Cool visuals on world food issues/dynamics

ARTICLE: "The Economics of Hunger: A brutal convergence of events has hit an unprepared global market," by Anthony Faiola, Washington Post National Weekly Edition, 5-11 May 2008, p. 6.

ARTICLE: "In Mauritania, Evey Meal Becomes a Sacrifice," by Anthony Faiola, Washington Post National Weekly Edition, 5-11 May 2008, p. 9.

Graphic: The Global Grain Trade: The Haves and Have-nots

North America and former Soviet Union (FSU), South America and Oz/NZ are the big exporters:

-->NA imports 25m metric tons and sends out 130 (105 up)

-->FSU does 7 in and 28 out (21 up)

-->South America does 24 in and 42 out (18 up)

-->Oz/NZ does 1 in and 10 out (9 up)

Inward zones are:

-->East Asia takes 47 in and sends 5 out (42 down)

-->Middle East takes in 33 and sends out 3 (30 down)

-->North Africa takes in 30 and sends out 1 (29 down)

-->Sub-Saharan Africa takes in 20 and sends out 3 (17 down)

-->Europe takes 26 in and sends 15 out (11 down)

-->Southeast Asia takes in 20 and sends out 15 (5 down).

India just barely balances for now: takes in 7.5 and sends out 7.9, but India's ag production predicted to drop a large amount due to global warming.

So four big export hubs (North America, South America, FSU and Oz/NZ). Of those, NA and FSU likely to do best (meaning not too bad) with global warming.

The rest can all expect to be importing more.

Here's the kicker: so little of food actually traded across borders for now. Remember my column on dairy? Only 7 percent traded there. Same is true in other categories:

-->18 percent of wheat

-->14 percent of sorghum

-->12 percent of corn

-->7 percent of rice.

Tell me this won't be a major "flow," to use my PNM vernacular, in the 21st century.

I now know how to frame global warming.

Map in second story lists countries most dependent on food imports: all Gap except South Korea, Japan, and Norway. Amazing match with my map.

How regions compare:

-->North America imports 39 percent of total food

-->LATAM imports 27 percent

-->North Africa 68%

-->Sub-Saharan 71%

-->Middle East 76%

-->Europe and Central Asia 54% (weird category)

-->South Asia at 37%

-->East Asia and Pac at 53%.

I have Bradd Hayes working these slides already.

Huge long-term opportunity for Enterra: imagine all the rules that must be dynamically managed for future global food nets!?!?!

Simple math on food costs

ARTICLE: "Why the World Can't Afford Food: And why higher prices are here to stay," by Jackson Dykman, Time, 19 May 2008, p. 34.

Poor harvests and restrictive trade policies +

Increasing price of oil +

Diversion of crops for biofuels +

Increasing demand, especially in China =

Record prices worldwide.

Bottom line on corn ethanol: "U.S. farmers are devoting more land to corn at the expense of other crops and turning more of the corn into ethanol. It's a double whammy: both corn and grain for food become scarcer, further driving up prices."

Taking the O outta OCD

Three nights in a row I'm transiting through CLT (Charlotte NC) and nights 1 and 2, I stop by Manchu Wok, as I often do, to get a 1-item noodle bowl with green beans, plus 2 veg egg rolls, Sprite and water (also sticks, 3 napkins, 3 hot mustards and 3 sweet and sour).

Tonight, on way home from Bragg, I totally cut loose, getting: 1-item noodle bowl with mixed vegetables, plus 2 veg egg rolls, Sprite and water (also sticks, 3 napkins, 3 hot mustards and 3 sweet and sour).

It was, like, a mental health meal.

Good brief with premium crowd

Real front-line players with serious experience. Maybe 60 or so.

Went a solid 3-plus hours with questions.

Nice to be back at Bragg.

Another estimate of worldwide remittances

BRIEFING: "Work In, Cash Out," sourced from World Bank and IMF's Balance of Payments Statistics Yearbook 2007, in BusinessWeek, 19 May 2008, p. 14.

$240 billion.

Mexico's government matches remittances 3 to 1 in dollars used for community projects. Interesting.

Highest dependencies: Honduras (26%), Moldova (36%), Tajikistan (36%) and Kyrgyzstan (27%).

My spouse and I, BTW, are applying now for an international adoption from Kyrgyzstan, giving up our attempt to do one from Taiwan, which has gotten too crowded and too slow with the new rules imposed by China on its own adoption programs.

We have informed Vonne Mei that the Mongols are coming!

The Naxalites are coming! The Naxalites are coming!

ARTICLE: "In India, Death to Global Business: How a violent—and spreading—Maoist insurgency threatens the country's runaway growth," by Manjeet Kripalani, BuisnessWeek, 19 May 2008, p. 042.

Another reason, it seems, why India won't catch China: it still has radical Maoists while poor China does not!

Here's the danger, though:

Just when India needs to ramp up its industrial machine to lock in growth—and just when foreign companies are joining the party—the Naxalites are clashing with the mining and steel companies essential to India's long-term success.

Maoists in Nepal and India, while China and Vietnam go über-capitalist.

What a world! What a world!

More seriously, "shining India" has got a real Gap situation on its hands, mostly centered in the East.

Funny, the Western navy in Mumbai was always considered the Brit/US version, and the Eastern navy (I honestly don't know where it's based) was always considered the Soviet version. I guess the politics skews that way too.

New Delhi, we are told, treats the 12k armed and 13k sympathizer population as a law & order problem.

The coming car market: sell 'em where they ain't

ARTICLE: "Ghosn Hits The Accelerator: The Renault-Nissan CEO is fighting to keep pace in the U.S. and chasing Chinese and Indian customers," by David Kiley, BusinessWeek,, 12 May 2008, p. 048.

Key thing here is chart: motor vehicles per 1,000 population.

Saturated Old Core America (815), Germany (605), Japan (600) and France (595), compared with under-sold New Core Russia (220), Brazil (125), China (25) and India (25).

Guess where the global demand center on cars is this century? Old or New Core?

So guess where the innovation and move beyond gas combustion will occur?

Designed for the BOP by the BOP

ARTICLE: "Cell Phones From the Street," by Kerry Capell, BusinessWeek, 12 May 2008, p. 018.

Nokia does year-long market researched in shantytowns of Mumbai, Rio de Janeiro and Accra, giving locals chance to design ideal, all-purpose phones.

Entries found at businessweek.com/go/08/dreamphones.

Ask the Bottom Of the Pyramid and you shall sell.

The Russians are investing! The Russians are investing!

ARTICLE: "Russian Wealth Fund Rattles West," by Gregory L. White, Bob Davis and Marcus Walker, Wall Street Journal, 7 May 2008, p. A1.

The fund (National Wealth Fund) starts at about $30b this year, but is projected to stand at more like a quarter trillion by 2012.

Bad quote from Evan Bayh, saying the Russians show a tendency to invest for policies unrelated to economics. Truth is, the Russians are a business masquerading as a government.

The question is, do the Russians learn more from financial connectivity with West or do we teach/tame them more by forcing them to invest mostly in undemocratic Gap states?

Spoke to TVA conference

Rep. Bud Cramer (TN) intros Rep. Zach Wamp (TN) intros Gen/Dr. Frank Akers (sort of my contractual boss at Oak Ridge lab) who intros me to keynote the morning session of TVA's big annual conference (Gen. George Casey did the lunch, which I unfortunately miss to catch a plane).

I go maybe 25-30 (supposed to go 15) and deliver a 25-slide package that's almost entirely Great Powers, so delivery was halting (my perception) and meandering a bit (I discover slides when I find myself waving my arms too much and trying to "paint" solely with words), but it seemed to go over well.

At least Zach Wamp liked it.

Then Wamp and Cramer lead a panel discussion built around me, including two university presidents (AL at Huntsville and UTenn) and the head of the Oak Ridge Associated Universities group.

Wamp, right on the clock, cuts me loose at 0955 and I beat back to the attached hotel, swap out clothes, and catch my arranged shuttle to the airport for a flight through Charlotte to RDU.

Another speech tomorrow.

Got word today that deal is set for me to deliver speech to big Blackwater event later this year. I am psyched.

Also got word from Neil Nyren that he needs some advance chapters from GP to shop around at Putnam sales meet coming up. That excites but also scares. Neil's the man, so turning over the goodies is fraught with meaning!

But I only need 15!

Get email today: Will I talk to "60 Minutes" producer about a story they're considering?

Naturally, I'm thinking, "Hmmm, now if I can only get them to run it in early February of next year!"

Turns out my reputation as a budding journalist precedes me and we talk about stuff I've written for Esquire over the years: a basic scoping out of possible stories the show is considering. So I run through a bunch of subjects and possible ideas, trying to think in the back of my mind, "Just exactly who do I know that I'd like to help make a whole lot more famous?"

Well, there is one guy who may end up benefiting, and if he does, he really does deserve it. I met him once about four years ago and the first words out of his mouth were, "If I were a national security analyst, I would have written "Pentagon's New Map.' It's the perfect compliment to my book!"

Naturally upon reading his brilliant book (really, truly brilliant), I would have gladly returned the compliment, not being sure I ever would have come up with anything that good if I were an economist.

But the guy was just so nice, and so complimentary, and so full of life. I saw his brief (one of these high-end DoD network gatherings), and was so blown away that I bought his book on my phone while I was listening, only to have him send me a very graciously signed copy the following week.

So him, I would gladly see a cool "60 Minutes" segment on, because he totally deserves it.

Meanwhile, I plod along in my sequential, by-email interview with the KatPol Blog, which is some (I am told) high profile Hungarian group blog. Not "60 Minutes," but actually very cool. Speaking to young politicos is a very worthwhile endeavor.

I find myself in Fayetteville tonight. Tomorrow morning is going to be fascinating.

Local free paper says it's "Special Forces Festival" week. I'd like to see the fairgrounds on that one!

How I celebrated my 46th b-day ... in Huntsville AL.

Actually, a very sweet, slow day with wife and kids before flying out.

But a bit weird to find myself surrounded by aging space scientists at the Werner Von Braun Center.

I lead a strange, nomadic life.

Good article on blowback China's already facing in Africa

ARTICLE: "When China Met Africa," by Serge Michel, Foreign Policy, May/June 2008, p. 39.

All the same tendencies to enclave, just like the European colonialists a century before, so no surprise, all the same obstacles cropping up.

Compare this to the Indians, who embed so deeply you barely notice them when you travel around Africa.

This kind of reporting is only natural. First came the unrealistic harping. Now comes the less sanguine stuff. The truth will lie in between, methinks.

But overall, a great read.

The line I like best: "China seems to have difficultly maneuvering in countries more democratic than itself."

What? I thought the "model" was beloved the world over?

Turns out China will have to change to maintain connectivity or it'll get chased out. Big surprise.

Turkey: two good reads

ARTICLE: "Turkish Schools Offer Pakistan a Gentler Islam," by Sabrina Tavernise, New York Times, 4 May 2008, p. A1.

ARTICLE: "Istanbul's Economic Tension: A lawsuit threatens to undo the pro-Islamic government's record of reform and growth," by Andrew Purvis, Time, 12 May 2008, p. G1.

First one is about a group of Turkish educators who create a sort of Muslim Peace Corps volunteers for pushing an "entirely different vision of Islam" from the nasty stuff peddled so pervasively by the cynical House of Saud.

These Turks are pushing their new package specifically in Pakistan. How much you want to bet this does more to change things than our Spec Ops?

This is classic Sufi moderation that embraces science and technology in a natural coexistence. Good stuff.

According to Time, FDI jumps 30-fold in Turkey since 2002, up to $22 billion. Better yet, Turks are investing abroad, like $28B in Russia last year alone. Russia says it needs $1 trillion in infrastructure by 2020, and Turkish construction firms are ready and willing to clean up while building up.

Oh yes, Erdogan makes a show of punishing the PKK over the border in Kurdish Iraq. Turkey also pours $10B in FDI into the same emerging nation—like 'em or not.

To the surprise of some but not me, such prosperity makes Turks more interested in religion, not less. Abundance has done that everywhere except aberration Europe, where the World Wars so freaked out the locals about nationalism and religion that they've sought defensively to move beyond it. Good luck with that as the population ages and "others" are let in, others who need religion to retain identity.

Documenting our kills—the future of global security services

ARTICLE: "11 Years of Police Gunfire, in Painstaking Detail," by Al Baker, New York Times, 8 May 2008, p. A1.

A theory of my brother Jerome: eventually the U.S. must be willing and able to document all kills internationally just like cops do here at home.

NYC, as so often in history, leads the way in such innovation. Every single police gun ever discharged, accounting for every single bullet, all packaged up in reports used for "lesson plans."

More than that, though, is the public's sense of responsibility for its police: you own every single bullet, every single death.

What's so cool about such analytical efforts and how they change both the training and the culture: in 1966 NYC cops fire 1,292 bullets. In 2006, they shoot only 540 bullets, including all the accidents and even the suicides. Only 60 times in 2006 do police fire at people, killing 13.

Amazing stuff.

Ultimately, this is the standard our military will adhere to: every single round.

I know it sounds fantastic from today's perspective, but the technology is not, just the policy and the effort.

Meet that standard and we're talking a far different global security culture. Just moving in that direction will speak volumes to the world about who we are as a nation.

Bush has been Israel's uncritical friend and unswerving proxy warrior in the region

OP-ED: "Israel Is Now America's Closest Ally," by Michael Oren, Wall Street Journal, 7 May 2008, p. A19.

The problem is, what has the last seven years got us, and are we looking for more of the same with McCain, pictured here as natural heir apparent.

But hard to argue with success. As Oren notes, more than 70% of Americans favor robust ties with Israel.

Of course, the same 70-plus percent probably want out of Iraq too.

Nice historical piece by Oren. His book on America's relations with the Middle East over the past 250 or so years was really great.

Even in ag superpower New Zealand, it's the little farmer who typically holds up expanded food production

ARTICLE: "'Saudi Arabia of Milk' Hits Production Limits: New Zealand Dairy Thirsts for Capital, A Big Issue in Food," by Patrick Barta, Wall Street Journal, 8 May 2008, p. A1.

The industry wants to raise $1 billion internationally, but the hold-up is getting 11,000 individual farmers in co-ops to agree. Big trick is getting independence-minded farmers to accept more outside say in how they do things.

New Zealand risks plenty by not being able to take advantage of this rising global demand, because if it doesn't, then others will—eventually.

The revealing quote from a farmer's union: "Farmers didn't build up this bloody great asset to throw it away."

Saudi Arabia of Milk you say? In more ways than one. Same narrow-minded fear of outside capital, so a preference to underutilize and dominate a smaller pool that build up a larger pool that makes everyone richer while meeting and sustaining rising international demand.

Why the love of small farms? It's all about jobs and maintaining small towns.

Sounds like the India of Milk—in love with the village.

I say we pump up California and Wisconsin and crush the competition globally.

My family tries to buoy my spirits

Already Beijing is thinking food security

ARTICLE: "Beijing looks at foreign fields in push to guarantee food supplies: China losing its ability to be self-sufficient," by Jamil Anderlini, Financial Times, 9 May 2008, p. A1.

China replicates its own-the-barrel-in-the-ground mentality it currently displays on oil, believing its risk is expressed in supply when it's really all about price in a truly global market—nothing more, nothing less.

This thinking is even less appropriate in agriculture, but this only confirms China's tendency to think in 19th-century terms, betraying its lack of strategic maturity on too many subjects to name. I know, I know: they think in centuries and all, but we have to stop idealizing those "inscrutable" Chinese. We're talking a lot of leadership that right now doesn't have a clue, networking first and foremost in the worst locales and paying way too much for resources, simply setting themselves up for trouble down the road.

So the latest from Beijing is that they're working to buy up farmland in Africa and South America. Imagine how "secure" those assets are in a local downturn, much less periods of short food supplies.

This is silly, un-strategic thinking, that speaks more to fear than reason, especially as it will put China in competition with its energy suppliers in the Middle East, who are already thinking along similarly unimaginative lines.

China's got 40% of the farmers and 9% of the arable land. But that speaks to emigration, not some land-grabbing strategy that will fool no one and upset many.

The GCC stands for "get connectivity—carefully"

EDITORIAL: "The rise of the Gulf: The Gulf is managing its wealth better during this boom than it did during the last one," The Economist, 26 April 2008, p. 15.

BRIEFING: "How to spend it: A region awash with oil money has one or two clouds on the horizon," The Economist, 26 April 2008, p. 37.

Good articles talking about the roughly $3 trillion that will be accumulated in the region, the vast majority of which will be spent in larger MENA (Middle East/North Africa) trying to meet rising consumer demands while providing an estimated 100 million new jobs for a youth bulge heading into their middle years, when everybody—EVERYBODY—starts wanting to maximize income.