Famine is caused by _local_ supply shortages. The Dust Bowl in the US was a 30% wheat shortage, but it can happen from even less shortfall if transportation is a problem. The US weaponized wheat stem rust against Russia's wheat crops during the cold war, and they were hoping the weapon would reduce total yield by 15% in order to cause major damage.
Missing wheat from the war is less than 1% of global wheat crop
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Re: Missing wheat from the war is less than 1% of global wheat crop
#32So... A few points.
The first point is that future crops are at risk. It's not necessarily about current production.
The second point is that numbers and qualifiers like 25% of exports, 1% of crop can degenerate into empty superlatives. Ultimately, skilled analysis is required for useful conclusions. The numbers don't stand for themselves.
The third point is that markets can be very sensitive, and price changes can be big even if underlying changes in supply are small.
Re: Missing wheat from the war is less than 1% of global wheat crop
#33What’s the tool to view this report in an acceptable format? I’m actually interested to read and share it.
I’m not sure about this site, but it seems to be rendering the research report in some strange form hyper-optimized for advertising?
Re: Missing wheat from the war is less than 1% of global wheat crop
#34As I’ve previously commented on this topic on HN, the only reason this will start a food shortage is if people start prepping for a food shortage. If this news wasn’t as widely reported we’d be fine but the more we talk about it the more likely it’ll become a thing.
Re: Missing wheat from the war is less than 1% of global wheat crop
#35I absolutely despise things like this.
The war in Ukraine, amplified by the West's anemic and at best useless sanctions, have likely led to a famine which will effect millions of people.
Yeah, us sitting here in our offices in the richest country in the world, arguably the people who helped cause this, won't be effected. Maybe our food prices go up a tiny bit.
The people in developing countries, like usual, will now become victims of starvation, which will lead to revolutions and civil war, and ultimately more suffering.
I'm sorry to be so cynical about this, but it has been like watching a slow motion, unending train wreck see the last year of foreign policy nightmares coming out of The United States. It turns out that, no, we are not in the end of history, and yes, there are still a lot of bad people in the world.
Our foreign policy laziness/ineptitude has led to a situation where the leader of a nuclear armed, hostile superpower (Russia) has two choices: win his war against the west, or die. In the process we have invalidated the idea of The Federal Reserve meaning anything (oh you have USD deposits? You made us mad? We'll just cancel them!), and are about to see countries selling oil denominated in something other than USD.
To be clear: Putin is a monster who has now killed thousands, and destroyed a country. I wish he was rotting in a prison cell. But the reality is: he isn't, and these absolutely idiotic sanctions we are imposing on Russia will lead to none of our stated foreign policy goals, and only suffering for the poor.
Somebody's twitter thread about how acksually this isn't a bad thing offers me no comfort in this regard.
Re: Missing wheat from the war is less than 1% of global wheat crop
#36Earlier quoted context omitted.
As an aside, I found that fascinating that Egypt is such a huge grain importer. In the ancient world, Egypt was one of the largest grain producers and basically fed the Roman Empire.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Egypt#Vital_st... Looks like the population went from ~15.4M in 1934 to ~100.5M in 2020. I'd bet that neither the area devoted to agriculture, nor the productivity (per unit area) increased by anything resembling that ~553% increase.
Probably it did. It did in the US over that time. Modern farming practices raised yields on some crops from ~20bu per acre to around 200 today.
Re: Missing wheat from the war is less than 1% of global wheat crop
#37The point is the economy is currently based on something hits the news, hoard hoard hoard, price explodes, empty shelves and high profits. Happened to TP a couple years ago and is in process with microcontroller chips and will be happening soon with food. People hear story on news, think there will be empty shelves, buy a multi-year supply of boxed Mac n Cheese, the shelves are indeed empty, more people think there w…
The difference is that unlike microchips, wheat can't be stored indefinitely. Eventually it rots. And reserve storage capacity is very limited; they have to make room for the next crop. The worldwide wheat market is huge and fragmented so no one can really corner the market through hoarding. An electronics manufacturer might not be able to easily substitute a '328 for another microcontroller, but an Egyptian baker can easily substitute French or Indian wheat for Ukrainian wheat as long as the transport can be worked out at a reasonable cost.
Re: Missing wheat from the war is less than 1% of global wheat crop
#38The point is the economy is currently based on something hits the news, hoard hoard hoard, price explodes, empty shelves and high profits. Happened to TP a couple years ago and is in process with microcontroller chips and will be happening soon with food. People hear story on news, think there will be empty shelves, buy a multi-year supply of boxed Mac n Cheese, the shelves are indeed empty, more people think there w…
> The point is the economy is currently based on something hits the news, hoard hoard hoard, price explodes, empty shelves and high profits. Given that that extends well beyond individual behaviour (Wheat futures[1] are currently bonkers), this raises the question if the claim that "capitalism is the optimal way to allocate resources" is really true at least for the current version of capitalism. This extends well be…
>this raises the question if the claim that "capitalism is the optimal way to allocate resources" is really true at least for the current version of capitalism.
It is important to remember that economic supporters of markets don't claim that the markets are always rational in the short term. Corrections and irrational behavior expected.
Re: Missing wheat from the war is less than 1% of global wheat crop
#39News is just a shock. Get scared and embrace for impact: people that do so will not question why prices rise and shelves are empty.
Much of the recent crude price increase happened before "the war" started. Still the war gets blamed.
Re: Missing wheat from the war is less than 1% of global wheat crop
#40Earlier quoted context omitted.
So spring wheat is harvested in the fall, and won't be planted for a little bit in the US, because it's just now starting to get to spring in many states. Winter wheat, which would be harvested this spring, should've been planted months ago. So there's a gap in production, regardless of where they get their wheat from, I guess is what I'm trying to get at.
From the twitter thread: > And the world's farmers already started planting more wheat 4 months ago, when wheat futures rose due to possibility of Black Sea conflict. > India went all-out planting more wheat, looks set to continue a 3yr streak of rapidly increasing wheat exports. The US planted four MILLION more tons more wheat seed last fall than usual. Aus, Canada, Argentina, South Africa, even Brazil getting in on…
Here are the last 6 years of winter wheat crop reports in the USA [1]. I don't believe that the slight increase in winter 2021/spring 2022 planting in the USA is anything other than a normal variation. I make no claim to know anything about the rest of the world, but I am skeptical that expectations of a Black Sea conflict has anything to do with planting 4 months ago.
PS, you can get even more data, further back in history, directly from the USDA [2], but it is a little difficult to navigate this site. This link [3] might work for everyone, it is a query for acres of wheat planted all the way back to 1919.
[1] https://usda.library.cornell.edu/concern/publications/z890rt...
[3] https://quickstats.nass.usda.gov/results/64834CCE-2C3A-39A1-...