5 ms·
There’s probably going to be a famine or famines due to lack of, and expense, of fertilizer resulting in less food for the developing world.
by seanieb 4mo ago
There’s probably going to be a famine or famines due to lack of, and expense, of fertilizer resulting in less food for the developing world.
- dgellow 4mo agoAdd to that the USAID shutdown and other impacts to humanitarian relief caused by the DOGE team. It’s all coming together for a really nightmarish time for developing countries
- munk-a 4mo agoI'm not certain how recently you were in the grocery store but it's getting pretty serious in developed countries as well - not famine levels, for sure, but meat prices in Canada are going crazy right now and we're just feeling the first wave of the supply shocks - this will get a lot worse before it gets better.
- Sabinus 4mo agoNot one, but two responses from vegans telling you to just stop eating meat. A bit of a classic.
- ornornor 4mo agoPerfect time to explore alternatives to eating meat.
- munk-a 4mo agoIf your pitch to the general American electorate to solve the affordability crisis is to become vegetarian good luck getting elected. I actually cook extensively with non-animal proteins but I enjoy the choice to do otherwise and, if it's going to be curtailed, I'd prefer it happen for a reason more meaningful that some idiotic international blunder.
- Neywiny 4mo agoI've seen tofu go down in price in recent years. It's incredible. I think my local store is doing a block of extra firm for under $1.50? It used to be $2
- smallerize 4mo agoAmerica is also having a whey protein shortage, but that's mostly because it's very popular right now and we're eating the available supply of whey powder.
- dgellow 4mo agoI do not eat meat so I couldn’t say. I haven’t yet seen large increases in Germany for what I buy but I wouldn’t be surprised if the overall prices have been trending up. Not yet to the Covid era, where I could see the rice increase in price every time I would do groceries — and it still hasn’t come down :(
- munk-a 4mo agoI have found it most dramatic in meat prices but the gluten-free baking flours my partner needs to use have also noticeably increased and I think those (and legumes, especially lentils) are likely to be some of the hardest hit in the long run. Chickpeas, lentils and green peas are sort of the unsung heroes of gluten free baking.
- dgellow 4mo agoThat sucks :( Hopefully you can stock them in large quantity before the price increase too much
- walrus01 4mo agoI have personally seen considerable increases in grocery ingredient expenses for everything I buy which isn't meat. Yes, buying beef or chicken breast is more expensive now as well, but not eating meat would not have a significant impact in my family's much greater annual grocery expenses vs. the same number of people and for the same calendar period of time in 2022 or 2023.
- dgellow 4mo agoI mentioned meat because the person I responded to mentioned it. I really don’t know the price of meat given I do not consume any of it, I wasn’t trying to say going vegetarian would save you from inflation
- deleted 4mo ago[deleted]
- iugtmkbdfil834 4mo agoDespite being positioned in a way that should shield from the more immediate impacts, I keep wondering if that would actually happen at this point. Most parties seem to try hard to avoid the actual conflict and while not escalating further won't save this year's crops, it shouldn't mean that people will automatically die. It may mean, however, that people will not be able to eat what they want, which, in turn, would mean shortages. edit; grammar and syntax for clarity
- munk-a 4mo agoIt really does seem like this war of choice was[1] an absolutely boneheaded idea. It's the kind of thing (and specifically, the lack of consequences or measures to prevent it from being repeated in Cuba or Greenland) that highlights how broken American politics are right now. 1. Not even in retrospect - intelligence agencies knew this was a significant risk and I'd bet your average person on the streets would have come to the realization that it was a bad idea if they thought about it for like a week.
- amelius 4mo agoWe're talking about 4D chess here /s
- jmyeet 4mo agoClosure of the Strait of Hormuz is one of the most modeled events in military circles. There are probably thousands of military exercises on it, intelligence estimates, strategic papers and so on. Up until this war, it was unknown if Iran could keep the Strait closed against direct US military pressure. Well, now we know. There doesn't appear to be a single serious person in the US military, intelligence community or policy support organizations who thought this was a good idea. It was purely political. The administration seems to have listened solely to and relied entirely upon Benjamin Netanyahu and Mossad. Israel has been trying to get this war with every president since Reagan [1] and they've all said "hell no". Until this one. What's more interesting is that it's been clear what a disaster this almost immediately so we've had ~2 months where it was clear that the US has militarily lost and a negotiated settlement was the only outcome. This would mean the end of economic sanctions and, for anti-Iran hawks in the US and Israel, a spectacularly worse deal than the JCPOA that got torn up. Yet the administration seems more willing to let the world ban than split with Israel. [1]: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/JC56Ltg5zDE https://www.youtube.com/shorts/JC56Ltg5zDE
- CMay 4mo agoWar is never a good idea, but Iran didn't care and they have been waging war for 40 years. Do you just let them perpetually build strength internally while funding terrorism externally? They have been spreading extremism and instability in the region for decades. They surrounded Israel with militants and attacked them. We knew they could disrupt shipping through the strait, that is a large part of the purpose behind "drill baby drill", stopping Venezuela from invading Guyana where we have oil infrastructure, and increasing oil investment into Venezuela, along with reopening some oil drilling off California. We also knew we likely couldn't justify the risks and costs of sending in a large invasion force for multiple reasons. If a decent deal couldn't be made, then at least you remove an oil supplier from China and you mow the grass to limit the threat Iran poses in the near future. Even if the strait remains in conflict for years, in the long-term that is a good thing, because it forces an acceleration of bypassing it as an issue which means Iran loses a big button to push in the future. Meanwhile, with oil prices higher, that is historically good for oil investment which is excellent for Venezuela so more of the fuels that countries rely on come from our hemisphere. We're not new at this game.
- mooreds 4mo agoYeah. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ahlH32Lprto https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ahlH32Lprto is a video from Peter Zeihan covering that exact topic.
- tty456 4mo agoTrump couldn't care less
- boooring999 4mo ago[dead]
- seanieb 4mo agoSorry I don’t understand. Can you outline why trade would indicate that there isn’t a shortage of chemical fertilizer that would impact crops not yet harvested in developing countries?
- Pxtl 4mo agoPeter Zeihan was saying the same about the Russian invasion of Ukraine when that started, since Russia and Ukraine export fertilizer precursors... If there were famines they didn't make the news (but they might not regardless).
- disgruntledphd2 4mo agoThere's been massive food inflation since the Ukraine war. The petrol protests are starting in Africa and Asia. Like, this isn't headline news but it exists.