medialifemagazine.com
In a hungry world, a hunger for farms
By Heidi Dawley
Apr 28, 2008 - 1:15:35 AM
It has to come as a shocker for some consumers.
Last week, out to buy rice at their supermarket, some were told there were limits on how much they could take home. If they had thought much about rice, they had already noticed that prices has been rising, along with just about everything else at the supermarket, and they may also have caught news reports of rioting around the world over rice scarcities.
They'd be aware, in fact, that the world has entered a new era of food scarcity, and it's not just poor nations, though starvation levels among them are as bad or worse. The developed nations, including the U.S., are also feeling the pinch. There just isn't enough.
One interesting effect is that while housing prices are sinking, farmland values are skyrocketing as farmers and investment funds snap up plantable fields, and it's happening everywhere.
“Prices for farmland are going up all around the world,” says Andrew Shirley, head of rural land research for Knight Frank, an international property consultancy and agency.
Prices for farmland in the corn-growing state of Iowa have gone up 21 percent over the prior year to March, according to Knight Frank. Price increases in Kansas are similar.
“In the last two years there have been really significant price increases in the Midwest, particularly where the corn, soybean and wheat crops are prevalent,” says Rex Schrader, president of Indiana-based Schrader Real Estate & Auction Company.
Whereas over the last 20 years increases of 3 to 6 percent would be the norm, in the past two years he has been seeing increases of about 15 percent on average, and as much as 20 to 25 percent in some areas.
In Britain, farm land prices were up 28 percent in the six months to February, according to the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors, the steepest increase since the group started tracking 13 years ago.
Farmers and investment funds are also rushing to buy in places like Eastern Europe, where farmland has been underutilized. Shirley forecasts that prices for good land in the Ukraine will double this year as investors pile in.
It’s no wonder this has been happening. Global wheat prices are up 181 percent in the 36 months to February 2008, according to the World Bank, and overall global food prices increased by 83 percent. The World Bank believes prices for most food crops will remain above 2004 levels through 2015.
What's driving the price increases is increased consumption in developing countries, combined with drought in key growing countries and, a third factor, the increasing use of agricultural land to grow bio-fuel crops. Corn that might have gone to feed pigs is now going to ethanol production.
Food experts are plenty worried. The UN warned earlier this month that the soaring food prices could lead to global turmoil, with the prospect that rioting will spread beyond Haiti, Egypt and the Ivory Coast.
What makes it so unusual is that the scarcities are being felt in the U.S., which from its earliest days enjoyed a booming agricultural economy. If anything, there were long too many farmers, with the effect of driving down prices below what it took to support a farm family.
One hundred years ago one in three people were farmers, but by the 1950s farmers accounted for just over one in 10 Americans, and by 1990 that figure fell to just over one of every 50.
Now it's not just farmers returning to the land. The average homeowner appears to be getting out trowels and digging over long-forgotten vegetable patches. Seed suppliers report that vegetable seeds have been flying off the shelves in the U.S. and the UK, as well as Australia.
In the U.S., Fedco, which sells organic seeds, reports that vegetable seeds sales are up 15 to 20 percent. “That’s a big increase,” says Nikos Kavanya, seed purchaser at Fedco. “Usually we would expect a 5 percent increase.”
***
Meanwhile, elsewhere in popcult, the new comedy “Baby Mama” debuted at No. 1 at the box office over the weekend, bringing in $18.3 million. Another comedy, “Harold and Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay,” came in at No. 2 with $14.6 million in ticket sales.
In DVD rentals for the week ended April 20, according to IMDb.com, new release “Juno” was No. 1, followed by fellow new release “AVPR: Alien vs. Predator – Requiem.”
On iTunes this morning, Leona Lewis’ “Bleeding Love” was No. 1, knocking Madonna’s “4 Minutes” down to No. 2.
And in books, Harlan Coben’s new novel “Hold Tight” was No. 1 on The New York Times’ hardcover fiction best-sellers list for the week ended April 19, and also came in at No. 3 on USA Today’s book chart for the week ended April 20.
|
TOP MOVIES
Weekend Box Office Estimates
Weekend of April 25-27, 2008
|
|
Rank
|
MOVIE
|
Engagements
|
Box office (millions)
|
|
1
|
Baby Mama (Universal)
|
2.543
|
$18.27
|
|
2
|
Harold and Kumar Escape from
Guantanamo
Bay (Warner Bros.)
|
2,510
|
$14.57
|
|
3
|
The Forbidden Kingdom (Lionsgate)
|
3,151
|
$11.23
|
|
4
|
Forgetting Sarah Marshall (Universal)
|
2,799
|
$11.01
|
|
5
|
Nim’s
Island (Fox Walden)
|
2,977
|
$4.52
|
|
6
|
Prom Night (Screen Gems)
|
2,821
|
$4.40
|
|
7
|
21 (Sony)
|
2,952
|
$4.00
|
|
8
|
88 Minutes (Sony)
|
2,168
|
$3.60
|
|
9
|
Dr. Seuss’ Horton Hears a Who (Fox)
|
2,159
|
$2.41
|
|
10
|
Deception (Fox)
|
2,001
|
$2.23
|
|
Source: Yahoo Movies
|
|
IMDb TOP DVD RENTALS
Week ending April 20, 2008
|
|
Rank
|
TITLE
|
Last week
|
|
1
|
Juno
|
-
|
|
2
|
AVPR: Alien vs. Predator – Requiem
|
-
|
|
3
|
There Will Be Blood
|
1
|
|
4
|
Alvin
and the Chipmunks
|
2
|
|
5
|
Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead
|
-
|
|
6
|
Lions for Lambs
|
3
|
|
7
|
In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale
|
-
|
|
8
|
The Water Horse: Legend of the Deep
|
4
|
|
9
|
Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street
|
5
|
|
10
|
Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story
|
7
|
|
Source: IMDB
|
|
ITUNES TOP 8 SONG DOWNLOADS
for week ended Monday, April 28, 2008
|
|
Rank
|
TITLE
|
|
1
|
Bleeding Love, Leona Lewis
|
|
2
|
4 Minutes, Madonna feat. Justin Timberlake
|
|
3
|
Forever, Chris Brown
|
|
4
|
Lillipop, Lil Wayne
|
|
5
|
Leavin’, Jesse McCartney
|
|
6
|
No Air, Jordin Sparks and Chris Brown
|
|
7
|
Say, John Mayer
|
|
8
|
Love In This Club, Usher feat. Young Jeezy
|
|
Source: iTunes
|
|
NEW YORK
TIMES BESTSELLING BOOKS
Week ending April 19, 2008
|
|
Fiction (hardback)
|
|
Rank
|
TITLE
|
Last week
|
Weeks on chart
|
|
1
|
Hold Tight by Harlan Coben
|
-
|
1
|
|
2
|
Where Are You Now? by Mary Higgins Clark
|
1
|
2
|
|
3
|
The Miracle of Sleepy Motors by Alexander McCall Smith
|
-
|
1
|
|
4
|
Unaccustomed Earth by Jhumpa Lahiri
|
2
|
3
|
|
5
|
Certain Girls by Jennifer Weiner
|
3
|
2
|
|
Nonfiction (hardback)
|
|
1
|
Beautiful Boy by David Sheff
|
3
|
8
|
|
2
|
Home by Julie Andrews
|
1
|
3
|
|
3
|
Mistaken Identity by Don and Susie Van Ryn and Newell, Colleen and Whitney Cerak
|
2
|
4
|
|
4
|
Ladies of
Liberty by Cokie Roberts
|
4
|
2
|
|
5
|
Escape by Carolyn Jessop with Laura Palmer
|
6
|
4
|
|
Fiction (paperback)
|
|
1
|
The Memory Keeper's Daughter by Kim Edwards
|
1
|
33
|
|
2
|
Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen
|
3
|
2
|
|
3
|
Nineteen Minutes by Jodi Picoult
|
2
|
11
|
|
4
|
The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini
|
5
|
33
|
|
5
|
The Friday Night Knitting Club by Kate Jacobs
|
4
|
16
|
|
Nonfiction (paperback)
|
|
1
|
Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin
|
1
|
64
|
|
2
|
Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert
|
2
|
65
|
|
3
|
The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins
|
-
|
16
|
|
4
|
The Audacity of Hope by Barack Obama
|
3
|
17
|
|
5
|
John Adams by David McCullough
|
4
|
35
|
|
Source: New York Times
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
USA
TODAY BESTSELLING BOOKS
Week ending April 20, 2008
|
|
Rank
|
TITLE
|
Last week
|
|
1
|
A New Earth by Eckhart Tolle
|
1
|
|
2
|
The Last Lecture by Randy Pausch and Jeffrey Zaslow
|
2
|
|
3
|
Hold Tight by Harlan Coben
|
-
|
|
4
|
Just Who Will You Be? Big Question. Little Book. Answer Within. by Maria Shriver
|
-
|
|
5
|
Where Are You Now? by Mary Higgins Clark
|
3
|
|
6
|
Twilight by Stephanie Meyer
|
7
|