In its December 6, 2007 issue, the Economist magazine devotes its cover to “The End of Cheap Food”. The cover article consists of 1280 words. Not one of those words is the word “oil” (“oilseeds” is used once).
That’s right. When pontificating on the “end of cheap food” not one mention of Peak Oil, stagnant oil production (particularly in relation to accelerating demand for oil and other fossil fuels), or the increasing costs of oil itself—and thus more expensive agriculture production, transportation of food, packaging and much more.
Who are the culprits responsible for the rising costs of food? According to the Economist: Government intervention through farm subsidies and trade barriers, U.S. subsidization of corn fields for biofuels rather than food, and the increasing appetites of everyone’s favorite scapegoat, the Chinese, who are this year eating 2.5 times as much meat as they ate in 1985.
The Economist, as always touched by the plight of the planet’s poor, sheds copious crocodile tears for the farmers of the undeveloped world, and endorses the pleas of that other legendary friend of the poor, the World Bank, in its call for wide-open agricultural trade.
In other words, get government out of the way and off the backs of multinational corporations, and business can feed the world.
Yeah, sure.
0 Responses to “No Oil in The Economist”
Leave a Reply