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A world grain shortage puts tens of millions at risk
- trasz 4y agoThe war wouldn’t be such a problem if Ukraine received proper anti-ship missiles.
- throwaway742 4y agoWhy is that?
- fragmede 4y agoThe theory is that the Ukranians would use those missiles to clear the Black Sea blockade and then they would be able to resume shipping grain, grain-precursors, and other goods as they did before the war. There's more to the situation than that, so it's impossible to say if that would be enough, unfortunately, but that's the theory.
- Melting_Harps 4y ago> The war wouldn’t be such a problem if Ukraine received proper anti-ship missiles. That's very difficult to say, actually; the Moskova was sunk with them after all, but the bigger issue is the abhorrent and indiscriminate shelling of civilian populations by the Russians. Fields with farmers and homes and hospitals with civilians are not of military importance. And yet, Russia keeps shooting them. The truth is Putin's Kremlin is to blame for this wide-spread shortage and upcoming famine in many regions of the World, the West should just take the funds they seized as seed money to grow wheat in Africa this season even if it's a loss to offset this massive lost in cultivation in Ukraine. For what it's worth, planting is still taking place [0], it's just being disrupted and will not be as large of a grow as it was prior to the invasion, so the yields will be reduced. I have it on good authority that in Lviv Oblast, specifically in Trasncarpathia things are still going into the ground as planned since Spring. 0: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y-nOuy5C60Q https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y-nOuy5C60Q
- ericd 4y agoI’ve read that the disruption in fertilizer feedstock (especially methane) is going to reduce yields in other parts of the world, as well.
- trasz 4y agoThat’s true of course, but from my understanding the main problem at the moment is exporting the grain, not production of said grain.
- Melting_Harps 4y agoNo, growing is definitely going to be an issue, as is storing it because Russia has been targeting Grain silos, too. The transportation aspect is a critical issue, too, but one would like to think that as Russia is being pushed back to the border that the center and West will be able to transport to Poland/Romania to enter EU markets by the time harvest occurs in the Fall. The main issue is that Russia keeps attacking civilian targets as well as Military ones, the recent bombing in Lviv also struck and damaged the trains [0]. Again, the sanctions on Russian oil need to be swift and deceive if this is going to stop anytime soon, they are losing nearly $1 billion per day of the illegal war in Ukraine. This only possible because of the few EU nations holding out on a total withdraw from Russian energy. I get the implications are dire, but this is the reality of countries like Germany and Italy building their entire economies around Russian energy, but this is what will shift the West to renewables more than anything else in my lifetime. So, short term pain but long term thinking needs to be put into place. Summer is here, and it's already clear to me that it's no different than what we've had since COVID started the numbers look remarkably the same and the recession is showing. I just hope that we make progress in this area and we can justify the last 3 years by making a massive leap towards renewable energy being at the core of energy useage. 0: https://archive.ph/hpTqF https://archive.ph/hpTqF
- jltsiren 4y agoTransportation is the bigger issue. Ukrainian grain exports used to be tens of millions of tonnes per year. That's something like a million semitrucks or a million railway cars. You can't build that kind of capacity in a few months, especially not in the middle of an all-out war. As long as Russia can operate submarines in the Black Sea, it can blockade Ukrainian ports. No foreign cargo ship will approach the ports, and no foreign insurer will insure such ships. Ukraine also depended on Russian energy. If Europe wants to phase out Russian energy imports, it can't supply enough fuel to Ukraine. Meanwhile, Ukraine has better uses for the fuel it can get than exporting low-value bulk goods. Like keeping its military operational, which also needs the trucks that could export grain. Ukraine uses the Soviet 1520 mm rail gauge, while its western neighbors use the 1435 mm gauge. That creates a huge bottleneck for rail transport. Not to mention that Russia has been targeting Ukrainian railway infrastructure. There are not that many major roads from Ukraine to the west, and some of them are unusable. The border between Moldova and Ukraine is largely controlled by Russian-backed separatists, while Russia has been bombing the bridges on the only road south of Moldova repeatedly.
- anothernewdude 4y agoRussia has submarines in the black sea.
- prostoalex 4y agoAs well as mines.
- sokoloff 4y agoIncluding at least one converted guided missile cruiser.
- ImPostingOnHN 4y agoI don't think submarines can include cruisers ;P
- sokoloff 4y agoThey just don't resurface... ;) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinking_of_the_Moskva https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinking_of_the_Moskva
- ImPostingOnHN 4y agoI stand corrected!
- juanani 4y ago
- ggm 4y agoI would be interested in an analysis at scale of artifacts, components, foodstuffs, industrial inputs, which have similar impact to the loss of this source of wheat, against a worldwide wheat market. If (eg) Argentina Bolivia and Chile were unable to supply Lithium, how long would it take the world to ramp up to using Australian sources, and what would it do to the supply chain? Or, if the soybean crop failed in one economy, would worldwide pig production suffer?
- jka 4y agoDo you mean something like a "causal loop diagram" as mentioned in this article? https://www.transentis.com/understanding-the-beer-game/en/ https://www.transentis.com/understanding-the-beer-game/en/ (albeit at a larger scale and with more products and filter-by-country)
- ggm 4y agoThat's probably part of it, yes. During peak covid vaccine ramp up, special plastic bags used in vaccine production were single source. So were the lipids and the factory to encapsulate the vaccine. We saw mask and gown shortage, oxygen shortage, needle shortage.
- _yoqn 4y agoNon paywalled version: https://archive.ph/u7s5R https://archive.ph/u7s5R
- alliao 4y agolet's say if the shortfall makes up 30% of supply.. surely those 70% other farmers would just need to raise by 140% or so to FULLY make up the difference? everyone pitch in a little, shouldn't be THAT big of a deal surely....
- monkeybutton 4y agoCan't tell if this is a joke or not. One would think that if a farmer could raise output (and thus revenue) by 140% on short demand, they would have already done so years ago?
- seunosewa 4y agoThey can increase wheat production by growing less of other crops. Rationale: wheat is more profitable because of its scarcity.
- monkeybutton 4y agoI guess smaller shortages spread over many crops is better than a large shortage in one major crop. Here's hoping it all works out!
- finiteseries 4y agoI tried copy and pasting certain paragraphs from the article here, (weather/price of inputs/farmer incentives/how wheat is purchased by nations/monetary policies/etc) but there are so many compounding global issues here one might just consider rereading the article instead. It is quite a big deal.
- sremani 4y agothat would be easy if there was an AWS for Food! Here is the reality, not only the grains but the inputs like fertilizers etc are sky-rocketing. Every body wants to piss of Fossil Fuels with out even understanding how foundational they are to Modern Civilization (I welcome the downvotes but I will not stop advocating). Say, with me, N P K - Nitrogen Phosphorous Pottasium. Belarus is a major Potash supplier, Natural gas is important for Fertilizer production etc. These inputs are now expensive. But the policy genius, LOVE Price Controls, so what prices do these guys love controlling, they target staples .. grains, rice etc. Now if you are farmer, who has to invest more money given the increased cost of fertilizers etc. and the government will come and take away the grain below market rate -- are you going to play the game? That is the game in much of the developing world.. and to some extend even developed world. So your AWS style solution of spinning another EC2 instance for Food does not work in the real world.
- planetsprite 4y agoThe agricultural revolution and its consequences have been a disaster for the human race.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- nine_k 4y agoDo you mean that remaining primitive hunters-gatherers, as now observed in certain places near Amazon river, would be more of a success?
- civilized 4y agoThe grass is always greener
- planetsprite 4y agoThanks to chemical pesticides and industrial fertilizers.
- planetsprite 4y agoyes according to modern media sentiment. Never once have I watched a movie that argued for the antithesis of the "Avatar" respect nature mantra. I mean even without the warmongering factories are never portrayed in a positive light unless they're Willy Wonka's.
- skybrian 4y agoIt would be interesting to see some graphs of how international trade in grain compares to total production (including internal consumption).
- charliea0 4y agoI'm kinda skeptical of the severity of this issue. Apparently Ukraine was expected to export 33.8 million tonnes of corn this year. The USDA says that the US produced 13,691,561,000 bushels of corn in 2019. If I converted the units correctly, that is 383 million tons. Just a 10% increase in production in the US alone would replace Ukraine's harvest. Now there certainly could be an issue of price and logistics costs in food insecure nations, but I'm not sure the answer is enabling Ukrainian production rather than producing more outside of Ukraine / ensuring countries don't cut off global trade in grains. Figures from: https://downloads.usda.library.cornell.edu/usda-esmis/files/c534fn92g/r781x160h/8w32rq739/croptr20.pdf https://downloads.usda.library.cornell.edu/usda-esmis/files/... https://www.reuters.com/markets/commodities/export-losses-give-ukraine-leeway-its-upcoming-corn-harvest-2022-04-20/#:~:text=The%20U.S.%20Department%20of%20Agriculture,a%20backlog%20in%20the%20country https://www.reuters.com/markets/commodities/export-losses-gi....
- charliea0 4y agoHonestly, just using existing corn less wastefully in the US might solve the problem.
- 7speter 4y agoMy tinfoil hat head cannon says this is all hype to have a reason to make the price of any given grain skyrocket.
- Mountain_Skies 4y agoBefore the invasion of Ukraine, covid has already wreaked havoc with agricultural supply chains. The war in Ukraine has made things worse but things were going to be bad even without it.
- landemva 4y agoIt was government actions related to covid which wreaked havoc on supply chains. And endless wars are also government actions.
- 4y ago
- pavankat 4y agoGood opportunity to reduce livestock and redirect crops for human consumption https://news.cornell.edu/stories/1997/08/future-water-and-energy-shortages-predicted-change-face-american-agriculture https://news.cornell.edu/stories/1997/08/future-water-and-en...
- Mountain_Skies 4y agoAs soon as humans grow multiple stomachs, we'll be all set.
- ceejayoz 4y agoI was unaware vegetarianism required surgery.
- ImPostingOnHN 4y agothat is not what the person you're replying to said.
- ceejayoz 4y agoSure it is. Humans don't need four stomachs to handle grain. You'd need it to eat grass, but the article doesn't say anything about humans eating grass. > With only grass-fed livestock, individual Americans would still get more than the recommended daily allowance (RDA) of meat and dairy protein, according to Pimentel's report, "Livestock Production: Energy Inputs and the Environment."
- drewm1980 4y agoIs there really a "Recommended daily allowance of meat and dairy protein"? Sounds like propaganda from the meat and dairy industry like the food pyramid. I once met someone who studied to be a professional nutritionist, but left the field entirely because it is corrupted by special interests. IIRC to get certified she had to tow the party line that nutritionists should promote animal products as part of a healthy diet, and she decided to change fields instead.
- MichaelMoser123 4y agoInteresting if food shortages will result in other conflicts, one of the causes for the Arab Spring were high food prices [1] Is it possible that all this will result in a cascade of conflicts? Here they are saying that food prices were going to rise due to COVID - and that was before the outbreak of the war [2] Things seem to be going from bad to worse... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arab_Spring#Causes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arab_Spring#Causes [2] https://www.ifpri.org/blog/covid-19-and-rising-global-food-prices-whats-really-happening https://www.ifpri.org/blog/covid-19-and-rising-global-food-p...
- sateesh 4y agoPossibly yes, look what's happening in Srilanka.
- Proven 4y ago
- pmoriarty 4y agoDoesn't the US currently pay some farmers not to grow food -- or is that a myth?
- more_corn 4y agoYes, we do that to control prices and prevent oversupply.
- viraptor 4y agoOne thing I haven't noticed in the article is anything about wasted food. The common knowledge says: we've got enough food for everyone, it's just in the wrong place, so it's cheaper to throw away. If we really have global shortage, the balance of that will change and not throwing things out (or not overstocking in the first place) will become more common. I'd be interested in learning how much that affects the real shortage of food that we experience in the shop.
- zamadatix 4y agoThe common knowledge says there is enough food produced for everyone to not go hungry... but people want more than to not go hungry and they want it to be efficient for their life not for the food production/consumption ratio The global wealthy can afford convenience and excess while the global poor can't afford basic needs. As such "it's just in the wrong place, so it's cheaper to throw away" is a desired outcome for the wealthy not a problem triggering inefficiency. It's also best to not equate food usage efficiency to general efficiency as a lot of the excess is the result of more food being cheaper than efficiently consuming less food. E.g. growing 100 apples to have 100 actually consumed apples takes a lot of effort to make happen. You have to make sure none go bad in transport, all are immediately sold at the store, and that people heavily plan out their lives around eating every apple they buy before it goes bad. It's just more efficient as a whole to make more apples even if that makes food efficiency look worse. Carrying that forward whether or not there is a "global shortage" (taken to mean not enough produced for everyone to not go hungry) is irrelevant. People are already going hungry today so "enough that everyone can be fed" can't be the controller of why the wealthy can afford excess. The ability comes from their production and purchasing power compared to the world not the overall averages of the world. Of course simple economics still exists and less of the good will result in a raise of price, the question of course being how much not working from decreased consumptions backwards. That raise in price is only proportional to how much is needed to lower global consumption. It's not a guarantee the wealthy will notice enough of an impact to no longer be able to afford excess. In reality the poor that were already short on food will see a bigger decrease in consumption than the wealthy due to price increases. A 10% price increase in food is only inconvenient for most in wealthy countries but in poor countries many have no choice but to consume less food as they have no more money to spend on it. If I had to guess this shortage won't be near enough for production to be less than ideal distribution coveraging hunger. That said it'll still affect prices, just probably not enough for wealthy countries decreases in excess to have a meaningful impact on the overall supply.
- pkaye 4y agoHere is a visualization of where Ukraine and Russia export wheat. Its mostly parts of Africa and Asia. But Asia gets a lot from US and Canada https://oec.world/en/visualize/tree_map/hs92/export/rus.ukr/all/21001/2020/ https://oec.world/en/visualize/tree_map/hs92/export/rus.ukr/...
- drewm1980 4y agoWe could feed people instead of cows, chickens, and pigs.
- cupcake-unicorn 4y agoThis kind of stuff really bothers me in addition to the ridiculous "meat shortage" or "save the coal miner's jobs" stuff. Let's use this as an opportunity to move past things that were popularized that don't really make that mucuh sense anymore. Even for those who don't have celiac/gluten intolerance, gluten is high in lectins, and the molecule size is such that it can really cause damage to a lot of tissue. Wheat and dairy are extremely rough on the body and as time has gone on we've basically mutated to tolerate it. Sorghum is a gluten free crop that's hardy and grows with less water, in addition to having a favorable nutrient profile full of antioxidants. Getting more antioxidants in the diet can really be the tipping point for those who have a genetic predisposition to autoimmune and other disorders and that's why things have gotten so bad under the crappy western diet. Sorry if I'm just being dense here but I really don't understand why "grain shortage" or "meat shortage" are thrown around in the media as being life and death situations. There are surely grains that are more heat tolerant and we can further cultivate and select for types of healthier grains that are instead of trying to make wheat happen because "mm bread/beer". I don't eat either of those things and I suspect that communities who suffered a shortage of either of those things would also find a way to make do, potentially to their benefit by integrating more diverse foods. I guess if at the end of the day climate change is such that nothing can grow we're screwed but then why is this article so focused on wheat in particular? If a certain crop or export just isn't making sense sustainability wise this ends up just looking like the old "buuuttt the coal miners will lose their jobs" type story.