Hunger is common in the less-developed world, and famine is never more than a crisis or two away. For a century and a half, it has seemed remote and unlikely to most people in the developed world, but it demands our attention now.
We've previously spoken of famine as an eventual consequence of demographic and technological trends. Now we report it imminent, sooner that we would have guessed only six months ago. Even the mainstream media and governments from Washington to Colombo are sounding the alarm.
In America, food prices are soaring faster than the overall rate of inflation, and availability, especially of specialty and processed foods, is beginning to drop. Serious shortages are already beginning to be seen in parts of the world dependent on imported food or food aid. Projections of reduced crop yields and export shortfalls later in 2022 are common.
A perfect storm
Here are the main inputs to the food shortage crisis that is underway:
- Grain exports from Ukraine have fallen dramatically since the war there began on February 24, 2022. Grain production – the 2022 harvest – will be severely curtailed due to the war.
- Disruptions to Russia's economy from Western sanctions have curtailed its own grain production and export as well.
- Together, Ukraine and Russia account for about 30% of global grain exports.
- Ukraine and Russia together also produce nearly 50% of the world's supply of nitrogen-based fertilizer. The same war-related conditions that are crippling their grain output are drastically reducing both countries' fertilizer production and export.
If you pay undeserved attention to the Western mainstream press, you've heard all the above. Western governments and their media mouthpieces have tried to blame all the present and impending disruptions in global food supply on Russia. But there is a lot more going on, that predated the war or has not been caused by it.
Wheat prices had already risen 80% in the year that ended in December 2021.
Agriculture worldwide, since the "Green Revolution" of the 1960s, is highly dependent on two things: diesel fuel and fertilizer. The price and availability of each were already in crisis before the first Russian tank rolled into Ukraine.
- Rapidly climbing prices of all refined petroleum fuels – especially diesel – are affecting the farm machinery vital to agricultural production, and the transportation of raw and processed food worldwide. One major pre-war input to this problem is the Biden Administration's war on fossil fuel production in the United States. A shortage in refinery capacity in the U.S. began to be seen well before Biden, going back at least to the Obama Administration, and has been worsening steadily. Old refineries are going offline and no new plants are being built, so that even if the oil were flowing, we do not have the ability to refine it in the United States. Even if we boosted crude oil production, we would have to ship it offshore for refining and purchase refined products – diesel, gasoline, and others – from overseas producers. Over one million barrels a day of refining capacity in the U.S. has been lost since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, and more than two million barrels have been lost elsewhere in the world – our lost capacity is not even being replaced overseas, so while refiners are reaping historic profits, overall supply of refined petroleum products is restricted and prices are bid ever-higher, globally.
- A global shortage of urea began in 2021 as a result of post-pandemic supply chain issues, and has been worsened by sanction-based restrictions and – more recently – cessation of exports from Russia, China, and India, three of the world's largest producers. This impacts not only fertilizer production but the supply of diesel exhaust fluid (DEF) – an emissions-reducing compound required for use in diesel-powered vehicles since 2010. Without affordable DEF, the trucks don't roll. If the trucks don't roll, modern civilization goes to full-stop.
- Fertilizer prices are now 80-100% higher than a year ago – much of that increase occurring before the war in Ukraine began. A post-pandemic rebound in industrial activity competing for the raw ingredients in fertilizer pushed demand through the roof. If that were not enough, extreme weather events (and no, these are not all evidence of global warming) impacted supplies. For instance, Winter Storm Uri in February 2021 literally froze production at fertilizer plants from Texas to Iowa for a month or more; then Hurricane Ida damaged the largest single fertilizer production complex in the world, in Louisiana.
In response to all these trends and events, Russia and China curtailed fertilizer exports to protect their own agricultural sectors, even before the war.
Sri Lanka, one of the last places you might have expected "green" sentiment to prevail, banned the use of chemical fertilizers in 2021. Drastically reduced crop yields, exacerbated by double digit inflation and economic collapse, has now led to mobs in the streets attacking the "rich," and looting and burning their property.
Then in mid-May 2022, India, another big fertilizer producer, ceased all exportation of fertilizer, following its cessation of wheat exports in mid-May, due to volatility in the markets and growing indications of a global shortage in both commodities. Prudently, India intends to keep both its wheat and its fertilizer available and affordable at home. Added to the impacts of the war on exports out of Ukraine, Belarus, and Russia, actions like this portend severe shortages and possible famine in many other nations that normally depend on these exports for their own agricultural sector, or to simply feed their people.
Sober observers and commentators are now singing in chorus, that despite extraordinary measures already begun or under consideration – many of which involve increased spending of non-existing funds, throwing more gasoline on the fire of global price inflation – there is no foreseeable way to avoid global food shortages and outright famine in the most vulnerable nations and regions. What will this mean for us in America, and in Wyoming?
What to expect
First, if America's policies were based on self-interest like most of the rest of the world, we would not tip into famine. We would, despite fuel and DEF shortages and outrageous prices, be able to produce enough food to feed ourselves despite reduced crop yields resulting from a lack of fertilizer in accustomed quantities. Even then we would see (and are already seeing) rapid spikes in food prices to enable farmers, processors and distributors to get food to market. America has been blessed for a very long time with food costs to consumers far below the global average. We have spent on average 10% of household income on food, compared to 50% or more in much of the developing world. That will not continue; but at least we will eat.
Second, while actual shortages of food – empty shelves – may not be widespread, severe, or sustained, the variety and quality available to consumers may suffer. Imported or domestic specialty foods will be in short supply and significantly more expensive. There may be, even in the U.S., a diversion of cropland potential away from grazing, animal feed, and ethanol to human-consumable grains. The proportion of meats in the average American diet may decline toward the much lower global norm for no other reason than price and availability.
Third and perhaps most importantly is that food shortages trending toward serious famine in much of the world will generate civil unrest, revolutions and regional wars over resources. Starving people lose the strength to fight, but in the early stages of famine, if they perceive their government or outside actors to be responsible, violence and chaos will erupt, as is already happening in Sri Lanka, for example. In the long crescent of the Islamic world from Morocco to Pakistan, no nation except Israel produces enough food for its own population. As the food supply contracts and is priced beyond the ability of common people to buy, we can expect upheavals and conflict, there and elsewhere that similar conditions prevail. And what happens halfway around the world most definitely affects us, indirectly if not directly, for we are a maritime nation dependent upon global trade with reliable partners for our well-being.
Where are our leaders?
At Standing Tall, we believe that current U.S. leaders, based on their history, their words, and their actions since January 2021, intend the "fundamental transformation of America" that Obama promised but could not deliver. Whether unfolding events are evidence of a well-laid plan or just ruthless opportunism is open to debate. But with global food shortages and famine on the horizon, it is worth contemplating a few words on the topic from historical personages:
John Stuart Mill, 19th Century British philosopher and political economist: "In cases of actual scarcity, governments are often urged… to take measures of some sort for moderating the price of food." [But there remained, however…] no mode of affecting [the price], unless by taking possession of all the food and serving it out in rations as in a besieged town." Government rationing will suppress dissent.
Charles Edward Trevelyan, Assistant Secretary to the Treasury of the United Kingdom during the Irish Potato Famine 1846-1851: [Since God had ordained the famine] "to teach the Irish a lesson, that calamity must not be too much mitigated … the real evil with which we have to contend is not the physical evil of the Famine, but the moral evil of the selfish, perverse and turbulent character of the people." Note that Trevelyan didn't quite use the term "deplorable."
Frank Dikӧtter, in Mao's Great Famine: "An expedient way to increase the available food was to eliminate the weak and sick. The planned economy already reduced people to mere digits on a balance sheet, a resource to be exploited for the greater good, like coal or grain. The state was everything, the individual nothing. . . Food was commonly used as a weapon."
Believers in the angry weather goddess of "climate change" and critics of Western civilization in general – the "fundamental transformation" crowd – want America punished for what they see as its historical transgressions, humbled and reduced to a state of servitude. What better way to speed that conclusion than to use food as a weapon, to force submission and compliance?
Worms and insects are a great source of protein. Line up for your ration card. The horseman is down the road