Global and Domestic Food Outlook

The concept of food security, in most of our minds, comes from media of decades ago - America is feeding the world.

Since that time, imports of foreign foodstuffs have grown dramatically. Today, with a variance of only a few billion dollars each year, America imports as much food as it exports.

The cereal grain stocks held domestically are just one piece of a more complex food system. In the United States, stocks are drawn down when domestic production falls short of domestic consumption plus exports. And here is the key to understanding food security. Cereal grain stocks, held within the borders of the United States, are generally for sale to the highest bidder on a global market.

So what should we do, if anything? Are some stocks of food, to buffer the risk of production shortfalls, a good thing? Considering that current government grain stocks are virtually nonexistent.

A simple idea would be to maintain a minimum level of basic food stocks for every 1 million people, located within 100 miles of those people and under local control. You can be assured that you would have farmer support for that idea.

For the charts of global and national food stocks, which contains information rarely seen by consumers, read the entire article in Touch the Soil magazine.