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March
2008
You're an odd lot. You presumably dont like living in boring apartments. You want unusual homes, and quite right too. You're also ready to move out to the margins of society and survive closer to nature. At least that's what appears to be the profile of most of you. I have never had so many requests for woodland, or for land and ruins, and places out in the wide blue yonder. You could be on to something. One reader has been emailing me, worried that armageddon is just around the corner. He could be right. I have just written a song called Are You Ready (for the Next World War). We are rapidly getting short on everything that we need, and we are close to the stage when "I'm gonna fight you for this stuff". It might be the time to buy productive land. Whatever else you are going to need if things get nasty is food, warmth and shelter. If you have an acre of land in a clement climate you wont ever starve. Have a look at some of those properties I put onto the last bulletin. They are in south-eastern Italy. They are seriously cheap. The climate is good. And that part of the world is not over-run with people. If you think I am getting a little too pessimistic about the way the world is going please note the following. The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization says world food production needs to increase by 60% to meet growing demand over the next 20 years. The world simply doesn't have enough arable land available to do this. We dont seem to have any wonderful technological advances on the radar either. Neither can we increase the amount of fertilizer we use without seriously polluting the ground water. And the world is short of fresh water. In short, we are going to have serious food shortages in twenty years time. In fact they have started. This can only get worse. Food has incited riots in Mexico, Yemen, India, and Burkina Faso... and boycotts in Italy and Argentina. The Kremlin forced suppliers to freeze the price of milk and bread in Russia. Thailand, Ecuador, Benin, Senegal, Egypt, Argentina, and Venezuela have also capped food prices. Zambia, Ethiopia, and Pakistan have suspended food exports. Jordan, Ethiopia, Malaysia, and Pakistan are stockpiling major foods. Turkey, Mongolia, Indonesia, and Morocco have cut import tariffs. And Egypt, Jordan, and Oman have increased food subsidies. My pessimistic emailer suggests we boycott coastal areas because of the threat of global warming. I have to admit that I dont follow that line of thought as I believe the world has grown hotter and colder so many times in the past, that it will continue to do so without our help. But if it does get much worse then being front-line to the sea could be a bad move. In this respect I wonder whether it is such a good idea for so many people to be buying coastal plots in the Bahamas. Those islands are very flat. It wouldn't take much extra water in the sea to take out large areas of the islands. The last time I stayed on Long Island I remember sitting in someone's garden and thinking how nice it was to simply trot across the lawn, over the beach and into one's boat, or take a dive into the lovely warm water. But if the sea level rose by one metre that warm water would be lapping over the lawn. I wonder whether we will see a move away from the urge to own front line sites. I have mentioned before that buying farmland in the USA is probably a good idea. How about buying in Kansas, the traditional wheat area. Corn prices are through the roof, and likely to go higher with the maniac US government giving subsidies for those who grow corn to feed cars. Prices of farmland are also rising in South America. This is a one-way movement. If you feel threatened I guess you should be buying into these situations. When the going gets tough over food the countries with little arable land will suffer, and so will those countries with large populations to feed. I note Italy's population is falling. |
© The Property Organisation 2008
