[steam_cannon]

Lots of riots and unrest in the world. What do people expect for the food situation and riots for 2014? It looks like the world food price index is on a downtrend though it's uncertain how long that will hold.

Slashdot: Math Models Predicted Global Uprisings"Just over a year ago, complex systems theorists at the New England Complex Systems Institute warned that if food prices continued to climb, so too would the likelihood that there would be riots across the globe. Sure enough, we're seeing them now. The paper's author, Yaneer Bar-Yam, charted the rise in the FAO food price index—a measure the UN uses to map the cost of food over time—and found that whenever it rose above 210, riots broke out worldwide. It happened in 2008 after the economic collapse, and again in 2011, when a Tunisian street vendor who could no longer feed his family set himself on fire in protest."

New England Complex Systems Institute
"According to the new study, the next food price peak will take place in about a year. The results will be dramatically higher prices than we have encountered thus far. The study warns that should ethanol production continue to grow according to multiyear trends, even the underlying trend will reach social-crisis levels in just one year."

Complex Systems Theorists Predict We're About One Year From Global Food Riots

Conjecture on what triggers global unrest
The number one determinant was soaring food prices. Their model identified a precise threshold for global food prices that, if breached, would lead to worldwide unrest.

[Strummer]

The Food Price Index is strongly correlated to oil price, so as long as Brent oscillates around a plateau or goes down, food prices will follow. The other factors (biofuel production, soil degradation, climate change, etc...) are too weak currently to make a visible impact on the global index.

[Loki]

The Food Price Index is strongly correlated to oil price, so as long as Brent oscillates around a plateau or goes down, food prices will follow. The other factors (biofuel production, soil degradation, climate change, etc...) are too weak currently to make a visible impact on the global index.

There's more to food prices than oil, though the latter is obviously playing a role. I haven't come across a comprehensive study of the factors playing into rising food prices, but drought has certainly played a role:

In the summer of 2012, weather conditions caused the most
severe drought the United States has seen since the 1950s.
This drought affected agricultural crops across the nation. As a
result of drought-related crop damage, U.S. export prices for corn
soared nearly 128 percent above the 20-year historical average, as
measured by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) monthly export
price index. Export prices also hit the highest level since the import
and export price index series began in December 1984
....

Agricultural export prices. Agricultural prices
advanced 12.7 percent in the third quarter of 2012,
primarily as a result of increases in the prices of
soybeans (up 28.5 percent), corn (29.8 percent), and
wheat (29.6 percent). As discussed in the first section
of this report, the severe drought that has affected
much of the nation drove crop prices up. With the
smallest harvest in 9 years, U.S. soybean reserves
hit their lowest level in four decades.19 Despite the
drought in the Midwest, U.S. wheat production was not
affected as much, because most of the wheat in this
region was harvested in the spring and early summer,
before the dry conditions took hold.20 Still, export
wheat prices advanced during the first 2 months of the
quarter, increasing 18.0 percent in July and 9.0 percent
in August, because of a reduction in world wheat
production. Droughts in Russia, Ukraine, and Kazakhstan
cut global wheat stocks for the 2012–2013 season.

http://www.bls.gov/opub/btn/volume-1/pd ... -price.pdf

The current drought in California will likely raise global dairy prices too unless some of the other world producers have an outstanding year. California is the #1 dairy producer in the US and the #1 dairy exporter (they account for 40% of US dairy exports as of 2012).

Milk futures in Chicago jumped to the highest on record, signaling higher costs for consumers, as exports surge and a record drought threatens output in California, the nation’s top producer.

Shipments of dry-milk ingredients, cheese and butterfat jumped 17 percent to 1.76 million metric tons in the 11 months through November, the latest data from the U.S. Dairy Export Council show. California had its driest year ever in 2013, threatening to slow output per cow, according to INTL FCStone Inc. Futures jumped 16 percent this year, the biggest gain among 64 commodities tracked by Bloomberg. Cheese, up 12 percent, is the second-best performer.

Global dairy prices tracked by the United Nations climbed 28 percent last year, compared with a 3.4 percent decline in overall food costs.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-01-2 ... ought.html

[Strummer]

Yes, dairy is going up steadily, but cereals (grain) and meat went down globally in 2013, and grain is the most important one.

http://www.fao.org/worldfoodsituation/csdb/en/

But yeah, unpredictable weather patterns (especially in Europe, Russia and China) can change that situation rapidly.

[Tanada]

I don't believe it takes a math model, all you have to do is open your eyes and ears. Riots in Ukraine, Venezuela, civil war in Libya/Afghanistan, random anti government attacks in Iraq, Egypt, Tunisia...Protests in Greece have been out of the news lately but nobody there is happy.

How many dots do you have to have in front of you to draw a picture?

[americandream]

I don't believe it takes a math model, all you have to do is open your eyes and ears. Riots in Ukraine, Venezuela, civil war in Libya/Afghanistan, random anti government attacks in Iraq, Egypt, Tunisia...Protests in Greece have been out of the news lately but nobody there is happy.

How many dots do you have to have in front of you to draw a picture?

Yes, but these are not spontaneous. They are largely contrived for globalist reasons. The world is in expansion mode with China as the capitalist's pivot. It is bizarre that a supposedly revolutionayr nation now drives the commodification that has much of the world in a stupor. Once this starts to hit a ceiling, there are no more sedatives and the fun starts.

[Loki]

Yes, dairy is going up steadily, but cereals (grain) and meat went down globally in 2013, and grain is the most important one.

http://www.fao.org/worldfoodsituation/csdb/en/

But yeah, unpredictable weather patterns (especially in Europe, Russia and China) can change that situation rapidly.

Good link. Grains are definitely the cornerstone. But more and more are going to livestock. I fed more than my fair share to my hogs last year.

How many Egyptians or Haitians did I outbid last year, feeding corn and soy to my hogs? I have no idea. And honestly, I'm not entirely sure I care. Exceeding regional carrying capacity should have consequences.

[americandream]

I don't believe it takes a math model, all you have to do is open your eyes and ears. Riots in Ukraine, Venezuela, civil war in Libya/Afghanistan, random anti government attacks in Iraq, Egypt, Tunisia...Protests in Greece have been out of the news lately but nobody there is happy.

How many dots do you have to have in front of you to draw a picture?

Yes, but these are not spontaneous. They are largely contrived for globalist reasons. The world is in expansion mode with China as the capitalist's pivot. It is bizarre that a supposedly revolutionayr nation now drives the commodification that has much of the world in a stupor. Once this starts to hit a ceiling, there are no more sedatives and the fun starts.

I have to agree with Tanada. I don't see how you can describe these spontaneous uprisings as 'contrived'. Or describe the world in 'expansion mode?' I am willing to grant that automation and wealth concentration have exacerbated the current crisis, but I don't see how you can dismiss declining energy for deflationary trends.

I have called it right on numerous of these uprisings since I joined this board. This is another capitalist inspired uprising to fully dismantle the last shards of this regions socialist remnants (they are there, you just don't hear about them.).

Exactly the same trick was played on the naive masses when the so-called Arab Spring sprung. Back then I cautioined that the poor buggers would be in deeper doggy doo when the smoke had cleared but capitalism would have deeper talons in the regions oil, notably one Ghadaffi and Libya.

Just bide your time and observe this fiasco play out is all I suggest. Revolution will come in its time. Not yet though. The bargains down the local mall are too tantalising.

edit; social relations will begin to fray and collapse when the basis for its existence, commodification, begins to fall prey to decoupling.