Get ready for ‘hell,’ UN food chief warns amid Ukraine shockwaves

politico ^ | 3-22-22 | EDDY WAX

[dynachrome]

“We’re billions short," he said. "Failure to provide this year a few extra billion dollars means you’re going to have famine, destabilization and mass migration.”

Beasley's intervention will sharpen minds as EU governments draw up plans to address the food crisis resulting from the war, with a proposal expected as early as Wednesday.

Russia and Ukraine are among the world’s biggest producers and exporters of grain. The disruption caused by the war has a direct impact on countries that rely on these supplies in the Middle East and Africa.

Half of Africa's wheat imports come from Ukraine and Russia, which is also a major fertilizer exporter. As for Ukraine, its exports have ground to a halt and its capacity to keep growing food this year is hanging by a thread. The crunch point will come in the fall, Beasley said, when the full impact of the war’s disruption is likely to be felt. “If you think we’ve got hell on earth now, you just get ready,” Beasley warned. "If we neglect northern Africa, northern Africa’s coming to Europe. If we neglect the Middle East, [the] Middle East is coming to Europe."

The economic conditions facing these parts of the world are now worse than they were in the run-up to the Arab Spring, he said. And it's not just the populations of Middle Eastern and North African countries who will feel the squeeze.

The WFP is already feeding millions of people further south in Sahel countries like Niger and Burkina Faso, where problems will worsen if global food prices stay sky high. “I’ve been warning our developed nations for several years now that the Sahel is going to collapse if we’re not careful,” he said.

[Pollard]

SurvivalistBoards.com

Also, I’ve started up the prepper threads here on FR. First Sat of every month so this Sat will be a new thread. Let me know if you want to be added to the ping list. Just started it back up a few weeks ago, https://freerepublic.com/focus/chat/4046055/posts

[woodbutcher1963]

What we need is another Live Aide

NOT

I hop

Sarcasm tag applied

[McGavin999]

I think we need to go back to furnishing our own stuff. We enrich our enemies and we are destroying this country. We will have fewer jobs and yet we let millions of unskilled uneducated people to come in.

[Pollard]

Most of these African countries had plenty of food when they were British or French colonies. Lack of food is a government thing.

There's a guy named John Kaisner that did youtube videos about permaculture and he was working for an outfit that sent him to the middle east to teach the locals how to grow a food forest. He worked his butt off setting up food producing trees and bushes, all native and he set up irrigation from the rain. Very low maintenance once done. The natives stood around and watched and he once made a comment; "They can't be bothered"

I read an old book from the 1800s and the author was talking about muslims and described it as "slovenly methods of agriculture".

Another guy doing permaculture over near the Nile, Geoff Lawton, set up a little green spot in the middle of the desert. Had trees growing with swales to catch the rain. Even had some mushrooms pop up in the mulch which freaked the locals out because they had never seen them before. Couple of years later, he had to go do other things for a year or so. When he came back, they had let goats have at the area and they ate everything down to nubs. He built walls and greened the place up again.

Below sea level near the Nile and high salinity soil that hasn't been green in thousands of years. The trees are drought resistant native species. Then there's an understory of food producing trees and below that, they grow veggies.

Another guy did this in China using regenerative agriculture techniques. The system uses animals but they're well managed and moved often so that plenty of growth remains. It's even greener than the After pic now.

The above area had been overgrazed by goats. All the restoration work was done by hand. The people that live in the area all grabbed shovels, picks and hoes and pitched in. They have plenty to eat now but knowing communism, I imagine the CCP will raid them at some point.

Most of the far & middle east and Africa has great potential for feeding people, IF they're willing to put in the effort. Get enough trees growing again and the rains come back. China turned a big portion of their best ag land to desert by overgrazing. We do it here with over-tilling and terrible grazing techniques. I'm surrounded by cattle farms and they almost all do the same thing. Let the cows go wherever they want whenever they want. Zero management. There's one guy down the road who moves his herd fairly regularly to different paddocks and he has the best grass around.

Big AG is not working out too good. Every species on the planet knows how to build their own shelter and feed themselves, except one, humans. Lack of food is a careless lazy human thing.

[BiglyCommentary]

Long term the issue is always either bad government policies and/or lazy irresponsible people. The first socialist colony in the US failed as more and more people became lazy and didn’t do their fair share of the work because they were still to going to get an equal cut of the harvest regardless.

[BiglyCommentary]

P.S. Nice post btw. A lot of very interesting info.

[Pollard]

That’s what my reply was going to be. Heavy mulching is preferred because bare soil is bad and dries out, washes & blows away but some people have a problem with slugs. In that case, learn to hoe properly, after you learn how to sharpen a hoe and customize the tilt of it to fit you. Left vs right handed, height etc. You can zip through a good sized area in 10-15 minutes.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5z_IRRZq4A0

This guy knows his hoes.

[Pollard]

Is this the build back better I was hearing about??

Can't wait for season 3

[metmom]

We have a slug problem here, but I have heard that a weak ammonia solution can kill slug eggs.

In addition, I will be using homemade slug traps for them to drown in, slug bait, and scrap pieces of wood laid down for them to hide under. It will just be a matter of doing a slug check every day for a while and exterminating any I find post haste.

[Georgia Girl 2]

Yep. We won’t starve here but others will.

[Pollard]

Manure and natural gas derived nitrogen fertilizer aren’t the only sources of nitrogen. There’s a guy in ND that plants nitrogen fixing legumes. Then he goes over it with a roller/crimper on the front of his tractor and a no till seeder on the back and plants corn right into the mashed down legumes. Gets a nice crop, uses no manure or man-made fertilizer and never has bare soil.

[Pollard]

Yeah I guess slugs like beer. Don’t have many slugs here but plenty of airborne pests. Japanese beetles are really bad some years. One year they ran out of peach tree leaves so they started eating the peaches. Got the usual aphids and tomato hornworms but those aren’t too bad to deal with.

[jjotto]

There a number of nitrogen-fixing legume cover crops, and they have been increasing in popularity. The are being promoted by extension services, ag consultants, etc.

[metmom]

Arbico Organics has nematodes that can deal with Japanese beetles.

I’m getting some beneficial insects as well to help deal with some of the other pests.

[pepsi_junkie]

and yet we let millions of unskilled uneducated people to come in.

If there truly are widespread food shortages in this country THAT situation could get ugly.

[combat_boots]

Bryan Dean Wright

On farming

https://twitter.com/BryanDeanWright/status/1508191757351075840?s=20&t=m7noEBDTimTptL1Lo-JFSg

[combat_boots]

Please add me

[Pollard]

dun

[TribalPrincess2U]

UN wants more money. Biden will/is sending it, right? Other countries???

[dynachrome]

He’ll be sending our food supplies.