More deliberate destruction: food shortages

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The editorial at Issues & Insights pretty much answers its own questions:

. . . Most by now have seen reports that Dutch officials are closing as many as 3,000 farms in the Netherlands, the world’s second-largest exporter of agricultural products by value even though it’s only slightly larger than Maryland, to comply with crackpot European Union carbon dioxide emissions rules. It’s possible that eventually more than 11,000 farms will be shut down, and 17,600 forced to sharply cut their livestock numbers.

On our side of the Atlantic, the malefactors are also busy. Just the News is reporting that the Environmental Protection Agency is quietly quadrupling the regulatory cost of carbon emissions in a new war on fossil fuels, which is, of course, also a war on the food supply.

“If you think about the fact that they would impose this damage factor, let’s say on farmers, because it applies to fertilizer,” Louisiana Solicitor General Liz Murill said on the John Solomon Reports podcast. “Fertilizer emits nitrous oxide. So fertilizer is a big contributor. If every family farmer now is going to have to pay more to obtain fertilizer to fertilize crops that feed us, well, what’s that going to do to the price of food?”

Are these mere coincidences, entirely unrelated, isolated events?

Could be. But …

• U.S. farmers are convinced that “government meddling threatens their livelihoods and the nation’s food security.”
• “Unrealistic green-energy policies in Europe – and the Biden administration’s hostility to U.S. energy production – are worsening energy shortages,” writes James Meigs in City Journal “With energy prices soaring, food production and distribution will suffer.”
• Global skunks are promoting bugs as an alternative to the foods we enjoy, which is an implicit way of saying “you can eat insects, as unpalatable as they are, or you can go hungry – it’s almost time to choose.”
• The White House has added agricultural land to the federal Conservation Reserve Program, encouraging farmers to leave their land fallow. It’s part, says essayist John Mac Ghlionn, writing in the Washington Times, “of a broader, government-wide push to halve greenhouse gas emissions by 2030. Interestingly, the Biden administration’s goal is very similar to the Dutch government’s goal.”
• Canadian boy Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has proposed rules that will “decimate Canadian farming.” 
• “Even as food shortages intensify, governments, including the Biden administration, are cracking down harder on agricultural production,” the Epoch Times reports. “While the attacks on agriculture and related industries look different in different nations, many experts say it’s a coordinated global policy being promoted by the U.N., the World Economic Forum (WEF), the European Union, and other international forces determined to transform civilization.”
• “The Biden administration has engaged in an omni-directional assault on our food production system,” says the Heartland Institute.

As it turns out, all this is happening at the same time “the number of people affected by hunger has more than doubled in the past three years”, according to the United Nations, as “almost a million people are living in famine conditions, with starvation and death a daily reality.”

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If only the WEF [World Economic Forum] were some fringe group that had no influence. But it’s not – it’s a well-funded syndicate with an axis of powerful followers.

Read the full editorial here. 

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Dr Mercola on food and fertilizer

 

Dr Joseph Mercola frequently contributes to the debates over COVID mandates and “vaccine” risks.  Today at NOQ, he sounds the warning on food shortages.

STORY AT-A-GLANCE

• Food shortages and skyrocketing food prices now appear inevitable. The global food price index hit its highest recorded level in March 2022, rising 12.6% in a single month. On average, food prices were one-third higher than in March 2021. In the U.S., food prices rose 9% in 2021, and are predicted to rise another 4.5% to 5% in the next 12 months
• Inflation was already ramping up well before Russia went into Ukraine, thanks to the uncontrolled printing of fiat currencies that occurred in response to the COVID pandemic. Governments’ COVID responses have also wreaked havoc with global supply chains, causing disruptions that continue to this day
• Ukraine has ceased exports of wheat, oats, millet, buckwheat and cattle, and Russia has banned exports of fertilizer
• Together, Russia and Belarus provide nearly 40% of the global exports of potash, a key fertilizer ingredient. Russia also exports 48% of the global ammonium nitrate, and combined with Ukraine, they export 28% of nitrogen, phosphorous and potassium fertilizers. Experts are now predicting fertilizer prices may double as a result of Russia’s ban on fertilizer exports
• The long-term answer lies in regenerative biodynamic farming, which does not use any chemical inputs

The full report is here. For what it may be worth, our experiences at various restaurants over the past couple of months include reduced portions and downgraded cuts of meat.  Beef prices have gone up at the grocery store as well. So far, the shelves are still full. 

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Inflation and shipping

Our household orders wine online, often from a California-based company.  The other day, the company e-mailed all their customers to give a heads-up on price increases.  Below are the costs associated with the price hikes experienced since 2020, and thus far, it's not showing increases to the costs of growing or processing the actual grapes.  

Warehousing       á 18% 

Staffing                á 15%

Shipping and Materials     á 20%

Trucking                á 25%

Delivery Carriers    á 20%

If vineyards are further impacted by increases in, say, fertilizer or irrigation, the prices will go up some more.   

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Fun facts about Fertilizer

 

Michael Snyder has more on that always-popular subject: fertilizer.  It’s more important than one might think:

I never imagined that I would be writing so much about fertilizer in 2022.  When I was growing up, there were only two things that I knew about fertilizer.  I knew that it helped stuff grow and I knew that it smelled bad.  But these days, experts are telling us that a global shortage of fertilizer could result in horrifying famines all over the world.  Right now, to a very large degree we are still eating food that was produced in 2021.  But by the end of the year, to a very large degree we will be eating food that was produced in 2022.  Unfortunately for all of us, it appears that a lack of fertilizer will mean that far less food is grown in 2022 than originally anticipated.

Thanks to an unprecedented explosion in energy prices, we were already facing a fertilizer crisis even before the war in Ukraine, but now that war has definitely taken things to the next level.

Under normal conditions, a great deal of the world’s fertilizer comes from either Russia, Belarus or Ukraine…

. . .

We have never seen anything like this before.

Read the rest here.  He recommends stocking up on groceries before prices go through the roof.  JD Rucker (one of my favorite bloggers) has gone from mocking so-called “preppers” to becoming one himself.  His story is here. (He posts transcripts of his podcasts, so you can listen or read.)

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Here come the empty shelves

 

Michael Snyder at NOQ offers 20 reasons why those of us who are not generally alarmists should consider some extra grocery shopping:

A very alarming global food shortage has already begun, and it is only going to get worse in the months ahead.  I realize that this is not good news, but I would encourage you to share the information in this article with everyone that you can.  People deserve to understand what is happening, and they deserve an opportunity to get prepared.  The pace at which things are changing around the globe right now is absolutely breathtaking, but most people assume that life will just continue to carry on as it normally does.  Unfortunately, the truth is that a very real planetary emergency is developing right in front of our eyes.  The following are 20 facts about the emerging global food shortage that should chill you to the core…

Click here to read those 20 facts.

RELATED at NOQ: Rationing starts in Europe.

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