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And I throw back at you the "regional" argument. just because some fool decides to make a mess of their resources, doesn't mean everyone is or, for that matter, the world resources are shrinking.
When it happens at multiple regions all across the world,
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- World market prices for farming products being determined by floods, hurricanes, droughts, bad or good seasons and not by scarcity of arable soil.
The scarcity of arable land is what's causing wealthy
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From mid-2006 to mid-2008, world prices of wheat, rice, corn, and soybeans roughly tripled, reaching historic highs. It was not until the global economic crisis beginning in 2008 that grain prices receded somewhat. But even then they were still well above the historical level.3
The world has experienced several grain price surges over the last half-century, but none like this. These earlier trends were event-driven—a monsoon failure in India, a severe drought in the Soviet Union, or a crop-shrinking heat wave in the U.S. Midwest. The price surges were temporary, caused by weather-related events that were usually remedied by the next harvest. The record 2006–08 surge in grain prices is different. It is trend-driven. This means that working our way out of this tightening food situation depends on reversing the trends that are causing it, such as soil erosion, falling water tables, and rising carbon emissions.