Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore...

As serious as the credit crisis is around the world due to a drought of capital, the food crisis is sure to be much worse. The draconian fuel efficiency laws (for the consumer...oil supports this because they charge the same amount for quanity of an inferior product) which force fuel companies to incorporate ethanol into their product (byproduct of agriculture) diminish the quality and lifetime of the fuel down to 2-3 months and cause a diversion of agricultural products away from subsistence farming and towards sales to big oil . In nations like Haiti where it was difficult enough to provide food for everyone, it is now becoming downright impossible as mud pies become the dish du jour.

In perfect storm fashion, the ethanol induced shortages, the droughts of the past several years teamed with the unusually wet summer and cold winter are devastating to crops. With food prices rising on average of 10-15% per annum over the past several years - 2010 and 2011 could be multiples worse and devastating the world's impoverished. Immigrants seeking greener pastures in Ireland or elsewhere may be looking East for the first time in a very long time.

Ireland Facing Potato Crisis as Frigid Weather Grips Nation

As Ireland faces the prospect of ten more days of freezing temperatures, potato farmers in Ireland are facing a very uncertain future as they can’t harvest their crops.

Between the floods around the country in November and the subsequent freeze in December and now January, potato farmers have been left frustrated as either water or ice has prevented them from getting potatoes out of the ground, and that could result in a loss of around €15 ($21.6) million to Irish potato farmers.

Thomas Carpenter, the National Potato Committee Vice-Chairman of the Irish Farmers Association (IFA), said that 6,000 acres of potato files have been unharvested because of the inclement weather.