‘I’m afraid we’re going to have a food crisis’: The energy crunch has made fertilizer too expensive to produce, says Yara CEO

Fortune via Yahoo ^ | 11 04 2021 | Katherine Dunn

[kabar]

How much do you really know about farming and the food supply train? Do you really believe the productivity of American agriculture stems from government subsidies alone? Or that it is easily replicated elsewhere?

Agribusiness is huge and complex. Getting food from the farm to market requires a massive distribution system. During the Great Depression farmers were dumping their milk and other products.

The high price of fertilizer, gas, and equipment will affect production and distribution and the cost of food. If people consume less because of high prices, demand goes down and so will supply. What’s next, price controls?

[Sequoyah101]

For example, corn is basically produced like a hydroponic with the soil only holding the corn plant up and providing a moisture source. The rest is done by fertilizer.

Likewise for most other crops.

[Sequoyah101]

I don’t think my FIL ever bought much nitrogen. He rotated wheat with soybeans. Irrigated out of the Blue River since the Red was too salty. Worked his butt off and never missed a crop.

[Paladin2]

BiXiden is Pestilence.

[FreedomPoster]

They should be a lot lower than the average over the last 20 years due to fracking.

[markomalley]

I don’t claim to be an expert on US agrobusiness. I’m certainly not claiming that the US won’t be hurting next year. The US is going to be in a sorry state next year because of the FJB policies.

What I’m saying is that I really don’t think the rest of the world is as dependent on US agriculture as we were led to believe by all the marketing and lobbyists. Those countries that are dependent probably shouldn’t be if it wasn’t for US aid making that the easy way out. Remember the boat-lifting of grain to the USSR? Now that they are no longer commies, the Russians are net exporters of wheat.

Where I live, in a small country in SE Asia, the only American food imports I see routinely are cheese and junk food. We do have imported beef (Thai beef is terrible...not suited for anything but soup), but we import beef from Australia, not the US. In southern Thailand, where lamb is more common, they’ll import lamb from Australia too. Never see American beef over here. I’m sure you can imagine that Thailand is a net exporter of rice. But did you know it’s a net exporter of wheat also? (Surprised me when I found out)

Even India (as overpopulated as that place is) is a net exporter of wheat.

It isn’t as desperate elsewhere as you’d think it is.

Will there be some poor, starving African children? Yes, but not as many as you’d think. And if they don’t get food from the US government (that the government bought to help prop up prices domestically), they will figure out how to grow it on their own...and that was my point.

[Trump Girl Kit Cat]

I just retired from a major grocery chain, and you would be surprised to know that a major portion of our beef products are from Australia I worked in the meat department for 2 weeks to relieve the manager for her vacation and I was stunned that the cases coming in were from Australia!!

[boycott]

They just bumped food stamps 27% so they will be taking care of those taking advantage of the system. It’s the working class people that will suffer the most.

[boycott]

They just bumped food stamps 27% so they will be taking care of those taking advantage of the system. It’s the working class people that will suffer the most.

[markomalley]

a major portion of our beef products are from Australia

Aussie Beef is really, really good. It looks like it's all grass fed.

I can go to our local version of Costco (it's called Makro) and get a 2.5 kg beef tenderloin (the whole loin, not individual steaks) for about $21.50, depending on the exchange rate (that's about $9.72 a pound). Cut into individual steaks at home and that's some seriously good eating. I forget the steak prices in the States anymore, but I seem to remember Costco tenderloin going for around $13-$14 a pound (but that was a while ago and with price increases thanks to FJB, it's probably a lot more). Outside my price range for day-to-day eating, but certainly good for every now and again.

[knarf]

CLOWARD/PLIVEN . . . THE PLANNED STRATEGY

Even if I could use my magic twanger on every guilty democrat, I'm afraid the machine has been put into motion.

Americans can stop the destruction of America . . . if they re-develop the/a will to kill, but saving the rest of civilized humanity will be the problem of each host nation.

No one wants to say it, but most, if not all of our troubles have stemmed from Islamic invasion.

Remember when France was a romantic vacation spot ?

Or Germany ?

or Spain?

[amihow]

Were sides of beef sent in to your store for the butchers to cut and package or did meat come in already packed and soaked in water and preservatives? Pre-packaged is terrible stuff.

[amihow]

Were sides of beef sent in to your store for the butchers to cut and package or did meat come in already packed and soaked in water and preservatives? Pre-packaged is terrible stuff.

[central_va]

50% of Americans are either obese or overweight. So it’s a long way to go until this is a crises....

[JD_UTDallas]

In a single word. No.

The price of corn actually in a box of corn flakes is miniscule. Corn could be $56 a bushel and the actual cost of the corn in the box would still be under a buck. Stop hyperventilating.

“For example, an 18-ounce box of corn flakes contains about 12.9 ounces of milled field corn. When field corn is priced at $2.28 per bushel (the 20-year average), the actual value of corn represented in the box of corn flakes is about 3.3 cents (1 bushel = 56 pounds). (The remainder is packaging, processing, advertising, transportation, and other costs.) At $3.40 per bushel, the average price in 2007, the value is about 4.9 cents. The 49-percent increase in corn prices would be expected to raise the price of a box of corn flakes by about 1.6 cents, or 0.5 percent, assuming no other cost increases.”

https://www.ers.usda.gov/amber-waves/2008/february/corn-prices-near-record-high-but-what-about-food-costs/

[marktwain]

I do not expect the US population to go hungry.

But there will be shortages of some brands and products from time to time.

[griswold3]

Small farmers can use manure but then the “progressives “ want to ban livestock.so….
Input costs are going up fast.

[Hiddigeigei]

"Another horseman of the Apocalypse unleashed." Is his name Gates?

[Noumenon]

You've got the right of it, sir. But I have to say that the Cloward-Piven machine can be monkey wrenched in many ways. All it takes is enough grit in the gears.

That said, supposing we defeat these monsters in detail - what we will have after that, after the trials and executions will be something very different than what the old American Republic resembled. The deeds necessary to free ourselves will irrevocably change us and not entirely for the better. World War I was an existential toxic shock to everyone. It will be no different here.

The alternative is infinitely worse.

[kabar]

What I’m saying is that I really don’t think the rest of the world is as dependent on US agriculture as we were led to believe by all the marketing and lobbyists.

Phony strawman. No one is saying the world is dependent upon our exports. About 25% of U.S. farm products by value are exported each year.

Last year was the second highest year for U.S. agricultural exports, according to USDA's Foreign Agricultural Service's (FAS) "2020 U.S. Agricultural Export Yearbook." Total exports were nearly $146 billion, an increase of approximately 7%. This is the second highest level on record, after 2014.

FAS said the primary factor for the increase in exports was the "increased shipments of soybeans, corn and pork to China."

Soybeans were the United States' number one agricultural export at $25.7 billion, an increase of 38% over 2019. Soybeans represented nearly 18% of total U.S. agricultural exports in 2020, with China accounting for 55% of total soybean exports.

The US is a major importer of agricultural products. The value of imports almost equals the value of exports. During the fiscal year ended in September 2019, agricultural imports amounted to approximately 141.4 billion U.S. dollars, and this number increase to about 143.4 billion dollars by 2020.

U.S. consumers rely heavily on imports for certain products where demand far outweighs domestic production capacity. Over 95 percent of coffee/cocoa/spices and fish/shellfish products consumed in the United States are imported, as are about half of fresh fruits and fruit juices and almost a third of wine and sugar.

Even India (as overpopulated as that place is) is a net exporter of wheat.

Russia is the biggest exporter of wheat in the world, followed by Canada, US, France, and Australia.