Jeremy Grantham is an investment banker - early on he predicted the sub-prime housing crisis (in 2007).  This NY Times blog post discusses an incisive article by Grantham in his company's newsletter.  If you're interested in business, investment, economics, organic farming or the challenge of sustaining human life in times of diminshing resources, check out this article.  You may not agree with his opinions on everything, but his general gist is chilling indeed.  A great follow up to our recent film in Elgin "Call of Life".

New York Times Blog post by Mark Bittman: [Excerpt] Grantham’s article succinctly puts economic teeth into the argument that all advocates of truly sustainable food make almost constantly: We are going to be eating sustainable, more-or-less organic and mostly regional food within a couple of generations, and the big question is whether we get to that place willingly (it might be too late for that, but one can hope) or whether we go through a dystopic convulsion first.

Citing falling grain productivity, rising resource prices (and, of course, dwindling resources; they are finite after all), snowballing water problems, declining returns from the use of chemical fertilizers, increasing energy costs, a lack of will, investment theory that is “ill-informed, manipulated, full of inertia, and corruptible,” and a newly unfavorable climate, Grantham concludes that we are “about five years into a chronic global food crisis that is unlikely to fade for many decades.”

Read the rest of the New York Times Blog post by Mark Bittman

And here is a link to the PDF version of Grantham's original article in the newsletter of Grantham, Mayo, Van Otterloo & Co. LLC. (The PDF will download automatically when you click the link and can be read with Adobe Acrobat Reader.)