The Indian rice export ban, the war in Ukraine and El Niño are combining to create a “doom loop” for the world’s poorest people, as staple food prices soar.
Started the food wars have
Can we please not have silly jokes on a serious topic like global hunger?
This is one thing I don’t want from reddit
It may sound silly but it’s put succinctly and there’s an element of grim truth to it.
Additionally, do we have to compare everything to Reddit? It’s the Internet, people are going to cope how they cope.
I just want to filter out the words Reddit, Elon and Trump. I’m just so tired.
If I don’t laugh about the world I’ll just start crying. It’s sadly the defense mechanism I’ve developed. I use humor to avoid uncomfortable moments in all aspects of my life.
I agree, humor is a valid coping mechanism. It’s not like a serious conversation on Lemmy is going to solve world hunger, your joke was fine in my opinion.
It’s not sadly the defence mechanism you developed, but luckily.
Because face it some defence mechanism is needed, and the vast majority of them are absolutely harmful. Fuck the ruffled feathers those are the exact kind of people who say “I’d rather ignore it”, “I’d rather deny it’s happening”, “I’d rather say that it’s bad everywhere”, “I’d rather say it’s because of the Jews”, “I’d rather sit here and unproductively wallow in pity”, or whatever. You are a human, and as such you have the birth right to be bright-eyed and bushy-tailed.
Can we please not banning silly jokes on a serious topic? That is one thing I don’t want from real life
I’m sorry if this disturbs you but free humour is one of the extremely important aspects of the internet that Lemmy needs to support. When you know who you are talking to you can avoid subjects that may hurt the other person but on the public internet this is not possible. The alternative to never dare making any joke because of the risk to hurt someone is dystopian.
Top comment isn’t even a joke, it’s a movie reference that supports the idea that this is a serious topic.
Been prepping for years just in case this happens. Scary to see its possible.
There’s no prepping for a food war. Prepping is for a temporary situation. Food supplies must be constantly restocked.
The survivors will be those able to adapt. There’s plenty of nourishing fauna, but how many are ready to eat bugs? Rats?
This is the best summary I could come up with:
The cost of rice — a staple food for nearly half the world’s population — and other essentials, like wheat, corn and vegetable oils, are rising as geopolitical forces, extreme weather and a dawning El Niño disrupt global trade.
In its most recent rice outlook, the USDA said India was expected to ship a record 23.0 million tonnes in 2024, exceeding the combined shipments of the next two largest exporters — Thailand and Vietnam.
The Indian government runs the world’s largest food distribution program, catering to about 800 million people, according to McDonald Pelz business manager Sumit Gupta.
The Indian government has a policy of maintaining reserves of key commodities, and as it assessed the risk of El Niño, and the rapid pace of rice exports this year, it brought the trade to a close on July 20.
“This sharp increase in exports can be ascribed to high international prices due to [the] geo-political scenario, El Niño sentiments and extreme climatic conditions in other rice-producing countries,” the Indian Ministry of Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution said in its statement declaring the ban.
At a conference in St Petersburg recently, Russian President Vladimir Putin pledged 25,000-50,000 tons of free grain to Burkina Faso, Zimbabwe, Mali, Somalia, the Central African Republic and Eritrea in the coming months.
I’m a bot and I’m open source!
Ok… Now let’s see the positive effects of less people…
Climate change certainly gets a little less fuel…
Referring to the potential starvation deaths of a large group of people as a positive for climate change is like saying you’re glad someone died early from a car accident instead of suicide.
Yes, but im just a very positive thinker today!
(is irony dead? Does everything need the /s? Are people so insane they think someone would writing that in a serious note…)
Eh, the way it was written I wouldn’t have read it as sarcasm. Text and tone yada yada. That said, I’ve definitely seen people who seriously think like this.
Honestly? Yeah, I thought you were serious, because I’ve seen that attitude expressed before. Generally it’s more “this hazy, unspecified population can be sacrificed to help me deal with the existential dread that me and my world are walking off a cliff” than “dear me I so DO delight in death”, but it makes my teeth ache.
Thank you for clarifying, and I’m sorry for jumping on you.
Literally no way to discern whether it was a sarcastic joke or if you were legitimately an eco-fascist
Here is an alternative Piped link(s): https://piped.video/JwI2NrVYqIE
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I’m open-source, check me out at GitHub.
Those who can not afford to eat are probably not making much CO2 emissions.
Not sure if you caught the text of what they’re saying: people who can’t afford to eat rice starving to death aren’t removing much of humanity’s carbon footprint.
It’s culling the wrong demographic. Removing poor people is the least efficient. Removing the poorest will have the least effect possible.
These comments always make me wonder wether it’s a lack of education, bad taste or racism.
Can people like you maybe read a little further down the thread, like i literally explained in detail why that comment is completely ridiculous and i don’t understand how someone could take it as a serious comment.
Its literally a joke.
Yes, I read it before. No, it didn’t change much. Where’s the joke, what’s funny about this?
On the other hand, too many people write these comments seriously, which is enough reason to counter them.
It’s downplaying the climate crisis and normalizing racism. You can insist it was done in a lighthearted way, but that’s not so relevant.
Except the people who prefer to pay less for their goods and services. They depend on people willing / forced to work for very little; they need the poor.
Also this is not a business where you could hire and fire people based on what is ‘needed’, and you’re not the boss.
These are humans with exactly the same right to food as you.
so eat something else? if you’re reliant on a grain crop that you cant even grow yourself, you’ve never had food security. plenty of other grain crops that are cheaper to grow than rice (which requires a massive amount of water). those pictures of people that live in arid environments means they’re not growing rice, ever
cake is generally comprised of wheat flour. does wheat grow that well in africa?
if you’re reliant on a grain crop that you cant even grow yourself, you’ve never had food security.
I guess I’ll die
You’re not wrong.
But this is equivalent to telling a homeless person to get a job. It’s not that simple.
perhaps. i’d argue that it really is that simple. for decades, many countries in areas that are well known, historically, for having famines have been importing most/all of their food because the food was available for export by other countries that are very good at growing things & they had excess. now those countries have stopped or drastically curtailed exports. the end result is that the famine countries cannot buy their way out of famine - and now the population isnt just a few hundred thousand but tens of millions.
so eat something else?
Agreed, but this is going to require changes by governments. Certain crops often get subsidies, whether they’re the best option or not. There are healthier grains that can stand up better to climate change than rice. Many governments are so stuck into subsidizing specifically rice that they have backed themselves into a corner with a thirst crop that isn’t all that nutrient dense. And unwinding those subsides is unpopular, even if it’s ultimately the right thing to do.
Most rice in the world is poisoned by pollutants anyway. Since rice grows in water it collects arsenic from pesticides and when you eat it regularly it puts you at risk for a wide variety of arsenic related diseases. Ironically, the rice with the least amount of nutrients (white rice) also has the lowest arsenic levels.
What are you talking about? The whole point of flooding rice fields is to manage insects without pesticides
Arsenic was used as a pesticide in many parts of the world throughout the 20th century. Even if it wasn’t used on rice it ended up in the water where the rice grew.
https://www.consumerreports.org/cro/magazine/2012/11/arsenic-in-your-food/index.htm
At the same time as Ukrainian wheat issues with the blockade could be a really big issue.
