Food Preparedness

In our Land of Plenty…

~ grant.gallagher ~ 1 Comment

… we have nothing to worry about. Food, cars, electricity, gasoline, toilet paper, are all available in abundance, with no fears about where our next roll of the soft white stuff will come from.

That is, until you go to the store or dealership and find out that shelves and car-lots are bare. Maybe not everything at the same time, but these shortages are popping up continually now. Something most of us have never encountered in our lifetime is suddenly staring us in the face. It’s irritating and inconvenient, but is it REALLY something to get worried about? We always manage to get by. Next year, the cars will be better and have even more exciting accessories. You’ve thought about trying a new brand of cracker and since your usual brand isn’t on the shelf, now’s the time. There isn’t any kernel canned corn, so it’s creamed corn today. You had your heart set on making a loaf of fresh bread, but there are no packets of yeast to be found. Little adjustments that are annoying but nothing to get upset about. But that’s today. What’s (not) in the stores tomorrow?

Let’s start with a few facts about food. In order to produce field crops, the ground has to be fertilized. Commercial production does not allow the sustainable and thoughtful rotation of crops from year to year. Smaller farms may be able to do this, but the big growers need all their land to produce, all the time. Specific crops have particular nutritional needs, and these have to be provided artificially on big farms. No problem, right? We can lay that fertilizer down in March for wheat and twice over the course of a few months for corn and our crops will be magnificent. Amber waves of grain!! Corn as high as an elephant’s eye on the fourth of July!!

Unless you can’t get the fertilizer. What happens then?

Take a minute to consider all the food areas that corn, wheat, rice and oil affect (hint: ‘moo’, ‘oink’, ‘cluck’). What does this mean to our ability to buy the food products we want? Well, nothing unless there is an interruption in sourcing fertilizer. How could this happen?

On April 19th of this year, U.S. fertilizer manufacturer CF Industries (CFI) advised its customers that railroad-mandated shipping reductions will result in nitrogen fertilizer shipment delays during the spring planting season. Union Pacific informed CFI, without advance notice, that it was mandating CFI and around 30 additional shippers, to reduce the volume of private cars on its railroad, effective immediately. Effectively, CFI was told to reduce its shipments by nearly 20%. Non-compliance, according to CFI, would result in the embargo of its facilities by Union Pacific. That means CFI will be unable to accept new rail sales involving Union Pacific customers for the foreseeable future.

As if that wasn’t bad enough, the USA is experiencing severely-restricted access to the source of fertilizers, too. Did you know the US receives about $10.3 billion worth of fertilizer from the Ukraine, or that $1.3 billion worth comes from Russia? So there goes that source for the foreseeable future! Maybe you’re a little uncomfortable with this info that crop yield is going to be down significantly. You should be. But wait, there’s more, and in the next part of this post you simply won’t believe what is happening.

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Oh! Isn’t that EXPENSIVE now? International Edition

~ grant.gallagher ~ 1 Comment

Author ScotShot Scott is an NRA and USCCA certified Instructor and Training Counselor in a range of firearms, and home and personal defense disciplines. In an Alternate Universe, he is a husband, father, grandfather, scientist, musician, educator and grumpy old professor. Just your average reactionary, short, fat, old, bald guy!

Over the last wee while, we’ve been discussing the coming price increases and possible shortages in food that may be experienced here in the USA over the rest of this year. It’s important to realize that, while the USA does produce an enormous amount of food here, there are many things that happen in the rest of the world that impact us either directly or indirectly.

For example, Russia produces a huge amount of the Sunflower oil and fertilizers used all over the world. This will impact us here directly (as costs go up and availability goes down), and indirectly (as other countries compete for the same resource). Of course, poorer countries will be unable to compete and this may cause increased migration into the US and Europe, not to mention famine and possible continental destabilization in Africa.

It is really important for each of us to think about how we are going to deal with this in our own ways. Do we stock up? Do we start a garden? Do we form a local membership-based food-commune/food-bank? What ideas do we have?

Here are some interesting points from a variety of countries, summarized from this post.

  • The American and French governments are warning that “Serious” food shortages are on the way. Global food shortages, especially of wheat, are predicted to be a consequence of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
  • Grocery store prices in Germany are thought to be rising by as much as fifty percent.
  • Food rationing has begun in Spain and Greece. This is affecting everyday items such as flour, and sunflower oil.
  • Fertilizer prices have tripled since this time last year. This will hit poorer countries, particularly African countries, hardest. This isn’t just because Russia is one of the largest global suppliers of various fertilizers. Fertilizer production requires a lot of energy, so it is directly impacted by the price of oil.
  • Access to wheat is going to become a major issue. Between them, Russia and Ukraine have been the main source of this staple for many countries – Turkey and Egypt for example, as well as smaller countries such as Eritrea, Armenia and Mongolia. The Russians are threatening to export only to “friendly countries” going forward. That should be fun. Other major producers such as the USA and China are predicting poor upcoming harvests.
  • Here in the USA, avian flu continues to decimate meat and egg-laying chickens. Overall, this is what the total national death toll from this outbreak of bird flu stands at: “22 million egg-laying chickens, 1.8 million broiler chickens, 1.9 million pullet and other commercial chickens, and 1.9 million turkeys”.

So, as we said last week, we can’t put off thinking about how we are going to deal with this, Tigers. What are your ideas?