Scuttlebutt: On Global Food Crisis
Wondering what any of you all know about the looming global food crisis...
Personal Observations
I traveled coast to coast this summer and fall all the way through the grain belt. The crop devastation in June and July was completely unbelievable. In August and September, the fallow fields caught my eye.
It caught my eye because of the sheer scale - one leg of our trip saw highways closed for weeks and the entire “valley” (cropland between elevation rises (of a mountains in the distance type scale) from Sioux Falls to Missouri was flooded up to the highway in many places.It was horrifying! It was made worse because the flooding I witnessed on the drive was 3 weeks after being detoured due to highway closures. Hours of driving through this scenery.
A month later we drove from Missouri to the East Coast, and crops looked terrible - at least in the fields that were not lying fallow. I’ve made the trip many times and never seen anything like it.
Fudged Numbers?
I knew about the flooding in the region, and global crop failures because I keep abreast of some farming YouTubers, but I was still floored.
After getting back from that leg of our trip, I started to follow the situation a bit and was surprised at the schizophrenic coverage - it’s terrible, terrible followed by official reports saying crops meeting expectations.
The scuttlebutt I’m aware of is that the USDA has deliberately fudged the numbers to hide the situation from the public.
Your Thoughts
I have not seen crop failures and food shortages mentions or covered here, and thought I’d ask what you all know on the topic.
We can use this as an open thread to chat about farming...
Comments
Farmers in the Netherlands and Germany are up in arms
Various factors are driving small family farms out of business and have been for a long time.
Nowadays, on the one hand there are more and more crop failures due to weather. On the other hand, farmers are afraid that a climate-crisis related political crackdown is going to make them and their operations the scapegoat for environmental problems, burdening them with additional expenses and tying them up in red tape.
https://www.dw.com/en/netherlands-farmers-stage-tractor-protest-cause-hu...
I think we should all expect
food shortages in the near future. Stock up now on what you can.
"The “jumpers” reminded us that one day we will all face only one choice and that is how we will die, not how we will live." Chris Hedges on 9/11
What sorts of food should people
...stock up on?
A practical shopping list?
____________________
The political system is what it is because the People are who they are. — Plato
Don't worry, we have lots of time.
About a decade but hey what can ya do?
My thought is most of those crops...
go to feed animals in confinement operations, and a fair amount of the corn used to make ethanol (a really foolish idea....but Iowa is the 1st primary and no one will oppose it).
There are about 7 types of wheat grown, much of it winter wheat, so should be no fear of bread supply. These giant agricultural corporations need to collapse just like the giant banks and the gov't subsidies to the giant corporate farms...shifting the money to small local farms.
We need to move out of feed lots and into regenerative operations for animal production
https://regenerationinternational.org/why-regenerative-agriculture/
like Gabe's... https://www.csuchico.edu/regenerativeagriculture/demos/gabe-brown.shtml
and Joel's ...http://www.polyfacefarms.com/
For our own health we need to get off a grain based diet and on to the leafy greens...easy to grow almost every where. Here's a couple of young producers...
Richard Perkins a UK person in Sweden w/ small permaculture operation
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC3111rvadtBPUY9JJBqdmzg
Curtis Stone visits small market gardens This is a good intro video at 20 min
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jqmoZhnzfBA
and one of my favorite youtube gardeners Josh Sattin"s channel
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCHynVrKVZtTXf3hndd2ZR4A
In my area we have several young farmers. Go to the farmers markets in your area and get to know some of the producers. Many of these marketers run CSA - a subscription service of weekly delivery of seasonal crops. And yes it is more expensive than the corporate products in your grocery, but also healthier, local, and usually tastier.
You can create your own food production in small ares like this fellow in Chicago
https://www.youtube.com/user/OneYardRevolution
So my point is we need to alter what we eat and the way we produce it. Every community needs small producers growing healthy greens for local consumption. It isn't difficult to grow much of your own food. Our garden is about 1/4 acre in beds and provides us food every week. I understand some folks don't have a yard, but there are options like community garden plots.
Expect wilder weather. Think about some gardening under cover to protect plants from the extremes. We use old fencing to make easy to move hoops which we cover with shade cloth in the summer and row covers in the winter. As extremes grow we may need to move underground like this producer growing oranges in Nebraska.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZD_3_gsgsnk (18 min)
It is a lot the think about. Now is the time to make some transition.
“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”
Thanks for your post.
We had lively garden going but last two years fighting with various issues and neglected. Will start preparing for the next growing season. Your links look to be very helpful.
The Sunday AM weekly watch
often focuses on gardening. Join in that conversation if you have the time and inclination. Feel free to PM me if you have gardening issues and I'll try to help.
“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”
This food shortage is a looming
problem and has been for some time. Just as the climate catastrophe is advancing faster than many expected, this will do the same. After all, they are inextricably linked. If people don't realize this as a dire situation, they are not paying attention.
Here in Minnesota
Our growing season was crap this year. It never got warm enough over the summer, and in the spring it wouldn't stop raining so the farmers weren't able to get in the fields and plant crops until late.
Our garden was meh. The broccoli did fine, the strawberries did ok for their first season. But our spinach didn't amount to anything; what did grow matured so fast we didn't have time to do anything with it. Then there was the Labor Day hail storm that did kind of a number on the tomato and pepper plants. We got some, but then we got a frost a couple of weeks ago and then they were toast.
Next year I'm thinking more broccoli, beans again (they did fine too), tomatoes, maybe one pepper plant. Maybe spinach will do better next year, maybe not.
Stock up on canned goods, yes. If you have a Costco nearby the membership is worth it.
This shit is bananas.
I can't reconcile this.
I'm having real difficulty accepting this topic as a real issue. If climate change is real, and if the food crisis is real, why are we as progressives encouraging immigration to the United States? Wouldn't it be better to leave people where they are instead of bringing them here to further strain already strained resources?
I Don’t Think Progressives Are Encouraging
Immigration, per se, . I know the Immigration Issue is a hot button, but it seems to me more of a political football that makes a lot of hay than a legitimate issue.
“Tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat.” ~ Sun Tzu
That’s what ordinary people in Europe are asking too, but
question the wisdom of mass migration in public and the next thing you know everyone who isn’t the AfD will be calling you a Nazi and anti-Semite for your trouble.
In Germany, the Powers That Be like to pretend that the success of the AfD in former East Germany is this big mystery (“Economy’s doing great, what’s people’s problem, they never had it so good!”).
But it’s no mystery.
All the Kool Kidz in media and politics keep banding together, ganging up on other people for having said things deemed “politically incorrect,” isolating them, tagging them Nazis, and getting them fired or banned from the airwaves. Huh — big surprise, it’s seeing that very process in action that turns a lot of people into AfD voters.
It’s all too reminiscent of how the old East German system punished people for not having the right politics (i.e. being insufficiently “anti-fascist,” progressive, and Left as defined by the governing Socialist Unity Party and its satellite parties).
Many immigrants are moving
because climate change has made it impossible for them to farm or find other work where they were. The terrible situation in Syria followed about three years of drought, for example, so people could not stay alive in places where their families had been for countless years.
Syria
Yes, the drought caused many Syrians to move to urban areas in Syria. it was the regime change war encouraged by the United States, though, that pushed many Syrians out of Syria and into Turkey and Europe. We are good at taking bad situations and making them worse through our meddling.
This is an old fact --
but AFAIK much if not most of America's domestically-produced food comes from three states: California, Washington, and Florida.
Still true?
"The war on Gaza, backed by the West, is a demonstration that the West is willing to cross all lines. That it will discard any nuance of humanity. That it is willing to commit genocide" -- Moon of Alabama
true for fresh produce, but not for
grains, meat, eggs and dairy
The earth is a multibillion-year-old sphere.
The Nazis killed millions of Jews.
On 9/11/01 a Boeing 757 (AA77) flew into the Pentagon.
AGCC is happening.
If you cannot accept these facts, I cannot fake an interest in any of your opinions.
Sorry I have not been here.
Sorry I have not been here. Phone blogging is not my thing. My laptop is broken, so I’m typing with thumbs - not at all my thing.
Here is a recent video that is quite measured in tone and content. He’s much more square than some of the other sources I’ve seen on this.
[video:https://youtu.be/k9V8Vkh2Wfw]
One of the things that clued me into this was a discussion with my brother who is in charge of pouring the concrete for the New Town, ND (fracking boomtown) international airport this year. They were unable to get concrete delivered for over a month due to the flooding. Imagine a geopolitical project like that being held up due to flooding in the region.
After that happened in late May, I was paying some serous attention. My trip and the scuttlebutt on crops without mainstream reporting really freaked me out.
I can’t find any information on the global crop situation any longer. It’s like the stuff I was following and reading just disappeared. Russia had problems, Ukraine, India (iirc) and Australia all had some major issues, but my internet query skills seem to be failing me here.
Some of my friends who farm have shared their outlook and it’s as grim as my freaky deaky sources suggested.
I appreciate all the comments, although it kind of scares me a bit - you guys should know about this as there is little that escapes c99p’s wide vision.
Of course, it could just be an overreaction by suspect sources, but they’ve been on point in the past.
Here is to me being wrong and a cornucopia if grains in 2020.
Peace~
“Tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat.” ~ Sun Tzu
i was expecting a bad harvest across the midwest
but grain prices (wheat, corn and soybeans) are around average, after spiking for a bit during the summer.
The earth is a multibillion-year-old sphere.
The Nazis killed millions of Jews.
On 9/11/01 a Boeing 757 (AA77) flew into the Pentagon.
AGCC is happening.
If you cannot accept these facts, I cannot fake an interest in any of your opinions.
A Couple of My Friends Posted About This
and suggested that the USDA forecast was bullshit and farmers were pissed. They think crop losses were substantial and that the USDA put forth a bunk forecast to keep markets afloat at the expense of the farmers.
Farmers were holding back on selling until the market price reflected reality. This led to purchasing corn from Brazil.
The heavy weather in mid-October also closed out the growing season with significant percentages left in the fields.
Again, I can’t find good official sources on this, and have been relying on my own lying eyes and some crazy YouTubers.
I trust the crazy YouTubers, my lying eyes, and my friends who farm over the USDA and futures markets.
ThNks for the comment,
“Tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat.” ~ Sun Tzu
I believe your suspicion about this to be correct
I can't base that believe on anything I've
read but just from being a trader at the CBOT.
Though I traded Bonds and not grains, being in
the neighb you'd hear all the scuttlebutt.
Since the floods occurred I heard nothing but silence
on the subject, like it magically went away but
I don't buy it.
With the govt of tRumpolini brings us an era of only the
greatest, bestest news is expounded to the plebes by twiit.
Facts don't matter.
I never knew that the term "Never Again" only pertained to
those born Jewish
"Antisemite used to be someone who didn't like Jews
now it's someone who Jews don't like"
Heard from Margaret Kimberley
I would love to write a fact-filled post
on this subject, but I don't have a lot of facts to share. So I'll just give you some wild speculation (see my latest sig line!).
It would not surprise me in the least to see the USDA fudging the numbers to manipulate the markets. Why would that agency be the one that sets the standard of truth in this psychotic administration?
Don't forget about African Swine Fever. A quick search shows very little published recently, here's something from CNBC a few weeks ago:
https://www.cnbc.com/2019/10/03/african-swine-fever-chinas-pig-populatio...
Unlike the normal decline in livestock herds due to higher feed prices, the loss of hogs in Asia does not result in higher (and cheaper) meat supplies.
Without higher feed prices (not priced into the market yet, perhaps due in part to fudging by the USDA) the normal feedback of cutting herd size hasn't kicked in yet. I haven't noticed any drop in beef or chicken prices.
My gut feeling is that there will be enough calories to go around this year. The key question is whether this year's production issues are an outlier, or the new normal. If global aggregate grain production falters again next year I'm afraid there will be shortages and higher prices, with all the social upheaval that goes along with it.
We are entering a climate where large scale agriculture isn't possible. For most people famine will be the face of climate change.
"The greatest shortcoming of the human race is our inability to understand the exponential function." -- Albert Bartlett
"A species that is hurtling toward extinction has no business promoting slow incremental change." -- Caitlin Johnstone