7 ms·

Paul Graham predicts food shortages

25 points by simonster 5y ago

calyth2018 5y ago
It's not that surprising. Taiwanese commentators on both sides of their political aisles have noted that Ukraine and Russia are both exporters of food and fertilizer. According to them, both exports will be severely affected. Buyers of food from Ukraine (and probably Russia) would be Middle East and Africa. Fertilizer prices will keep going up. Effects of the war is most likely affect the poor in the middle east and africa the most. We'll probably see more inflated prices instead of outright shortages.
sharemywin 5y ago
I wonder if the bird flu outbreak will affect the demand for crops? https://www.webmd.com/cold-and-flu/news/20220323/half-a-million-chickens-to-be-destroyed-in-bird-flu-outbreak https://www.webmd.com/cold-and-flu/news/20220323/half-a-mill...
TrispusAttucks 5y ago
Predication? It's been obvious for weeks (months?). The POTUS just mentioned it in his speech several days ago. Food shortages are coming to America. "It’s going to be real" ~ Joe Biden China has been stock piling food reserves for years. That's a strong signal.
- sharemywin 5y ago
  Here's an article about this: https://farmpolicynews.illinois.edu/2022/03/its-going-to-be-real-president-biden-on-war-related-food-shortages/ https://farmpolicynews.illinois.edu/2022/03/its-going-to-be-...
  - TrispusAttucks 5y ago
    Indeed. Idk if people think I'm trolling whilst just trying to share facts. Here is Biden video [1] for those who don't trust written word. [1] https://youtu.be/iBxpwOmAQcw https://youtu.be/iBxpwOmAQcw
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
el_nahual 5y ago
Somebody replied with: > It only makes sense not to plant if you think you won't be able to make up the cost of the fertilizer when you sell your crop. If there are shortages, food prices will go through the roof. Farmers who decide not to plant are implicitly predicting that there will not be shortages. Which...seems like quite solid logic.
- savanaly 5y ago
  The only modifier is that there's usually social outcry when prices rise in response to a shortage and demands for the government to step in and fix prices with force. Sadly that tendency means even if a food shortage is perfectly predictable there's no incentive to prepare for it. Obviously prices can rise somewhat without being fixed (as has been happening in recent months) but there's a limit and in the case of widespread food shortages that limit may be reached.
  - 0des 5y ago
    Where was this protective failsafe when the price of meat doubled over the past year?
    - spiderice 5y ago
      Did the price of meat double over the past year? You have a source for this? All my googling of "meat price over time" suggests the price of meat did not double in the last year. Or even the last 10 years.
      - gruez 5y ago
        No. Just by eyeballing futures prices: Cattle is up ~21% since pre-pandemic https://www.tradingview.com/chart/?symbol=CME%3ALE1 https://www.tradingview.com/chart/?symbol=CME%3ALE1! Lean hog is up 53% since pre-pandemic https://www.tradingview.com/chart/?symbol=CME%3AHE1 https://www.tradingview.com/chart/?symbol=CME%3AHE1! Also, looking at CPI figures, the "Meats, Poultry, Fish, and Eggs" is only up 19% since pre-pandemic levels.
aaronbrethorst 5y ago
This was literally on the front page of the NYT a week ago: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/20/world/americas/ukraine-war-global-food-crisis.html https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/20/world/americas/ukraine-wa...
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
acidburnNSA 5y ago
Doomberg is saying similar things [1] with some pretty deep analysis behind it. [1] https://doomberg.substack.com/p/farmers-on-the-brink https://doomberg.substack.com/p/farmers-on-the-brink Doomberg is a cartoon green chicken with a quasi-anonymous group of heavy industrialist business consultants behind it. The content is pretty fantastic. Kind of strange, but, well, here we are.
- bjtitus 5y ago
  Definitely one of the stranger sources of economic doomporn I've seen, but at least the whole vibe seems a bit more self-aware than most. I hope a bunch of screenshots of indices at 5-year highs with conveniently short time frames (excluding the last major economic shock only ten years ago) isn't considered "pretty deep analysis" now. I guess when your newsletter is titled "Doomberg" and you brag about prepping to IRL friends [1] the lack of context outside of the carefully selected graphs and time periods seems less surprising. 1: https://doomberg.substack.com/p/reflections-from-the-gas-pump https://doomberg.substack.com/p/reflections-from-the-gas-pum...
exdsq 5y ago
On a related note, I predict Russia invades Ukraine
gkoberger 5y ago
I hate when interviewers ask "Do you think X?" and the interviewee mildly agrees, and then it's framed as "X said Y". PG is really, really good with words. There's no reason to put words in his mouth. This title leaves out the word "may" from the original question, as well. He's not predicting food shortages, he's saying yes to someone asking if it "may" happen.
paxys 5y ago
The agricultural industry already relies heavily on government subsidies to survive. Trump paid $30 billion+ to farmers to make up for Chinese tariffs imposed during his trade war. It isn't as much at the mercy of market movements as people think. It's also funny to see over the last few years how billionaire Silicon Valley VCs and programmers are declaring themselves the voice of middle America. Show me a report from the USDA or some economists over PG's anecdote about his "farmer friend".
khazhoux 5y ago
This is a low-content post. A political activist/commentator anecdotally tells his Twitter followers that his family is cutting back their farming because of fertilizer and diesel costs, and then predicts a food shortage. PG then replies "Yes".
- drcongo 5y ago
  I've lost count of the number of one word PG tweets that have made the front page of HN.
  - majewsky 5y ago
    Many.
  - khazhoux 5y ago
    Yes :-)
andi999 5y ago
I read somewhere here and there, that companies making fertilizer produced much less since last year. This was due to the high(er) energy prices which didnt allow them to make profit; also due to how the contracts were structured, the price was fixed, so increasing price was not an option, but no-delivery due to high energy costs was somehow permitted. Since way too little fertilizer was produced, nothing can be done currently, prices for retail fertilizers go up, but the shortage is real. Take this post with a big grain of salt, I do not have solid sources.
wing-_-nuts 5y ago
I'm not sure I should care about PG's hot take. Get me an agricultural economist to explain why the market isn't pricing this in and providing the proper incentives to farmers across the world? Food prices will no doubt be higher, but outside of third world countries that can't afford the higher price (and thus will need to be helped with food aid), I can't see widespread shortages in the developed world.
- throwmeariver1 5y ago
  We have the biggest independent European seed manufacturer as client and they shipped more this year than ever before and see no stagnation in orders even after the war started this is all anecdotal evidence and jumping to conclusion in the twitter thread.
  - kaba0 5y ago
    Isn’t Russia and Ukraine the biggest grain exporters in Europe? It (not the article, but as mentioned it has been headlines a few times already) is not about today, but possibly a year ahead prediction.
    - throwmeariver1 5y ago
      They are exporters but to countries that they mostly have good relationships with. There is little to no export into Europe or the US BUT Russia imports most of it's seeds from Europe. These seeds are one time seeds that means you are not able to seed again from the upspring of them. The seeds for this years seeding have not yet been provided. They will suffer even harder because they will compromise their soil by simply not being able to provide a proper rotation. For the west this is more a logistics problem than anything else other countries can and will pick up the pace on fertilizer and grain production. Russia can not yet provide enough seeds on their own and they will still export grain to their allies as they did before the sanctions. China has build up a pretty big reserve on grain and corn over the last past years and they will have to provide poor countries that would be hit by the production shortages to prevent their investment ie. in Africa in the last decade getting nullified. It's really not that big of a problem everyone wants to make it out to be and it will be worse for Russia than for the rest of the world. Russia will have the biggest problem on secondary fruits like potatoes and sugar beet that they will have to import in exchange for a higher export of an increased grain production. We will see an increase in prizes but there will be no shortages of oil or flour in your grocery shop next door except through the influence of hoarding in the beginning. These are good articles about their problems with producing seeds https://www.agroberichtenbuitenland.nl/actueel/nieuws/2021/12/20/putin-to-support-russian-seed-production https://www.agroberichtenbuitenland.nl/actueel/nieuws/2021/1... https://www.agroberichtenbuitenland.nl/actueel/nieuws/2022/02/07/situation-with-potato-seeds-in-russia-is-catastrophic https://www.agroberichtenbuitenland.nl/actueel/nieuws/2022/0... https://germination.ca/russia-to-up-seed-game/ https://germination.ca/russia-to-up-seed-game/
openasocket 5y ago
It's weird that he's talking about this entirely in terms of fertilizer prices and not the fact that Ukraine and Russia are both export large amounts of food.
legitster 5y ago
I have a hard time believing this will be as severe as what we saw during Covid. If you are expecting shortages, it should be in your interest to spend more now to capitalize on them. Especially if you expect inflation! Unless a) you are worried about price controls in the future, b) you are a small-time farmer and averse or unable to take on debt.
exdsq 5y ago
Ukraine is the fifth largest producer of wheat and has reduced crop sizes due to the war. This is being offset by other producers like Egypt increasing production because there's a market incentive to do so. Will this result in a food shortage? Technically, yes. Will this result in some sort of noticeable food shortage? Probably not, unless people start talking about it and causes people to buy an unusually high amount of food resulting in a self-fulfilled prophecy. Will that be catastrophic? Almost certainly not, it'll be like Covid again when preppers buy all the pasta for a few weeks - an inconvenience. What is the absolute worst advice to give? To tell people to go out and prepare. That will cause issues.
- rdtwo 5y ago
  Well we’re talking about shortages so shortages will happen because some will stockpile
elihu 5y ago
> "A farmer friend told me the same thing is happening in the UK. The cost of fertilizer has gone up so much due to the Ukraine War that some farmers are not even planting." Actually, fertilizer shortages were already a thing before the war started. As I understand it, it's related to high costs of natural gas (which is used to make some types of fertilizer). Also, Russia is a major exporter of fertilizer and they've been restricting exports for awhile (possibly to secure their own food supply). The war in Ukraine certainly doesn't help the food situation though. Ukraine is a major food producer. It seems like the world on track for some expensive food for the next year or so, which will disproportionately affect people from poorer countries.
cwkoss 5y ago
Our food system is a mess. We need to transition our agricultural systems to use biology rather than chemistry to nourish our food crops. The technology is there, we just haven't figured out how to industrialize it at scale. I personally think robotics will fill this gap - as the main prohibitive factor now is labor availability. Check out permaculture techniques like: composting, chop and drop, wood chip mulching, no till, Korean natural farming techniques using indigenous microorganisms. Collapse has been inevitable. Wiping farmland clean, trying to sterilize it, and restarting the next year is incredibly wasteful and has only been feasible because of heavy subsidies at several levels in the upstream supply chain.
dqpb 5y ago
> The cost of fertilizer has gone up so much due to the Ukraine War that some farmers are not even planting. The rising fertilizer cost and impending food shortage has been in discussion since 2021 due to the global supply chain crisis. Surely the reason for it now is not suddenly because of Ukraine.
throwmeariver1 5y ago
If there are shortages and people in developed countries will hunger it’s for government to step in with regulations about wasting food. Last year we had 40% of food in America thrown away. There won’t be a drop of 40% in food production because of the war in Ukraine not even close to it.
disambiguation 5y ago
I mean yeah Biden already said this days ago: https://twitter.com/ABCPolitics/status/1507052235192254472 https://twitter.com/ABCPolitics/status/1507052235192254472
programmarchy 5y ago
It's interesting to see a Tweet by the founder of YC get flagged on HN.

25 points by simonster 5y ago

calyth2018 5y ago

It's not that surprising. Taiwanese commentators on both sides of their political aisles have noted that Ukraine and Russia are both exporters of food and fertilizer. According to them, both exports will be severely affected. Buyers of food from Ukraine (and probably Russia) would be Middle East and Africa. Fertilizer prices will keep going up. Effects of the war is most likely affect the poor in the middle east and africa the most. We'll probably see more inflated prices instead of outright shortages.

sharemywin 5y ago

I wonder if the bird flu outbreak will affect the demand for crops? https://www.webmd.com/cold-and-flu/news/20220323/half-a-million-chickens-to-be-destroyed-in-bird-flu-outbreak https://www.webmd.com/cold-and-flu/news/20220323/half-a-mill...

TrispusAttucks 5y ago

Predication? It's been obvious for weeks (months?). The POTUS just mentioned it in his speech several days ago. Food shortages are coming to America. "It’s going to be real" ~ Joe Biden China has been stock piling food reserves for years. That's a strong signal.

sharemywin 5y ago
Here's an article about this: https://farmpolicynews.illinois.edu/2022/03/its-going-to-be-real-president-biden-on-war-related-food-shortages/ https://farmpolicynews.illinois.edu/2022/03/its-going-to-be-...
- TrispusAttucks 5y ago
  Indeed. Idk if people think I'm trolling whilst just trying to share facts. Here is Biden video [1] for those who don't trust written word. [1] https://youtu.be/iBxpwOmAQcw https://youtu.be/iBxpwOmAQcw
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

el_nahual 5y ago

Somebody replied with: > It only makes sense not to plant if you think you won't be able to make up the cost of the fertilizer when you sell your crop. If there are shortages, food prices will go through the roof. Farmers who decide not to plant are implicitly predicting that there will not be shortages. Which...seems like quite solid logic.

savanaly 5y ago
The only modifier is that there's usually social outcry when prices rise in response to a shortage and demands for the government to step in and fix prices with force. Sadly that tendency means even if a food shortage is perfectly predictable there's no incentive to prepare for it. Obviously prices can rise somewhat without being fixed (as has been happening in recent months) but there's a limit and in the case of widespread food shortages that limit may be reached.
- 0des 5y ago
  Where was this protective failsafe when the price of meat doubled over the past year?
  - spiderice 5y ago
    Did the price of meat double over the past year? You have a source for this? All my googling of "meat price over time" suggests the price of meat did not double in the last year. Or even the last 10 years.
    - gruez 5y ago
      No. Just by eyeballing futures prices: Cattle is up ~21% since pre-pandemic https://www.tradingview.com/chart/?symbol=CME%3ALE1 https://www.tradingview.com/chart/?symbol=CME%3ALE1! Lean hog is up 53% since pre-pandemic https://www.tradingview.com/chart/?symbol=CME%3AHE1 https://www.tradingview.com/chart/?symbol=CME%3AHE1! Also, looking at CPI figures, the "Meats, Poultry, Fish, and Eggs" is only up 19% since pre-pandemic levels.

aaronbrethorst 5y ago

This was literally on the front page of the NYT a week ago: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/20/world/americas/ukraine-war-global-food-crisis.html https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/20/world/americas/ukraine-wa...

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

acidburnNSA 5y ago

Doomberg is saying similar things [1] with some pretty deep analysis behind it. [1] https://doomberg.substack.com/p/farmers-on-the-brink https://doomberg.substack.com/p/farmers-on-the-brink Doomberg is a cartoon green chicken with a quasi-anonymous group of heavy industrialist business consultants behind it. The content is pretty fantastic. Kind of strange, but, well, here we are.

bjtitus 5y ago
Definitely one of the stranger sources of economic doomporn I've seen, but at least the whole vibe seems a bit more self-aware than most. I hope a bunch of screenshots of indices at 5-year highs with conveniently short time frames (excluding the last major economic shock only ten years ago) isn't considered "pretty deep analysis" now. I guess when your newsletter is titled "Doomberg" and you brag about prepping to IRL friends [1] the lack of context outside of the carefully selected graphs and time periods seems less surprising. 1: https://doomberg.substack.com/p/reflections-from-the-gas-pump https://doomberg.substack.com/p/reflections-from-the-gas-pum...

exdsq 5y ago

On a related note, I predict Russia invades Ukraine

gkoberger 5y ago

I hate when interviewers ask "Do you think X?" and the interviewee mildly agrees, and then it's framed as "X said Y". PG is really, really good with words. There's no reason to put words in his mouth. This title leaves out the word "may" from the original question, as well. He's not predicting food shortages, he's saying yes to someone asking if it "may" happen.

paxys 5y ago

The agricultural industry already relies heavily on government subsidies to survive. Trump paid $30 billion+ to farmers to make up for Chinese tariffs imposed during his trade war. It isn't as much at the mercy of market movements as people think. It's also funny to see over the last few years how billionaire Silicon Valley VCs and programmers are declaring themselves the voice of middle America. Show me a report from the USDA or some economists over PG's anecdote about his "farmer friend".

khazhoux 5y ago

This is a low-content post. A political activist/commentator anecdotally tells his Twitter followers that his family is cutting back their farming because of fertilizer and diesel costs, and then predicts a food shortage. PG then replies "Yes".

drcongo 5y ago
I've lost count of the number of one word PG tweets that have made the front page of HN.
- majewsky 5y ago
  Many.
- khazhoux 5y ago
  Yes :-)

andi999 5y ago

I read somewhere here and there, that companies making fertilizer produced much less since last year. This was due to the high(er) energy prices which didnt allow them to make profit; also due to how the contracts were structured, the price was fixed, so increasing price was not an option, but no-delivery due to high energy costs was somehow permitted. Since way too little fertilizer was produced, nothing can be done currently, prices for retail fertilizers go up, but the shortage is real. Take this post with a big grain of salt, I do not have solid sources.

wing-_-nuts 5y ago

I'm not sure I should care about PG's hot take. Get me an agricultural economist to explain why the market isn't pricing this in and providing the proper incentives to farmers across the world? Food prices will no doubt be higher, but outside of third world countries that can't afford the higher price (and thus will need to be helped with food aid), I can't see widespread shortages in the developed world.

throwmeariver1 5y ago
We have the biggest independent European seed manufacturer as client and they shipped more this year than ever before and see no stagnation in orders even after the war started this is all anecdotal evidence and jumping to conclusion in the twitter thread.
- kaba0 5y ago
  Isn’t Russia and Ukraine the biggest grain exporters in Europe? It (not the article, but as mentioned it has been headlines a few times already) is not about today, but possibly a year ahead prediction.
  - throwmeariver1 5y ago
    They are exporters but to countries that they mostly have good relationships with. There is little to no export into Europe or the US BUT Russia imports most of it's seeds from Europe. These seeds are one time seeds that means you are not able to seed again from the upspring of them. The seeds for this years seeding have not yet been provided. They will suffer even harder because they will compromise their soil by simply not being able to provide a proper rotation. For the west this is more a logistics problem than anything else other countries can and will pick up the pace on fertilizer and grain production. Russia can not yet provide enough seeds on their own and they will still export grain to their allies as they did before the sanctions. China has build up a pretty big reserve on grain and corn over the last past years and they will have to provide poor countries that would be hit by the production shortages to prevent their investment ie. in Africa in the last decade getting nullified. It's really not that big of a problem everyone wants to make it out to be and it will be worse for Russia than for the rest of the world. Russia will have the biggest problem on secondary fruits like potatoes and sugar beet that they will have to import in exchange for a higher export of an increased grain production. We will see an increase in prizes but there will be no shortages of oil or flour in your grocery shop next door except through the influence of hoarding in the beginning. These are good articles about their problems with producing seeds https://www.agroberichtenbuitenland.nl/actueel/nieuws/2021/12/20/putin-to-support-russian-seed-production https://www.agroberichtenbuitenland.nl/actueel/nieuws/2021/1... https://www.agroberichtenbuitenland.nl/actueel/nieuws/2022/02/07/situation-with-potato-seeds-in-russia-is-catastrophic https://www.agroberichtenbuitenland.nl/actueel/nieuws/2022/0... https://germination.ca/russia-to-up-seed-game/ https://germination.ca/russia-to-up-seed-game/

openasocket 5y ago

It's weird that he's talking about this entirely in terms of fertilizer prices and not the fact that Ukraine and Russia are both export large amounts of food.

legitster 5y ago

I have a hard time believing this will be as severe as what we saw during Covid. If you are expecting shortages, it should be in your interest to spend more now to capitalize on them. Especially if you expect inflation! Unless a) you are worried about price controls in the future, b) you are a small-time farmer and averse or unable to take on debt.

exdsq 5y ago

Ukraine is the fifth largest producer of wheat and has reduced crop sizes due to the war. This is being offset by other producers like Egypt increasing production because there's a market incentive to do so. Will this result in a food shortage? Technically, yes. Will this result in some sort of noticeable food shortage? Probably not, unless people start talking about it and causes people to buy an unusually high amount of food resulting in a self-fulfilled prophecy. Will that be catastrophic? Almost certainly not, it'll be like Covid again when preppers buy all the pasta for a few weeks - an inconvenience. What is the absolute worst advice to give? To tell people to go out and prepare. That will cause issues.

rdtwo 5y ago
Well we’re talking about shortages so shortages will happen because some will stockpile

elihu 5y ago

> "A farmer friend told me the same thing is happening in the UK. The cost of fertilizer has gone up so much due to the Ukraine War that some farmers are not even planting." Actually, fertilizer shortages were already a thing before the war started. As I understand it, it's related to high costs of natural gas (which is used to make some types of fertilizer). Also, Russia is a major exporter of fertilizer and they've been restricting exports for awhile (possibly to secure their own food supply). The war in Ukraine certainly doesn't help the food situation though. Ukraine is a major food producer. It seems like the world on track for some expensive food for the next year or so, which will disproportionately affect people from poorer countries.

cwkoss 5y ago

Our food system is a mess. We need to transition our agricultural systems to use biology rather than chemistry to nourish our food crops. The technology is there, we just haven't figured out how to industrialize it at scale. I personally think robotics will fill this gap - as the main prohibitive factor now is labor availability. Check out permaculture techniques like: composting, chop and drop, wood chip mulching, no till, Korean natural farming techniques using indigenous microorganisms. Collapse has been inevitable. Wiping farmland clean, trying to sterilize it, and restarting the next year is incredibly wasteful and has only been feasible because of heavy subsidies at several levels in the upstream supply chain.

dqpb 5y ago

> The cost of fertilizer has gone up so much due to the Ukraine War that some farmers are not even planting. The rising fertilizer cost and impending food shortage has been in discussion since 2021 due to the global supply chain crisis. Surely the reason for it now is not suddenly because of Ukraine.

throwmeariver1 5y ago

If there are shortages and people in developed countries will hunger it’s for government to step in with regulations about wasting food. Last year we had 40% of food in America thrown away. There won’t be a drop of 40% in food production because of the war in Ukraine not even close to it.

disambiguation 5y ago

I mean yeah Biden already said this days ago: https://twitter.com/ABCPolitics/status/1507052235192254472 https://twitter.com/ABCPolitics/status/1507052235192254472

programmarchy 5y ago

It's interesting to see a Tweet by the founder of YC get flagged on HN.