If you're still not listening, you're about to run out of time

 

For years, people like me have been warning that hard times are coming.  For the past year or more, some of us have been hammering on the point that hard times are already here, and they're going to get worse - a lot worse - before they get better.  Michael Yon has gone so far as to coin an acronym, PANFAWAR (Pandemic, Famine, War) to describe what he sees coming down the pike at us.

Some readers have listened, and some have built up their reserves to an almost incredible extent.  Good for them.  Many of us (including yours truly) aren't able to do that much, thanks to financial and other constraints;  but we've done the best we can within our limited capabilities.

Sadly, others have derided us as alarmists and panic-mongers, and still haven't done anything to boost their abilities to withstand hard times.  It's to them that this post is addressed, in a last attempt to get through to them what's bearing down on us.  It's worldwide, not just in America, and it's here, now, staring us in the face.  It's no longer theory.  It's unavoidable, undeniable fact.

Rather than use my own words, I'll let headlines speak for me, along with a few words from each.  Click on any headline to be taken to the article, to read it in full.  They're in no particular order.

German eggs: Supply no longer secured from summer (original article, in German, here;  Google Translate English version here).

Against the background of massively restricted supply chains and dramatic cost increases, especially for animal feed ... From summer 2022 at the latest , the supply of eggs can no longer be guaranteed, writes the Central Association of the German Poultry Industry.

It's not just poultry

It is not an isolated crisis, but an exemplar of the full collapse of modern agriculture, now in its final moments.

Greenhouses sit empty, unheated, because the price of natural gas is too high.

Fertilizer is not being produced.

Ranchers are not breeding animals — and are already culling — because there is no feed.

Countries have cut off the exports, and there is not enough wheat to go around for importers.

Grow/store everything you can.

And be ready with seeds and ANSWERS as people are going to be waking up in droves and looking for answers, “How could our gov lie to us?”

EU ministers discuss the fear of a global food crisis

Agriculture Ministers of the European Union (EU) are discussing on Monday [03/21] measures to address the consequences of the war in Ukraine on the agri-food sector and the “fears” that it could trigger a “global food crisis” ... While the war is not going to jeopardize the food security of the European Union, it could have repercussions on supply in other parts of the world, such as the Middle East or Africa ... The war has joined the problems that the agricultural sector was already causing due to the rise in energy or feed prices, the crisis in the pork sector and, in the case of Spain, the drought.

Ukraine: How the global fertilizer shortage is going to affect food security

We are currently witnessing the beginning of a global food crisis, driven by the knock-on effects of a pandemic and more recently the rise in fuel prices and the conflict in Ukraine. There were already clear logistical issues with moving grain and food around the globe, which will now be considerably worse as a result of the war. But a more subtle relationship sits with the link to the nutrients needed to drive high crop yields and quality worldwide.

The World Is Facing A Critical Diesel Shortage

Distillate fuel oil inventories in the United States are 30 million barrels (21%) below the pre-pandemic five-year seasonal average and at the lowest level since 2005, the U.S. Energy Information Administration said.

Stocks in Europe are 35 million barrels (8%) below the pre-pandemic five-year average at the lowest level since 2008, Euroilstock, which compiles inventory data on behalf of the European Union, found.

And middle distillate stocks in Singapore are 4 million barrels (32%) below the pre-pandemic five-year average and also at the lowest since 2008, according to the country’s Ministry of Trade and Industry.

Combined inventories across the three locations have fallen by 110 million barrels compared with the same point last year, as consumption has persistently outpaced production.

Demand for diesel and other middle distillates is highly geared to the economic cycle since they are mainly used in freight transportation, manufacturing, farming, mining and oil and gas extraction.

Diesel Crisis —> Food Crisis (Michael Yon)

How many thousands of times have I warned since January 2020 to stock up on food and other essentials? Start the bidding at 2,000 warnings over about 26 months ... There are patterns. Nobody needed to wait to know the “vaccines” would explode. Nobody needed to wait two years to start seeing the reality of PanFaWar. Especially so when social arsonists are feeding accelerants into the blaze they started ... Ukraine is nothing on the scale of what is unfolding. That said, Ukraine-Russia are an ideal battleground for many reasons such as increased strike on and food, fertilizer, and fuel supplies ... But here is the spot where reality lands with a thud and explosion: Fuel, food, no real leadership in any western country — FAMINE.

China agriculture minister says winter wheat condition could be worst in history

Minister of Agriculture and Rural Affairs Tang Renjian said that rare heavy rainfall last year delayed the planting of about one-third of the normal wheat acreage ... "Not long ago we went to the grassroots to do a survey and many farming experts and technicians told us that crop conditions this year could be the worst in history," he said. "This year's grain production indeed faces huge difficulties."

The minister's comments underscore concerns about China's grain supply at the same time as the war between Russia and Ukraine, which together account for about 29% of global wheat exports, has disrupted supplies causing wheat prices to surge to 14-year highs.

Russia's Ukraine war threatens to blow US food prices sky-high

"It comes an absolutely horrible time for American consumers because we're looking every day at inflation almost reaching 10%," Dan Varroney, a supply chain expert and founder of Potomac Core, told FOX Business. "Last month's figures were close to 8%. And that means that consumers, including those that are living paycheck to paycheck, are going to pay more for food."

"Food markets are globalized so, to a certain extent, it's impossible to avoid the impacts of disruptions like this," [Caitlin Welsh, the director of the Global Food Security Program] said. "I think that these types of disruptions remind us the extent to which we, you know, the global economy and global agriculture trade is intertwined with the rest of the world."

Biden about to get caught flat-footed on another crisis: Ukraine war–generated global food shortages

As Reuters notes, countries such as Lebanon, Yemen, and Egypt are going to be hit hard by this crisis.  But other analysts note that the Pacific nations will be hit, too.  Politico reports that the Philippines is making its largest-ever grain orders just to get some kind of cushion for what's coming down the pike. 

Making matters worse, some countries that could fill the void, such as Argentina, Hungary, and Turkey, are blocking exports to ensure that they have no shortages of their own.

In the U.S., a major problem of another sort is out there — drought and reduced crops owing to bad weather.  That isn't going to be helpful in helping alleviate this problem overseas, either ... last time there was a global grain shortage, and it wasn't as dangerous as this one, was 2008 — the year the Arab Spring happened.  That presaged revolts and toppled governments, which pretty well had potential for realigning U.S. alliances and friends, usually not in our direction.

[Biden] blamed President Trump.  He blamed companies.  He blamed others.  And his solution?  Harness "the restaurant industry" to feed the hungry.  Today, he's substituting Putin.  It will be interesting to see how that goes over internationally, as it doesn't include much in the way of solutions ... He wants the other guy to do it.  He doesn't seem to be offering much from the U.S. to head off the crisis.

Ukraine War Could Put Food Security on Pentagon’s Plate

Now the Pentagon has been urged to study how the disrupted food supply driven by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine will impact security around the world ... “Conflict and hunger are closely intertwined–when one escalates, the other usually follows,” said Gilbert F. Houngbo, president of the UN’s International Fund for Agricultural Development, or IFAD, in a statement last week.

Caitlin Welsh, director of the Global Food Security Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said she frequently tried to get more attention from the Pentagon in conversations about food security while working in the State Department’s Office of Global Food Security.

The fear? Instability in Egypt, Iraq, Syria and Iran, which rely heavily on exports from Ukraine and Russia, Welsh said.

“To the extent that those countries’ security is affected by riots, or protests that threaten regimes, that’s how our interests could be threatened,” she said. 

Food instability and high food prices were one factor that led to the Arab Spring in the early 2010s, said Molly Jahn, a professor of agronomy at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Friends, if you can read those headlines and articles and still put off building up at least some food security for yourself and your family, I don't know what to say to you.  The sand in the hourglass has just about run out.  These warnings used to be largely voiced by "preppers" and those who'd experienced previous conflicts, shortages and famines themselves (the latter including yours truly).  Now they're coming from all over;  governments, national and international organizations, experts, whatever.  If you aren't listening, there's an old proverb that applies to you:  "There are none so deaf as those who will not hear".

Phil, over at Bustednuckles, shares my outlook.

All of us are getting price shocks every time we turn around.

I spend a lot of time keeping up with what is going on.

Everywhere I went on the tubes last night was someone else saying it is going to get much, much worse.

As in 10% inflation, PER MONTH.

We are looking at $10 a gallon milk and everything else is going to go through the roof also.

IF, you can find it.

The ripple effects of the Supply Chain fiasco, the Truckers strikes, the failing Farm production, we are in for a scenario that hasn’t been seen since WWII and the Rationing.

Quit putting it off people, get you a pantry going.

From what I am seeing, there isn’t any relief in sight until AFTER next year.

If we make it that long.

God help us.

Ayup.

Peter