This might eventually help end our barley shortage

[billvelek]

As homebrewers, we've watched with some dismay as barley prices have
jumped dramatically, along with most food prices. Part of that
has been attributed to acreage being diverted to corn for ethanol
production, and is probably true in large measure. Other factors
include the increasing affluence and standard of living of people in
China, India, and other nations with expanding economic clout, which
enables them to incorporate more meat in their diets ... which requires
more grain as feed; they are reportedly also drinking more beer.
There are other factors, too, but the main point to be made here is
that barley prices are affected by the prices of other grains,
regardless of what they are used for. So, ... when I came upon
this New York Times article --
http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/05/14/join-the-hunt-for-super-rice
-- my immediate thought was that by improving rice crops, and
eventually using the same technology to improve crops of corn, wheat,
oats, and even barley, we should all have more barley to brew with in
the future.



Along those lines, if anyone here would like to help with that
research, we just happen to have our own 'Homebrewers' team already
working for the World Community Grid (the very organization which is
working on the 'super-rice' project). Until now, the 'WCG' has
been working strictly on non-profit medical research to help find cures
for diseases such as cancer, but this is an important humanitarian
project now that we are seeing a growing food shortage. Any
member can designate the particular projects that his/her computer will
work on, so if you want ALL of your computer's spare power to be used
for 'super-rice' research, you can certainly do that. The main
thing is to quit wasting your computer's power running a stupid screen
saver when you're not even looking at it most of the time, and start
using it for humanitarian research. Our 'Homebrewers' team
currently has only 88 members, but we have donated the equivalent of
more than 133 YEARS of computer time for this non-profit research to
benefit all of humanity.



Read about our team here - http://home.alltel.net/billvelek/team.html -
and then click on the Home-Page link to see how safe and secure this is.



Thanks for your time.



Bill Velek

http://home.alltel.net/billvelek/growhops.html

 

[Tomy]

As I understand it China has already developed a Super Rice II YOU 28 which has increased production with a record breaking 18,449.55 kilograms per hectare. Many countries have decided that energy production is more impotant than food production, thus farmers all over the world are planting more corn. A late spring and bad weather in Europe has diminished Barley production. I beleive Barley prices are due to supply and demand, the same way other grains prices are deturmined. Tomy