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UID:Indybay-18715131
SEQUENCE:18810378
CREATED:20120611T002400Z
DESCRIPTION:The world’s most bountiful wheat harvest ever was in 2008 yet bread riots 
 broke out in 33 countries, adding in that year another 250 million to those 
 without enough to eat everyday — pushing the world’s “food 
 insecure” to over 1 billion. Food as a percentage of total household 
 consumption costs has reached 73% in Nigeria, 63% in Nigeria and 61% in the 
 Ukraine. Bread riots in Egypt were preceded by the April 6, 2008 general 
 strike of textile workers, who demanded higher wages to cope with wheat 
 prices that had risen 130% (rice also went up 74%).\nEgypt is the world’s 
 leading wheat importer; the U.S. is the world’s top wheat exporter. The 
 Goldman Sachs Commodity Index of 18 foodstuffs was created in 1991 to allow 
 speculators to invest in financialized futures on ingredients like hard red 
 spring wheat, the world’s most popular high-protein ingredient in bread. 
 After the 2008 food bubble collapsed, 200 million bushels of wheat were 
 sold for animal feed while hundreds of millions went hungry. As Asian 
 countries become more affluent, they eat less rice and more meat and bread. 
 EGT Corporation in Longview, Washington has built a rapid just-in-time 
 grain delivery system to allow speculators to move wheat, corn and other 
 grains for food and animal feed down global supply chains to growing 
 markets in Asia. Japan is the world’s #1 corn importer; the U.S. is the 
 #1 exporter. EGT is doing what Wal-Mart does, but in reverse. Multinational 
 food giants like EGT monopolize commodities from the farms of North America 
 to food consumers across the planet. This multimedia presentation of recent 
 struggles will be followed by an open discussion of ways we can contribute 
 to the decommodification of not only food, but our lives and society as 
 well.\n\nCo-presented by the INSANE DIALECTICAL POSSE & the Institute for 
 the Critical Study of Society\n\nSuggested readings:\n\n   1. "The Food 
 Bubble: How Wall Street starved millions and got away with it" by Frederick 
 Kaufman (available at: 
 http://frederickkaufman.typepad.com/files/the-food-bubble-pdf.pdf)\n   2. 
 "It's the baladi, stupid" by Wendell Seavenson (available at: 
 http://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/magazine/wendell-steavenson-egypt-cairo/)\n 
 https://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2012/06/10/18715131.php
SUMMARY:BREAD RIOTS Along Global Supply Chains: From Cairo to Longview
LOCATION:Niebyl Proctor Library\n6501 Telegraph Ave. (at Alcatraz)\nOakland
URL:https://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2012/06/10/18715131.php
DTSTART:20120624T173000Z
DTEND:20120624T193000Z
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