Manmade famine in America

[hypocritexposer]

December 30, 2010
Manmade famine in America

Thomas Lifson

It seems inconceivable, but people in America are going hungry en masse due to a famine caused by political authorities. Fresno, California is not yet a sister city of Kiev, Ukraine, but the two cities, capitals of rich agricultural regions, share a history of mass hunger caused by central governments indifferent to the suffering of their people, in the pursuit of ideological goals. Investor's Business Daily explains:

Fresno is the agricultural capital of America. More food per acre in more variety can be grown in the fertile Central Valley surrounding this community than on any other land in America - perhaps in the world.


Yet far from being a paradise, Fresno is starting to resemble Zimbabwe or 1930s Ukraine, a victim of a famine machine that is entirely man-made, not by red communists this time, but by greens.


State and federal officials, driven by the agenda of environmental extremists, have made it extremely difficult for the valley's farms, introducing costly environmental regulations and cutting off critical water supplies to save the Delta smelt, a bait fish. It's all driving the economy to collapse.


In the southwest part of the Central Valley, water allotments as low as 10% of normal have created a visible dust bowl. The knock-on effect can be seen in cities like Fresno, where November's unemployment among the packers, cannery workers and professional fields that make agriculture productive stands at 16.9%.

So bad is the economy, due to federal water restrictions, that almost a quarter of local families are going hungry in Fresno:

Local newspapers and Fresno County officials are trying to rally Facebook users to vote for Fresno in a corporate contest sponsored by Wal-Mart for $1 million in charity food donations for the hungry. Fresno, a city of 505,000, has taken the national lead because 24.1% of Fresno's families are going hungry.

The destruction of the agricultural economy of America's most productive region is yet another example of federal policies literally destroying America's productive capacity. To be sure, the Fresno famine is not causing mass starvation, merely hunger. But this is America, and destroying jobs and agricultural capacity is a shameful initiative of government.

http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2010/12/manmade_famine_in_america.html

 

[pups and bucks]

I don't believe everything I read but.........
there is only so much water and ........couldn't a lot of those folks that are in Fresno move back south?

 

[Triangle Bar]

I don't believe everything I read but.........
there is only so much water and ........couldn't a lot of those folks that are in Fresno move back south?

This is a regulatory caused drought. In 2009 there was 95% of average annual precip. and for 2010 I believe it was well over 100%. Despite the good water supply the San Joaquin Valley is being dried up to float a 3 inch fish. The powers that be have decided jobs, businesses, economies, and individual rights should be trumped to float a bait fish.

It is the height of arrogance that a few self appointed people can presume to know better how to use other's private property. The fish seems to have survived and thrived in the decades of water diversion to the valley, otherwise it would have gone extinct 50 years ago.


http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204619004574318621482123090.html

 

[okfarmer]

I don't believe everything I read either. However, the scarier question is: Are you willing to move? It is sometimes a fish, but the next time an owl, or maybe a kangaroo rat. Sometimes the same rodent or owl may be considered a different species if it is located in a different geographical region, just so population numbers can be altered to seem lower than accurate. There was a push to ban cultivation in areas home to the kangaroo rat several years ago. Kinda hit home with me because they existed on many farms in our area- abundantly.

Haven't seen a decline in the numbers since I have been alive and the fields have been worked by me, my dad before me, and my grandad before him and my great granddad before him.

But it probably makes sense to stop production of valuable food for countless numbers of people, livestock, and numerous wildlife species so that a mouse that is not in danger will be saved.

I wish I could fund a study to show the total number of animals that benefit from normal agriculture production vs what the same acreage could maximally sustained previously.

 

[Big Muddy rancher]

Nature Saskatchewan has a program with the catchy name of "Shrubs for Shrikes"
I can't get anyone to tell me the base line date for a population in Sask. We have old photos from the 40's and 50 of the ranch and we had very little brush and many of the coulees that were fenced in the teens are so choked with Hawthorns they are almost impassable. Miles upon miles of shelter belts have been planted on the prairies and places poplar have encroached in pasture.
They spend money on promotion and a person to carry out programing and coordination but to what end. :roll:

 

[Steve]

.couldn't a lot of those folks that are in Fresno move back south?

here in South jersey we have been dealing with those who left Philadelphia and the New York area for some time now,

at one time about twenty years ago I could drive to Philadelphia on rural roads and only see farmland, and a few roadside stands, now the same roads are getting widened, and are lined with new mini mansions and mansions, (overdevelopment,) we are currently fighting the city as last fall they decided to pump dirty water out of a badly planned development onto property we own and polluted a small lake.. it shut down our businesses, and the NJ EPA had the gall to fine us for violation of water use permits.. because we didn't stop them from pumping.. and to top it off they pulled our farm assessment.. as none of them have a clue,.. and are stuck on enforcing their rules.

and the worst part.. they want us to change to accommodate them and their "city" ways..

so no don't have them move south or anywhere else.. .. let them sleep in the bed they made..