ACCRA, Ghana (AP) - The U.N. chief warned Sunday that the world must urgently increase food production to ease skyrocketing prices and pledged to set up a task force on a crisis threatening to destabilize developing nations.

The cost of food has increased by around 40 percent since mid-2007 worldwide, and the strain has caused riots and protests in countries like Cameroon, Burkina Faso, Haiti and Egypt.

“We must make no mistake, the problem is big. If we offer the right aid, the solutions will come,” Ban said at the opening of a a five-day U.N. conference on trade and development in Ghana’s capital, Accra.“One thing is certain, the world has consumed more than it has produced” over the last three years, he said.

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UN chief warns world must urgently increase food production

DES MOINES, Iowa - At a time of record agricultural profits, concerns are mounting that American farmers could be edging toward a financial crisis not seen since the 1980s farm-economy collapse.

- At a time of record agricultural profits, concerns are mounting that American farmers could be edging toward a financial crisis not seen since the 1980s farm-economy collapse.

Soaring land values, increasing debt and a reliance on government subsidies for ethanol production have prompted economists to warn that what some describe as a golden age of agriculture could come to a sudden end. At risk are the livelihoods of thousands of farmers, the health of hundreds of banks and the vitality of an agricultural industry that has been one of the nation’s few economic bright spots in recent months.

“We’re in a very risky time, and yet we don’t seem concerned about that risk nearly as much as we should be,” said Barry L. Flinchbaugh, an agricultural economist at Kansas State University.

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Crisis looming for U.S. farmers?

The USA has been the bread basket of the world for many years but it appears that could soon become a thing of the past…

Many 3rd world nations are hungry, and that is a sad situation, but those 3rd world countries aren’t producers, they are consumers, and their consumption is not accomplished through buying foodstuffs, they are not contributing to any economy, they are leeching off of other, more prosperous nations, they are the recipients of charity, donations, food surpluses from other nations, but those surplus food supplies are rapidly drying up, and U.S. production is on the verge of a serious crisis that may leave the USA with no choice other than to take care of her own, and that would be a real change of attitude I think, for America to actually place Americans 1st as we feed, clothe and house all of OUR people before we worry about the well being of others…

In many cases, those others that we take care of are more than able to help themselves, if only they would, they could stop their warring factions from fighting and have them begin farming, they could feed their own instead of wiping them out in tribal genocide…

I know that the USA can’t engage in total isolationism, but we are fast approaching a time when we will be faced with some really tough decisions, not tough for me, but certainly difficult for those that put the welfare of other nations ahead of our own…

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Cross Posted @ Reject the U.N.