Global Famine 2022 / 2023

[Kevo]

Anyone else tracking the impending food shortages? Seems like developing countries that are net food importers are about to be in a perilous situation.

https://theweek.com/world/1012311/th...-food-shortage

https://www.cnbc.com/2022/04/06/a-fe...-scarcity.html

https://www.politico.eu/article/fren...global-famine/

[abraham]

This one's worth reading. https://doomberg.substack.com/p/farm...-the-brink?s=r

[muted reborn]

Any potash mining experts here? Makes me wonder if all the underutilized potash deposits here in Utah are going to be mined ASAP. Looks like Intrepid from Utah had their stock more than double since the war started. What's the catch though, something like an insane amount of water rights needed to produce it? Or maybe any new mines that start today won't produce anything for many many years in the future? Like 5 or 10 or 20?

[dunfree]

Any potash mining experts here? Makes me wonder if all the underutilized potash deposits here in Utah are going to be mined ASAP. Looks like Intrepid from Utah had their stock more than double since the war started. What's the catch though, something like an insane amount of water rights needed to produce it? Or maybe any new mines that start today won't produce anything for many many years in the future? Like 5 or 10 or 20?

from watching never ending canpotex trains at kicking horse pass headed west, I suspect the hurdles are transport (to the ocean and across the ocean)

[Core Shot]

If all the stoners saved their pot ash.
We might save the world.

[Mazderati]

From 11 March. UK (gentleman) farmer's perspective. The relevant part starts around 4:05.

[Kevo]

^5x price gain on fertilizer over 2 years

[ghosthop]

Climate Change: The Final Solution

[Master of Energy]

Most of the US population is extremely famine resistant. USA! USA!

[Core Shot]

Doesn’t weed require fertilizer?

Hippy rebellion?

[gravitylover]

I think I'm gonna load up on seeds, good soil and... fertilizer while it's still abundant and relatively cheap.

[up an down]

There are famines ongoing already. It will probably get worse in the affected countries.. And the countries that have fertilizer surpluses will be much less likely to export. I am glad to be retired from farming!. Historically volatile crop prices will make it a very stressful growing season coming up in North America...and South America has some drought problems now so it looks like below average crop yields there getting harvested now.

[gravitylover]

It doesn't help that the US winter wheat crop sucked due to drought and the early plantings in the northern plains are getting frozen today.

[Bunion 2020]

I predict this thread will last longer than the Covid Rat Flu thread. This is some scary shit.

[Woodsy]

It shows you where the US governments priorities are that in the face of possible food shortages and rising fuel prices they move to use more corn for fuel today....
In an exception to the Clean Air Act, Biden will allow E15 gas to be sold this summer

it already consumes 35 percent of the U.S. corn crop @ 10% so currently the U.S. devotes enough land to corn-ethanol production to feed 150 million people. Bumping it up to 15%? well you do the math.

That is not even taking into consideration the other problems with ethanol

[mtnjam]

That is not even taking into consideration the other problems with ethanol

Don't cha know, we won't have to worry about the problems with ethanol after everyone switches to electric.

[Timberridge]

I predict this thread will last longer than the Covid Rat Flu thread. This is some scary shit.

Cool. Yeah, that one is getting played out now that we're fairly vaccinated.

What do you guys think about starting a G5 Magnetic Storm thread. You know eventually we're gonna get hit with the big one.



#inonthefirstpage

[muted reborn]

Just read how Fish and Chip shops in England are probably going out of biz by the thousands - prices are jacked on oil from Ukraine and other places, fish from Russia is now banned, etc. That would be like pizza places or burger joints disappearing in the US, it's kinda crazy.

Also is this an investing thread or a sympathetic famine thread? I wonder how many ghouls on this board are trying to make a buck off all of this, ha.

[Timberridge]

Just read how Fish and Chip shops in England are probably going out of biz by the thousands - prices are jacked on oil from Ukraine and other places, fish from Russia is now banned, etc. That would be like pizza places or burger joints disappearing in the US, it's kinda crazy.

Also is this an investing thread or a sympathetic famine thread? I wonder how many ghouls on this board are trying to make a buck off all of this, ha.

And McVite's Digestives are probably getting hit over there too with wheat prices soaring.

Pro tip: never eat a whole sleeve in one sitting

[LongShortLong]

It shows you where the US governments priorities are that in the face of possible food shortages and rising fuel prices they move to use more corn for fuel today....
In an exception to the Clean Air Act, Biden will allow E15 gas to be sold this summer

it already consumes 35 percent of the U.S. corn crop @ 10% so currently the U.S. devotes enough land to corn-ethanol production to feed 150 million people. Bumping it up to 15%? well you do the math.

That is not even taking into consideration the other problems with ethanol

Yep. They are politicians, not industrial revolution historians (or engineers). All they know is Iowans vote. They've forgotten that a key enabler of modern society is extracting energy from mines instead of farmland. Instead of dedicating half a farm to human crops, a quarter for draft animal feed, and a quarter to forest for heating, we can now use mined fuels (coal, oil, gas) to meet the latter needs, and dedicate all of the farmland to human food. Farming ethanol is a regression.

Besides, the oil shortage showed first, and ethanol is flammable. Never mind that studies say it's not very efficient and consumes more oil equivalents than it produces. Political stupidity is our reward for becoming astoundingly good at manufacturing and PR. We think we can do anything, and we tell ourselves that.

[Kevo]

Sri Lanka has suspended payment on all external debt. https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-p...or-2022-04-12/

They're going to have a hell of a time financing wheat later this year.

[Timberridge]

I'm short Sri Lankan debt.

[BmillsSkier]

I'm short Sri Lankan debt.

Who isn't, but I get the weird feeling like we're starting to see some chips fall here. Maybe its the whole pandemic mindset we've spent the last few years in, but you get the sense this is like patient zero or some such shit.

[abraham]

Just read how Fish and Chip shops in England are probably going out of biz by the thousands - prices are jacked on oil from Ukraine and other places, fish from Russia is now banned, etc. That would be like pizza places or burger joints disappearing in the US, it's kinda crazy.

Also is this an investing thread or a sympathetic famine thread? I wonder how many ghouls on this board are trying to make a buck off all of this, ha.

Unfortunately it's probably both given the links posted. I guess including mine, though I didn't think of it for investing I just thought it was a pretty comprehensive exploration of what's going on.

Yep. They are politicians, not industrial revolution historians (or engineers). All they know is Iowans vote. They've forgotten that a key enabler of modern society is extracting energy from mines instead of farmland. Instead of dedicating half a farm to human crops, a quarter for draft animal feed, and a quarter to forest for heating, we can now use mined fuels (coal, oil, gas) to meet the latter needs, and dedicate all of the farmland to human food. Farming ethanol is a regression.

Besides, the oil shortage showed first, and ethanol is flammable. Never mind that studies say it's not very efficient and consumes more oil equivalents than it produces. Political stupidity is our reward for becoming astoundingly good at manufacturing and PR. We think we can do anything, and we tell ourselves that.

There's a book I've been meaning to read so I can try understanding this idea better. It's a shift in how I've thought about gas and coal, but in many ways it seems to push toward the idea of nuclear power.

Sri Lanka has suspended payment on all external debt. https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-p...or-2022-04-12/

They're going to have a hell of a time financing wheat later this year.

Sri Lanka banned artificial pesticides, I didn't see a mention of it in that article but I think it's critical to understanding how they got here. It seemed to be a pretty clear failure last fall, probably earlier in agriculture circles.

Sri Lankan President Gotabaya Rajapaksa promised in his 2019 election campaign to transition the country’s farmers to organic agriculture over a period of 10 years. Last April, Rajapaksa’s government made good on that promise, imposing a nationwide ban on the importation and use of synthetic fertilizers and pesticides and ordering the country’s 2 million farmers to go organic.

The result was brutal and swift. Against claims that organic methods can produce comparable yields to conventional farming, domestic rice production fell 20 percent in just the first six months. Sri Lanka, long self-sufficient in rice production, has been forced to import $450 million worth of rice even as domestic prices for this staple of the national diet surged by around 50 percent. The ban also devastated the nation’s tea crop, its primary export and source of foreign exchange.

Fromhttps://foreignpolicy.com/2022/03/05...arming-crisis/

Also:
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/07/w...ertilizer.html

[dunfree]

The ban on artificial fertilizers & pesticide was a slow train wreck with weird religious as well as domestic self sufficiency issues