Wait! Don´t throw that meatball–there´s a worldwide food shortage
Dan Brawner
April 08, 2008
It all started innocently enough. It was meatball marinara sub day at Jefferson High School in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. And it was spring. Who could have guessed those two elements would be potentially explosive?
The fact that it was Friday probably didn´t help, either. But when one student lobbed a red, gooey meatball across the lunch room, suddenly within seconds the air was filled with high carbohydrate missiles making satisfying splats on walls, lunch tables and bewildered sophomores. The "riot" lasted only about a minute. It doesn´t take long to finish a meatball sub if you´re throwing with both hands. It might have ended there–boys will be boys and all that–if not for an unfortunate misunderstanding.
It seems a student outside the lunch room door overheard the commotion. Somebody yelled, "Run!" and the student thought he said, "Gun!"
No doubt, images of Columbine flashed though the student´s mind and he called 911. Now SWAT teams don´t normally respond to reports of food fights. But all they knew was there was somebody with a gun at Jefferson High. So when the police arrived to find 50 or 60 kids, along with walls, floors, etc. covered in a carnage of red goop, their hearts must have skipped a beat.
Since the cops were called in, eight students were charged with disorderly conduct, mainly because a lot of clothes had been stained beyond repair. But if the incident had happened in, say, Haiti, they might not have gotten off so easily.
In less than a year, worldwide food prices have shot up more than 40 percent. Robert Zoellick, president of the World Bank reports that the price of staple food items have jumped 80 percent since 2005. Food riots of a very different sort than occurred at Jefferson High have been taking place in Haiti, Egypt and China.
Here in this country, the US Department of Agriculture revealed that food prices rose four percent in 2007, the largest increase in 17 years. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reports a 60 percent increase in wholesale egg prices over last year. The price of pasta jumped 30 percent and fresh produce rose 20 percent. The increase in food prices hits the average American even more than the skyrocketing gas prices because food accounts for 13 percent of their budget, whereas gasoline takes only four percent.
Some of this increase in food costs and lower food reserves is the result of the recent trend that many farmers are now raising corn, not for food, but to satisfy the country´s growing hunger for alternative fuels. This year, farmers are expected to raise 86 million acres of corn for food, down from 93.6 million acres last year.
All this is not to suggest that Jefferson students, wild with spring fever substantially contributed to the worldwide food shortage. But in the future, before they toss their next meatball, they should recall that warning mothers have always given to picky eaters about children starving in China. Because, now it´s true.
The fact that it was Friday probably didn´t help, either. But when one student lobbed a red, gooey meatball across the lunch room, suddenly within seconds the air was filled with high carbohydrate missiles making satisfying splats on walls, lunch tables and bewildered sophomores. The "riot" lasted only about a minute. It doesn´t take long to finish a meatball sub if you´re throwing with both hands. It might have ended there–boys will be boys and all that–if not for an unfortunate misunderstanding.
It seems a student outside the lunch room door overheard the commotion. Somebody yelled, "Run!" and the student thought he said, "Gun!"
No doubt, images of Columbine flashed though the student´s mind and he called 911. Now SWAT teams don´t normally respond to reports of food fights. But all they knew was there was somebody with a gun at Jefferson High. So when the police arrived to find 50 or 60 kids, along with walls, floors, etc. covered in a carnage of red goop, their hearts must have skipped a beat.
Since the cops were called in, eight students were charged with disorderly conduct, mainly because a lot of clothes had been stained beyond repair. But if the incident had happened in, say, Haiti, they might not have gotten off so easily.
In less than a year, worldwide food prices have shot up more than 40 percent. Robert Zoellick, president of the World Bank reports that the price of staple food items have jumped 80 percent since 2005. Food riots of a very different sort than occurred at Jefferson High have been taking place in Haiti, Egypt and China.
Here in this country, the US Department of Agriculture revealed that food prices rose four percent in 2007, the largest increase in 17 years. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reports a 60 percent increase in wholesale egg prices over last year. The price of pasta jumped 30 percent and fresh produce rose 20 percent. The increase in food prices hits the average American even more than the skyrocketing gas prices because food accounts for 13 percent of their budget, whereas gasoline takes only four percent.
Some of this increase in food costs and lower food reserves is the result of the recent trend that many farmers are now raising corn, not for food, but to satisfy the country´s growing hunger for alternative fuels. This year, farmers are expected to raise 86 million acres of corn for food, down from 93.6 million acres last year.
All this is not to suggest that Jefferson students, wild with spring fever substantially contributed to the worldwide food shortage. But in the future, before they toss their next meatball, they should recall that warning mothers have always given to picky eaters about children starving in China. Because, now it´s true.
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