles Benin's Arid Land,” http://www.renewableenergyworld.com/rea/news/story?id=51912, KAPUSTINA Western Africa's dry season wreaks havoc on the lives of millions of people year after year. But now some villages in Benin are going to harness solar power to solve their water problems. Robert Freling reports. The 104,000 people living in Benin's Kalalé District are particularly hard hit by seasonal drought: 95 per cent of them rely on subsistence farming as their primary means of survival. And for most, farming is limited to the rainy season due the lack of accessible water for irrigation during the dry season. Beyond providing a cleaner and quieter local environment in comparison to diesel pumps, solar pumping can provide a carbon-free and sustainable energy source. During the dry season people suffer from poor diets, little income and the necessity of buying expensive food from the tropical areas of the country. For half the year, a lack of farm work causes community dislocation as many families migrate to overcrowded urban areas in search of employment. Kalalé District's dry season typically lasts six months a year. During this time, crops are only grown in the very limited areas near rivers or lakes. In these more fortunate villages, water is commonly moved through the laborious and time-consuming method of filling containers by hand and slowly watering individual plants. This labour-intensive process severely limits the amount of land that can be cultivated during the dry season. Local generators There have been limited attempts to irrigate Kalalé's farmland with pumps powered by gas or diesel engines but these attempts have been short-lived due to maintenance difficulties and the high cost of fuel in the region. In addition, the national electric grid has not reached Kalalé District. Currently the only electrical generation is supplied by small, local generators sparsely disbursed throughout the region. Over 80 per cent of Kalalé's villages do not have a source of surface water and virtually nothing is grown during the dry season. During this time, families live on a combination of stored grains and expensive food brought up from the tropical southern part of the country. Prices for basic vegetables, such as tomatoes, onions and peppers, almost double during the dry season. The lack of availability and high prices combine to severely limit diets during the dry season and malnutrition is prevalent. In addition to a lack of water for crop production, many villages in Kalalé also suffer from a lack of clean water for drinking and domestic use. Those without clean water suffer from various water-borne illnesses while those with wells spend a great deal of time fetching water from a limited number of hand-pumps that are often not working. The Solar Electric Light Fund (SELF) is working to install low-cost micro-irrigation and solar water pumps in two villages in the District. This will create a reliable and economical means of irrigation and enable families in these villages to grow crops during the six month dry season for significant improvements in family income and nutrition. Clean water At least 20 families (100-200 people) will directly benefit from the solar-irrigation project and approximately 4,500 people living in two communities will benefit from the added supply of clean water during the rainy season. The first phase of the project, which was funded in part by the $100,000 seed money that SELF won in the World Bank's Development Marketplace Competition, began in August 2007. Once completed, the solar drip-irrigation technology that is being installed will provide participating families will more than double their annual income. They will be able to increase considerably their consumption of fresh

vegetables during the dry season thus reducing malnutrition. Project villages will double or even triple the harvest of fresh vegetables during the dry season and will gain an average of 6,000-8,000 gallons per day or more of clean water during the rainy season.

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Aff Answers – AT: Wind Power Link Wind power doesn’t waste farmland Randall Parker, Professor of Economics at East Carolina University Greenville, 7-24-07, “Renewable Energy Seen as Harmful to Environment,” http://www.futurepundit.com/archives/004416.html [Tandet] Again, Ausubel sees problems with wind. But can't wind towers be built on farm fields so that the same lands produce crops and energy simultaneously? “Turning to wind Ausubel points out that while wind farms are between three to ten times more compact than a biomass farm, a 770 square kilometer area is needed to produce as much energy as one 1000 Megawatt electric (MWe) nuclear plant. To meet 2005 US electricity demand and assuming round-the-clock wind at the right speed, an area the size of Texas, approximately 780,000 square kilometers, would need to be covered with structures to extract, store, and transport the energy.” At least wind towers would leave most of the ground area still available for wild plants and animals. Also, wind towers built off coast beyond visibility from land could leave land habitats undisturbed

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