Farmers around the world have begun mysteriously disappearing, causing global food shortages and economic turmoil. Fast food chains are benefitting as produce becomes scarce. Experts speculate that the industrialization and corporate control of agriculture has made farming conditions difficult, while governments claim terrorist groups are responsible. The cause and fate of the missing farmers remains unknown.

1. Missing: Farmer

2. Where have they gone? Breaking News: All over the world, a strange phenomenon has begun to take place place. An eerie calm is slowly taking over the world, enveloping every Midwestern cornfield and South American fruit farm. The farmers who work these lands to produce the shiny cucumbers and mangos you find in neatly organized displays at your local store are disappearing. Where they go, no one knows. Yet one thing is for sure. Without this rather small and often overlooked segment of the population, civilization as we know it will soon be doomed.

3. Police tape at the scene of a recent disappearance. Neighbors say this farmers was in the midst of transplanting his seedlings when he vanished without a trace.

4. All over this nation, citizens are desperately scrambling to cope with the crisis caused by the farmers’ sudden and mysterious disappearance. Wallstreet is closed for the next two weeks for fear insinuating economic panic. The U.N. has agreed to stop air traffic to avoid hostage situations from angry citizens demanding their Chilean grapes and Thai mangos. Runway models worldwide are shacking in their stilettos at the idea that there may never be any more celery, and that they may have to resort to consuming food containing calories and in the worst case scenario, even carbs . Thousands of restaurants are having to suddenly close for lack of ingredients. Iceberg lettuce, a once common and nutritiously empty vegetable mindlessly tossed on mediocre burgers, is now selling for $256.00 a pound. The Belvedere, a prestigious five-star restaurant in Beverly Hills has managed to secure a few shipments of brownish, spoiling lettuce and is now incorporating it into its’ newly revamped “food stamp sheek” menu, which features ingredients previously common in poverty-stricken homes in the US. Americans trying desperately to cope

5. The only segment of the food industry benefiting from this fiasco are the fast food companies. A PR director from Burger King made the following comment “ Though we are in extreme anguish over recent events and pray with the families of the disappeared we want to remind people that the BK Triple Whopper is still a hefty 1230 calories, even without the vegetable toppings. That’s 1230 meaty, juicy, units of energy now available to help you cope with this tremendous crisis.” The PR official also wanted to remind the public that though Burger King is currently out of lettuce and tomatoes, they still have plenty of pickles and ketchup for the health-conscious consumer. He also wanted to reassure the public that Burger King has an immense supply of pre-fabricated, frozen hamburger patties, buns, and french fries. It expects to remain in operation without major problems for the next five years if conditions do not change.

6. The McDonalds Corp. is faring even better. With the dissappearance of farmers comes the disappearance of surplus milk and wheat productions, which are the main ingredients in public school lunches. McDonalds has agreed to step in with what it calls “Operation McNutrient.” In exchange for permission to sell their food in public health facilities, McDonalds has struck a deal with the Dept. of Education to provide modestly priced lunches to eager school children all over America. Standards for school lunches are in the process of review and will soon be aligned with the new standards set forth by Operation McNutrient.

7. Happy schoolchildren benefit from “Operation McNutrition”

8. How does the American public feel about this situation? Reporters were able to briefly interview a middle-class family in Lansing, MI on their way back from the grocery store. The mother described the situation as “Strange, but not terribly inconveniencing. The kids won’t touch anything that doesn’t have Spongebob Squarepants on the box anyways, so this way at least I don’t feel guilty about not feeding them their five-a-day.” The father had a more negative opinion. “ I’m really shocked that scientists haven’t come out with some pill to fix this by now. We are supposed to be all technologically advanced, we can create machines that’ll play checkers with us, but we can’t make some pill that’ll act like carrots? What is this, Darfur?” Their two children, off on a sugar high, were unavailable for comment.

9. A woman in Providence, RH buying up what’s left of the produce section in a local grocery store. Fresh produce has become extremely scarce.

10. This is the question on everyone’s mind. Why are all the farmers suddenly disappearing? History professor Charles Kramer from Stanford, an expert in the area of agricultural labor, offers some insight: “ In the past one hundred years the practice of farming, and of getting the food from farm to supermarket, has changed drastically. Machines have taken over much of the work once done by people. This has put many who were previously farmers out of jobs, or has forced them into doing dangerous labor involving the use of poisonous chemicals currently used to grow food. Also, many farmers are forced to make a “deal with the devil” by buying their seeds from large corporations who sell only seeds that grow with the use of fertilizer and cannot reproduce annually by themselves. Thus, farmers become economically tied to certain companies and are at their mercy in terms of the sorts of seeds they grow and the prices they buy them at. Agriculture in the United States produces so much that the country cannot eat it all. Thus, the U.S. government has resorted to exporting excess products such as wheat and corn to third-world nations, glutting their market and preventing local farmers from being able to sell their crops. It’s no wonder the farmers are disappearing. They’re being screwed from every angle.” Why???

11. U.S. government officials, however, subscribe to a different theory. They believe the disappearance of farmers is the work of previously undetected terrorist cells localized in Bangladesh. This small country located near India is a haven for independent farmers and refuses to adopt measures recommended by the World Bank to increase food production and switch to an economy of exporting food. This morning, President Bush gave an assertive speech outlining his theory on recent events and the “New War” the U.S. is now in the midst of. Bush described Bangladesh as “a haven for Buddhist wussies, unable to deal with the fact that the world has moved beyond manual means of doing agriculture.” The “treehugger terrorists” as Bush called them, “threaten to destroy our way of life and take away your box of KFC wings, and soon they will be after your kid’s Fruit Loops.” The president commented that the idea that any country wouldn’t want the help of Monsanto to grow their food supply is ludicrous and that Bangladesh is probably hiding the disappeared farmers. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld commented that there is credible evidence that Bangladesh plans to use the disappeared as forced labor in their scheme to take over the world of mass farming with manual agriculture. He called for immediate military action in retaliation for the disappeared farmers and to halt Bangladesh’s plan to destroy the technology of mass farming.

12. In a cruel twist of fate, this Klamath Basin, OR farmer has indeed disappeared.

13. The saga of the disappeared farmers continues. Stay tuned for the latest news.