Grain – American Conservative Movement

This Is Why the Global Food Crisis Is About to Go to a Whole New Level

Michael Snyder — Sun, 23 Jul 2023 13:48:27 +0000

Most people that live in the western world don’t realize that global hunger has been absolutely exploding and has now become a major worldwide issue. According to the UN, 2.4 billion people do not have enough food to eat on a consistent basis, and 900 million of them are facing severe food insecurity. Unfortunately, things are about to get a whole lot worse. The deal between Russia and Ukraine that had allowed so much grain to be shipped through the Black Sea has completely broken down, and now both sides are threatening to attack any transport ships that come through the area.

When the war between Russia and Ukraine began, wheat prices quickly soared to the highest level that we have ever seen.

But then a miracle happened. A deal that was agreed to in July 2022 allowed vast amounts of grain to be safely transported through the Black Sea.

Since it was implemented, nearly 34 million tons of grain has been shipped out to the rest of the world.

But now the deal is over. On July 17th, the Russians announced that they were pulling out, and then on Thursday they warned that any ships sailing to Ukrainian ports “will be regarded as potential carriers of military cargo”…

On Thursday, Moscow’s defense ministry declared that “all vessels sailing in the waters of the Black Sea to Ukrainian ports will be regarded as potential carriers of military cargo,” a warning that has sent wheat prices rising.

“Accordingly, the countries of such vessels will be considered to be involved in the Ukrainian conflict on the side Kyiv, the defense ministry said in a Wednesday statement. It added that several pockets of international water are “declared temporarily dangerous for navigation,” and vessels have been warned that there are no longer safety guarantees.

Needless to say, the Russians are not bluffing.

They mean it when they say that the shipping of Ukrainian grain is done, and they have already conducted military strikes against key port facilities in southern Ukraine…

Russian forces have launched extensive missile and drone attacks against port and grain infrastructure in southern Ukraine in recent days.

The Institute for the Study of War, a U.S.-based think tank, said Wednesday that it believes the recent attacks were likely to reaffirm Russia’s objections to the renewal of the Black Sea grain deal and hinder Kyiv’s ability to export agricultural commodities.

Ukraine’s Agriculture Ministry said Wednesday that recent attacks on Ukraine’s southern port of Odesa and other cities had destroyed 60,000 tons of grain as well as crucial infrastructure.

Ukraine is one of the most important breadbaskets on the entire planet, and normally the Ukrainians export grain to dozens of different nations.

On the other side, the Ukrainians have decided to make similar threats. From now on, any ships that are heading for ports controlled by Russia will be fair game…

Ukraine, however, went on to issue its own measures in response to Moscow’s initial escalation. Kyiv’s defense ministry said that beginning on Friday, any vessels heading to ports in mainland Russia and in Russian-occupied regions of Ukraine — like in Crimea or along the Sea of Azov — may likewise be viewed as transporters of military cargo.

Russia normally accounts for more than 20 percent of all global wheat exports.

So this is really bad news.

Exports from both Russia and Ukraine will be substantially reduced from this point forward, and wheat prices are already soaring…

Global inflation is finally coming down, but heightened geopolitical tensions could mean that food is about to get a lot more expensive.

Wheat futures soared by nearly 9% on Wednesday and are on track to hit their highest level in three weeks as tensions in Europe rise following Russia’s surprise decision to pull out of a crucial deal allowing the export of grain from Ukraine.

Corn futures were also nearly 2% higher on Tuesday as traders feared an impending supply crunch of the staple foods.

The last time grain prices spiked like this, it was just a temporary phenomenon because the grain deal of July 2022 was the miracle that the world desperately needed.

But there isn’t going to be a miracle this time around.

So I would very much encourage you to stock up on storable wheat while prices are still relatively low.

Right now, global food production is being hit by one disaster after another.

In California, some of the most important farmland in the entire state is now underwater because Tulare Lake has filled back up for the first time in 40 years…

Tulare Lake, which refilled for the first time in 40 years after atmospheric river storms pummeled California with snow and rain, is now receding, but it will take at least a year to evaporate entirely, experts said.

“We are still going to have a Tulare Lake next year,” said Jeffrey Mount, a senior fellow at the Water Policy Center of the Public Policy Institute of California.

The sudden reappearance of the lake, which was drained for farmland in the late 1800s, has caused hundreds of millions of dollars in agricultural losses and will require a substantial cleanup effort once the water has gone, as flooded farm buildings, vehicles, homes and electrical infrastructure still lurk within its waters.

California is the most important agricultural state in the entire country.

They grow more of our fruits and nuts than anyone else by a very wide margin, but now all of the flooding that has occurred is going to hamper production for quite some time to come.

You may have noticed that I write about this new global food crisis quite a bit. Most people don’t realize this yet, but it is going to become such a huge story in the years ahead.\ No matter what decisions our leaders make now, there will be global famine.

There are multiple long-term trends that are going to make it increasingly difficult to produce enough food, and meanwhile global demand for food just continues to increase. Our leaders know this, and they will even talk about these things when they gather for conferences, but they don’t want to alarm the general public.

We are transitioning from an era of plenty to an era of great suffering, but most people in the general population still have absolutely no idea what is coming.

Michael’s new book entitled “End Times” is now available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com, and you can check out his new Substack newsletter right here.

Article cross-posted from End of the American Dream.

Slovakian Authorities to Destroy 1,500-Ton Grain Shipment From Ukraine Due to Toxic Levels of Pesticide Contamination

Arsenia Toledo, Natural News — Mon, 17 Apr 2023 06:14:46 +0000

Slovakian authorities are planning to destroy a 1,500-ton shipment of grain from Ukraine after discovering banned pesticides in the shipment.

Slovakian Minister of Agriculture Samuel Vlcan announced on Thursday, April 13, that inspections have discovered high amounts of chlorpyrifos in the Ukrainian grain while it was being processed by one of the largest grain mills in Slovakia.

Chlorpyrifos is an organophosphate pesticide subject to a European Union-wide ban. (Related: Russia-Ukraine war could contribute to more severe food shortages, mass starvation for years to come, warns UN.)

Vlcan noted that he first sounded the alarm over the issue of potentially tainted Ukrainian grain as early as July 2022, when he ordered Slovakia to tighten controls over grain imports coming from the country.

“Even before we started placing seals on all transit trucks with Ukrainian grain, a relatively big sample of Ukrainian grain had been intercepted, and three independently accredited laboratories confirmed the presence of the increased content of pesticide residue in it,” said Vlcan.

He added in another statement that the extent of the contamination of the grain was so severe that the entire shipment had to be burned. He also pledged that the government will ramp up the process of reviewing agricultural products from Ukraine for potential pesticides and other toxic substances.

Slovakia to halt Ukrainian grain imports as other EU members pass similar bans

Following the discovery of a contaminated batch of Ukrainian grain, the Slovakian Agriculture Ministry announced that it temporarily banned the processing and sale of grain from Ukraine due to the possible presence of pesticides banned by the EU.

“The decision was taken after a pesticide was confirmed in a batch of wheat from Ukraine weighing 1,500 tons, which is not authorized in the EU and has a negative impact on human health,” the ministry noted in a statement emphasizing that it will collect samples of all Ukrainian grain and flour that is already in the country.

“We will also inform the ministers of agriculture from Bulgaria and Romania at today’s meeting, which will be dedicated to the protection of the markets against the import of cheap goods from Ukraine,” the ministry added.

Cheap Ukrainian grain has been flooding EU markets since the beginning of the Russian special military operation in Ukraine in February 2022, as the bloc attempts to keep the Ukrainian agricultural sector running and the country’s economy afloat by making sure it can still sell its food products. This torrent of Ukrainian grain has been aided by the EU waiving customs duties and import quotas.

Slovakia’s decision to ban further grain imports comes as other EU nations, particularly those in Eastern Europe, pass similar bans or are actively considering them.

Poland was one of the first nations to pass such bans. The country reached an agreement with Ukraine to halt grain imports until at least July due to the large and uncontrollable influx of cheap Ukrainian grain in Poland that has stoked the anger of Polish farmers.

Hungary followed Poland on Sunday, April 9, when it said it would introduce new measures to curb the volume of Ukrainian grain entering the country, citing concerns over large quantities of cheap Ukrainian agricultural products entering the country and hurting domestic markets.

Learn more about the global food situation at FoodCollapse.com.

Watch this clip from Romania showing hundreds of farmers on tractors protesting the massive influx of cheap Ukrainian grain into the market, ruining their livelihoods.

This video is from the channel Cynthia’s Pursuit of Truth on Brighteon.com.

Livestock Producers Now Just DAYS Away From Running Out of Animal Feed Due to Supply Chain Disruptions

Ethan Huff, Natural News — Sat, 09 Jul 2022 20:15:35 +0000

Food and other consumer goods are no longer making their way from point A to point B in the United States, which faces crippling supply chain bottlenecks that threaten to cause mass starvation.

The latest complaint comes from the livestock industry, which says it is just days away from an animal feed crisis if rail lines fail to get their act together, and quickly.

According to reports, many feed users in California and other southwestern states are having to pay $3 more than the CBOT (Chicago Board of Trade) price to secure grain shipments by truck as rail bottlenecks are not only not improving, but in some cases worsening.

AgWeb says that not only are feed users on the brink of running out of grain entirely, but there are also widespread concerns that, come autumn during harvest time, the situation will be exponentially worse.

Members of the National Grain and Feed Association (NGFA) say that the issues they now face really started ramping up late last winter and early spring. This prompted the Surface Transportation Board (STB) to hold a hearing about the matter, but so far nothing has improved.

The hope was that once summer arrived, the situation would resolve itself at least somewhat. Instead, the problem has worsened, including labor issues that are getting worse, not better.

“What I’m hearing from our members is fewer equipment issues and that the equipment and engines seem to be not breaking down, but the train times – the amount of time it’s taking to get the trains – and the reliability of receiving them is still quite a problem in quite a few areas of the country,” said Mike Seyfert, President and CEO of NGFA.

Even Foster Farms can’t get the grain it needs to feed its cattle, chickens and turkeys

Just to be clear, these are not necessarily just small food providers who are unable to secure feed shipments due to being smaller players. Even large players like Foster Farms, the largest chicken producer in the western U.S., are having trouble.

According to reports, Foster Farms recently asked federal regulators to issue an emergency service calling on the Union Pacific (UP) railroad to prioritize corn shipments to feed its thousands of heads of dairy cattle and millions of chickens and turkeys.

“The point has been reached when millions of chickens will be killed and other livestock will suffer because of UP’s service failures,” the company wrote in its request to the STB this week.

The fact that Foster Farms had to ask for an emergency directive towards this end reveals the seriousness of the issue, according to Seyfert.

“At times in the past several months, we have heard from more than one member that has had severe difficulty getting feed, sometimes being within several hours of being short,” he is quoted as saying.

AgWeb says that the biggest problem in all this whole scenario revolves around labor. There are simply not enough people willing or available to work – are Wuhan coronavirus (Covid-19) “vaccines” partially to blame for this, we wonder?

According to NGFA, railroads were already down about 25 percent in staffing prior to the plandemic, and now they are much worse in terms of maintaining a reliable and large enough workforce.

Also this week, 51 members of the U.S. House of Representatives signed a letter calling on the STB to deal with the systemic issues that continue to plague America’s failing railway systems. You can read that letter at AgWeb.com.

To keep up with the latest news about this subject, be sure to check out FoodCollapse.com.