Reverses of history are mind-bending
21st November 2011 · 0 Comments
By Fr. Jerome LeDoux
Contributing Columnist
Sold into slavery in Egypt by his jealous brothers in the 17th century BC, Joseph worked under the inspiration of the Almighty to interpret the troubling dreams of his enslaver, Pharaoh. Though evil at heart, Pharaoh put his trust in Joseph, commanding that huge stores of grain be saved throughout seven years of bumper crops in Egypt.
Just as Joseph had interpreted, the eighth year brought drought, zero crops and famine around the world. Thus, in the 17th century B.C., Egypt supplied grain to the hungry of the world of that time as a seven-year famine brought all other countries to their knees. From being the world’s greatest grain exporter, Egypt gradually made a complete turnabout.
Fastforwarding to 2011, the 21st-century A.D., Egypt is the world’s fourth-largest importer of bulk grain and flour shipments from the U.S., according to PIERS, a sister company of The Journal of Commerce, with some 5.3 million metric tons of goods accounting for 5 percent of the demand for the U.S. agricultural commodity.
“Five percent is small, but it is worrisome, considering that Egypt is currently the fourth-largest market for grains and flour products after Japan, South Korea and Mexico,” said Mario Moreno, economist at The Journal of Commerce.
For Egypt, however, the impact is far greater. “As one of the largest importers of grains in the world, Egypt is at risk of shortages and their suppliers at risk of excess, unsellable inventory,” said James H. Slattery, business development manager at PIERS.
Shipping services through Egypt have continued with only minor disruptions since the ousting of President Hosni Mubarak began some months ago.
At least Egypt has the wherewithal to purchase the grain its people need. However, some 38 million people from Somalia, Côte d’Ivoire, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Sudan, Zimbabwe, Angola, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Sierra Leone, Angola, Chad and, to a lesser extent, several countries in West and Central Africa are writhing in the throes of famine.
Not unlike the great famine recorded in Genesis 37, drought and other difficult weather conditions have limited farmers to bringing in low harvests. The poor crops have driven up the price of food, further aggravating the dire plight of farmers and consumers.
As if that were not enough, the weakening effect of rampant HIV/AIDS has left the infected less able to stave off the ravages of hunger. Further, it cripples local farming systems by killing off millions of Africa’s most productive farmers.
Political cauldrons boiling over into armed warfare have completed the evil cycle begun by severe drought and pervasive HIV/AIDS. Bad politics also spawned inadequate economic policies, especially in agriculture, where too little investment in farming tools, in initiative, rural infrastructure and essential social services ended in disaster.
The great famine recorded in Genesis 37 has its 2011 partial parallel in many regions of Sub-Saharan Africa where there is much heat, little water and relatively small tracts of arable land. The Sahara itself is larger than the continental United States.
Another reversal of history is that the world population in the 17th century B.C. was a meager 35 million compared to our current world population that is exploding into seven billion. It seems that peoples are globally taking Bobby Darin’s “Multiplication – that’s the name of the game” to mean that humans should imitate the rabbit reproduction rate.
Most alarming is the projection that the world population will increase by 2.6 billion, from a current seven billion to 9.1 billion in 2050. Since growing enough food for the world’s seven billion people is quite difficult, how will we fare with over two billion more?
Unfit for growing food, 70.9 percent of the world’s surface is water, 29.1 percent is land, 20 percent is desert and 10.57 to 13.3 percent is arable land. It sounds somewhat alarming that only 4.57 percent of Canada’s land is arable, and none for permanent crops.
The hair-trigger balance of power in the Middle East, made chilling by the sheer number of rogue nations and ruthless, hate-filled people in blind pursuit of destructive ideologies, can still be turned into a vehicle of nutritional plenty and social peace. Then the Holy Land really would be sacred instead of choked by a ring of bloodthirsty killers.
This article was originally published in the November 21, 2011 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper
