According to the New
York Times, Financial
Times, and others,
hedge funds and other investors are buying up farms, farmland, fertilizer,
grain elevators, shipping equipment and other necessities for producing
food.
Given the meltdown in the housing and financial sectors and the weakness
in the U.S. economy, large investors figure that everyone has to eat,
and so investing in food production is a sure thing.
That means that speculators will drive up food prices.
"By 'owning structure,' they mean centralizing control of
food in the hands of financial manipulators who have only one crop in
mind: fat profits.
***
Price? Aha! That’s what consolidation of farms and storage
facilities is all about. If you can lock down production and stockpile
the supply – you can control price. If corn prices are lower
than what investors want them to be, simply store the corn and force
prices up. Or, if corn prices are down in the U.S., ship it to Japan
or wherever else might be more profitable. And if these distortments
cause a food crash? Hey, the speculators will already have sucked
out billions in profits, and they will just move to the next hot investment.
Hedge funds bring nothing but greed and grief to the farm economy
and our food supply, and they should be banned from 'owning structure.'"
Hightower may be right: we should demand that Congress prevent speculators
from buying up one of the main necessities.
Moreover, this just strengthens my conviction that we should guarantee
our access to inexpensive and healthy food. See this
and this.
