Food & Credit

I had coffee this morning with some guys from the County. In Whatcom County, there is the tree-hugging ultra-liberal crowd that lives in Bellingham; then there are the uber-conservative religious zealots that live out in the County. The ones I had coffee with were the latter group - a bunch of great people, but the oddest thing of this meeting was that we share exactly the same sentiments about the impending food crisis in this country, whether attributable to peak oil, climate change, ineffective government policies or inept government on all levels.

They told me of the plight of farmers not being able to get credit to buy seed and supplies to plant their crops this spring. I've read about this, but they were the first people I spoke with that were on the front lines of this impending crisis. And two years of record high commodity prices ended with the bottom falling out of the market at the end of last year's harvest. Interesting times lie ahead for the underappreciated farmers of this country.

I know for a fact that many (most? all?) of these loan programs offered by the U.S. have had dismal results with the best of intentions (or not?) by our clueless and unconcerned elected officials. I read that the Energy Policy Act of 2005 signed by Idiot Bush - not a dollar of those funds were disbursed. Again, our government is failing us and we expect them to save us.

The more I read about it, the less far-fetched this looming meltdown and food crisis seems.