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SEQUENCE:18839300
CREATED:20130423T193500Z
DESCRIPTION:The world’s most bountiful wheat harvest ever was in 2008 yet bread riots 
 broke out\nin 33 countries — adding that year another 250 million to 
 those without enough to\neat everyday and pushing the world’s “food 
 insecure” to over 1 billion. Food as a\npercentage of total household 
 consumption costs has reached 73% in Nigeria, 63% in\nMorocco, and 61% in 
 the Ukraine. Bread riots in Egypt were preceded by the April 6,\n2008 
 general strike of textile workers who demanded higher wages to cope with 
 wheat\nprices 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\nexporter. The Goldman Sachs Commodity Index of 18 foodstuffs was 
 created in 1991 to\nallow speculators to invest in financialized futures on 
 ingredients like hard red\nspring wheat, the world’s most popular 
 high-protein ingredient in bread. After the\n2008 food bubble collapsed, 
 200 million bushels of wheat were sold for animal feed\nwhile hundreds of 
 millions went hungry. As Asian countries become more affluent,\nthey eat 
 less rice and more meat and bread. EGT Corporation in Longview, 
 Washington\nhas built a portside just-in-time delivery system to allow 
 speculators to move\nwheat, corn and other grains for food and animal feed 
 down global supply chains to\ngrowing markets in Asia. Japan is the 
 world’s #1 corn importer; the U.S. is #1\nexporter. EGT is doing what 
 Wal-Mart does, but in reverse. Multinational food giants\nlike EGT 
 monopolize commodities from the farms of North America to food 
 consumers\nacross the planet. This multimedia presentation of recent 
 struggles will be followed\nby an open discussion of ways we can contribute 
 to the decommodification of not only\nfood, but our lives and society as 
 well.\nCo-presented by the INSANE DIALECTICAL POSSE & the Institute for the 
 Critical Study\nof Society\nSuggested readings:\n"The Food Bubble: How Wall 
 Street starved millions and got away with it" by\nFrederick Kaufman 
 (available 
 here:\nhttp://frederickkaufman.typepad.com/files/the-food-bubble-pdf.pdf)\n"It's 
 the baladi, stupid" by Wendell Seavenson (available 
 here:\nhttp://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/magazine/wendell-steavenson-egypt-cairo/)\n 
 \n \n \n \n \n \n\n 
 https://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2013/04/23/18735704.php
SUMMARY:BREAD RIOTS Along Global Supply Chains: From Cairo to Longview
LOCATION:Niebyl-Proctor Marxist Library\n6501 Telegraph Ave\nOakland Ca 94609
URL:https://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2013/04/23/18735704.php
DTSTART:20130502T020000Z
DTEND:20130502T033000Z
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