Posted on 04/20/2022 3:55:11 AM PDT by blam
Farmers in China, India, Bangladesh, Indonesia, and Vietnam — the largest rice-producing countries could experience reduced output due to soaring fertilizer prices.
The International Rice Research Institute warns that harvests could plunge as much as 10% in the next season, equating to about 36 million tons of rice, or enough food to feed a half billion people, according to Bloomberg.
Chemical fertilizers, such as nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium, are the most applied nutrients for high-yielding rice cultivation. Farmers have been particularly vulnerable to soaring fertilizer prices as some have reduced the amount of nutrients to save costs. This threatens future harvests as production declines could stoke food inflation for a crop that feeds half of humanity.
Humnath Bhandari, a senior agricultural economist at the institute, said the 10% drop in global rice production is a “very conservative estimate.” He said if the Ukraine conflict continued and fertilizer prices remained high and supply limited, then the decline of rice output could be even more severe. This may trigger a full-blown global food crisis, similar to the one that the UN has been warning about.
Russia and Belarus are big suppliers of every major type of crop nutrient. Western countries have sanctioned both, which have limited fertilizers shipments to the rest of the world, crimping supply and why prices are soaring. On top of this, Moscow has reduced or halted nutrient exports.
Nguyen Binh Phong, the owner of a fertilizer shop in Vietnam’s Kien Giang province, said nutrient costs have soared three-fold over the past year, forcing farmers in the region to reduce fertilizer use by up to 20% because of rising prices.
“When the farmers cut fertilizer use, they accept that they will get lower profit,” Phong said.
Bloomberg outlines a significant problem: Unlike most crop prices, the price of rice has gone down, not up, which will compress farmers’ margins even more.
Governments across Asia have kept rice prices under control to maintain social order. Some countries offer generous fertilizer subsidies to farmers to keep yields plentiful. For example, India will spend $20 billion this year to shield farmers from soaring nutrient prices, up from the $14 billion budget before the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Bhandari said it’s “inevitable” that rice prices will go higher; “It has to be reflected somewhere.”
Maybe the world is in the beginning stages of a food crisis and could worsen next year as crops of all sorts could experience harvest declines because farmers are spreading fewer nutrients due to high prices.
Global food prices will remain at record-highs (or at least elevated levels) as forward-looking markets expect tightening supplies in 2023. This will give rise to continued social unrest (see: here & here) as the dominos fall in the weakest countries.
Even so...80% of the garlic and apple juice we consume comes from China. I'm expecting that there are many others that I don't know about.
“ The nutrients that rice crave are similar in chemical structure as arsenic .”
A friend of mine worked at the U of Mo ag station in SE Mo doing soil testing. He said the arsenic is left over from cotton farming. Arsenic was heavily used as a pesticide against the boll worm and has remained in the soil ever since.
“The International Rice Research Institute warns that harvests could plunge as much as 10% in the next season,
equating to about 36 million tons of rice, or enough food to feed a half billion people, according to Bloomberg. “
”Chemical fertilizers, such as nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium, are the most applied nutrients for high-yielding rice cultivation.
Farmers have been particularly vulnerable to soaring fertilizer prices as some have reduced the amount of nutrients to save costs.
This threatens future harvests as production declines could stoke food inflation for a crop that feeds half of humanity. “
”Humnath Bhandari, a senior agricultural economist at the institute, said the 10% drop in global rice production is a “very conservative estimate.”
”Russia and Belarus are big suppliers of every major type of crop nutrient.
Western countries have sanctioned both, which have limited fertilizers shipments to the rest of the world, crimping supply and why prices are soaring.
On top of this, Moscow has reduced or halted nutrient exports. “
”Nguyen Binh Phong, the owner of a fertilizer shop in Vietnam’s Kien Giang province, said nutrient costs have soared three-fold over the past year,
forcing farmers in the region to reduce fertilizer use by up to 20% because of rising prices. “
”Governments across Asia have kept rice prices under control to maintain social order. Some countries offer generous fertilizer subsidies to farmers to keep yields plentiful.
For example, India will spend $20 billion this year to shield farmers from soaring nutrient prices, up from the $14 billion budget before the Russian invasion of Ukraine."
“Global food prices will remain at record-highs (or at least elevated levels) as forward-looking markets expect tightening supplies in 2023. “(Emphasis theirs)
“This will give rise to continued social unrest .. as the dominoes fall in the weakest countries. “
I don’t know. I keep brown rice, my black rice, and my red rice in the freezer. I’ve kept those for at least 2 years without issues
I will have to keep looking but I cannot find any thing online indicating what the storage life of red rice is at room temperature. I have oxygen absorbers and desiccants when I store the white rice. I’ve eaten white rice 5 years later and it’s perfect a storing that way in a half gallon canning jars.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/11/191101081958.htm
”Rice is the largest global staple crop, consumed by more than half the world's population -- but new experiments from Stanford University suggest that with climate change,
production in major rice-growing regions with endemic soil arsenic will undergo a dramatic decline and jeopardize critical food supplies.
“These experiments exploring rice production in future climate conditions show rice yields could drop about 40 percent by 2100
-- with potentially devastating consequences in parts of the world that rely on the crop as a basic food source.
What's more, changes to soil processes due to increased temperatures will cause rice to contain twice as much toxic arsenic than the rice consumed today.
The research was published Nov. 1 in Nature Communications ."
“"By the time we get to 2100, we're estimated to have approximately 10 billion people, so that would mean we have 5 billion people dependent on rice,
and 2 billion who would not have access to the calories they would normally need," said co-author Scott Fendorf, the Terry Huffington Professor in Earth system science
at Stanford University's School of Earth, Energy & Environmental Sciences (Stanford Earth).
"We have to be aware of these challenges that are coming so we can be ready to adapt."
There may be good news in this article. The old cotton growing areas now grow mostly peanuts and other (no rice) crops.
Here is the Boll Weavil Monument in downtown Enterprise, Alabama.
This monument was raised to honor the boll weevil because it forced the ALWAYS struggling cotton farmers to switch crops from cotton to peanuts. Many poor farmers got wealthy farming peanuts.
This is certainly not scientific, but I was in Sam’s in Elizabethtown Kentucky today and the bulk rice section was down by about 3/4
Thanks. I’m not surprised. Lots of people ‘stocking-up.’
What kind of container do you use for the rice in the freezer?
Quart or half gallon Ball canning jars. Work well. Nothing is as airtight or non permeable or permanent as glass is.
Thanks! Will I need to leave some space for expansion when frozen?
No, I never have.
I only put red, brown & black in the freezer. White I put on a shelf in the garage and cover it from light. 1 oxygen absorber and 1 desiccant per jar. Then I write the date on the jar so I can rotate stock.
BTW, if you don’t have a rice cooker, you want one. I’ve been using them for 20 years. Korean made are the best, Japanese the next best, and Chinese are last.
Thanks for the info!
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