MidnightWatcher – Prophecy in Motion

By Luzi Ann Javier, Madelene Pearson and Whitney McFerron – “The worst droughts in decades are wilting wheat fields from China to the U.S. to the U.K., overwhelming Russia’s return to grain markets and driving prices to the highest levels since 2008.

Parts of China, the biggest grower, had the least rain in a century, some European regions are the driest in 50 years and almost half the winter-wheat crop in the U.S., the largest exporter, is rated poor or worse. Inventory is dropping 8.8 percent, the most in five years, Rabobank International says. Prices will advance 20 percent to as high as $9.25 a bushel by Dec. 31, a Bloomberg survey of 14 analysts and traders shows.

Wheat as much as doubled in the past year as crops failed, spurring Ukraine and Russia to curb shipments and increasing the U.S. share of global sales by the most since 2004. Russia ending its export ban on July 1 and Ukraine lifting quotas may not be enough as crops wither elsewhere, fuelling gains in food prices which the United Nations says are already near a record.

‘In 32 years, I’ve never seen so many problems in so many places,’ said Dan Basse, the president of AgResource Co., a farm researcher in Chicago. ‘We’re concerned about the world story now,’ said Basse, who has been studying agricultural markets since 1979 and expects prices as high as $10 this year.” Read more.

By Inti Landauro – “PARIS -(Dow Jones)- France’s worst drought on record is set to weigh heavily on its wheat harvest, French Agriculture Minister Bruno Le Maire said Tuesday, and that could further increase global wheat prices.

According to a report released by French government weather agency Meteo France, this spring has been both the warmest and the driest on record, with a higher average temperature and less rain than in 1976, which had the most severe drought since the agency began compiling the data.

The impact of the damage will depend on the weather in the coming weeks. A hot summer would make things worse and lead to an even lower yield from the wheat crop, while rain could improve the situation. Overall, some damage to France’s wheat crop is already unavoidable, Le Maire said.

‘It is impossible to know the loss of yield now, but we already know there will be a loss,’ Le Maire told reporters.

France is Western’s Europe’s largest producer of soft wheat: a low-protein variety used to make pastries and snack foods. It also can be used as a feed for animals, and already prices have been rising as the drought in France and parts of Germany has left farmland parched. About half of France is under water rationing, facing restrictions on watering gardens, filling private swimming pools and washing cars.” Read more.

Maybe he decided to claim that the West was to blame after reading Revelation 11:6, “They have the power to shut the sky, that no rain may fall during the days of their prophesying …”

By Barney Henderson – “Moments after the Iranian president made the startling claim at the inauguration of a dam in a central province, it started to rain.

‘Western countries have designed plans to cause drought in certain areas of the world, including Iran,’ Mr Ahmadinejad said in the city of Arak in Markazi province.

‘According to reports on climate, whose accuracy has been verified, European countries are using special equipment to force clouds to dump’ their water on their continent, he said.

By doing so, ‘they prevent rain clouds from reaching regional countries, including Iran,’ Mr Ahmadinejad charged.

Iran has experienced several droughts in recent years.” Read more.

Flashback – Iran to import wheat due to drought – “Iran’s next wheat harvest will be 30 per cent less than forecast due to drought, forcing it to resume imports, the head of the national farmers` association was quoted as saying on Saturday.” Read more.

By Marie Maitre and Karl Plume – “PARIS/CHICAGO — Drought from Paris, France to Paris, Texas has farmers and grain dealers looking upwards. The farmers are looking to the skies for rain and the dealers are wondering where rising grain prices are going to stop.

U.S. wheat prices are on their way to their biggest weekly gain and European benchmark wheat futures have jumped just under 30 percent in the past nine weeks as wheat belts on both sides of the Atlantic show signs of irreversible drought damage.

‘We need Mother Nature’s help to save a crop, which whatever happens will be mediocre,’ said a senior European trader, referring to France, the EU’s biggest wheat producer.

An unusually dry and hot spring in top EU wheat producers and severe dryness in U.S. states Texas, Kansas and Oklahoma, have revived memories of the dry summer of 2010, which ravaged Russian and Ukrainian wheat harvests and choked off supplies from the key exporters.” Read more.

“When you can’t eat, nothing else matters.

And it is this side of the ‘Arab Spring’, the sweeping rise in food prices, which the international media appear to have underreported in their Middle East coverage this year. With the media’s focus on religion and politics, it is now almost forgotten that fear of hunger, perhaps more than unemployment and political oppression, brought people on to the streets in Tunisia, Egypt, Yemen and Syria, to topple rulers. More importantly, the crippling cost of food is continuing to increase the inability of the Middle East’s substantial number of poor to feed themselves and their families.

Rising food prices, a chief source of the Middle East’s spreading misery, are reaching record levels. According to one report, grain prices alone were 71 percent higher worldwide in April than they were for the same month last year. In the United States, corn and wheat have “roughly doubled” the past 12 months. This food inflation has had serious consequences for the Middle East’s poor and for the destitute in other developing countries as well. Besides threatening the well-being of those already leading marginal existences, the price hikes have increased the number of poverty-stricken by millions.”  Read more.