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A world grain shortage puts tens of millions at risk

economist.com

101–104 of 104 posts

Re: A world grain shortage puts tens of millions at risk

#101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the poster you replied to did not say that we needed 4 stomachs to digest grain, either. you're reading way more into their post than what was said. it seems your misunderstanding results from the phrase "we'll be set", I think you took this general phrase to mean "we'll all be able to eat grain", yes? if so, what the term actually means is, "we will be well prepared for the future", something that being able to eat…

It was a direct reply to an article about eating less grain-fed meat and redirecting that crop production to humans, implying we'd need ruminant stomachs to do so. I'm not sure why some HN discussions turn into a lesson on object permanence.

in the spirit of HN, your inferences should assume a good faith interpretation of a post, like I described

in this case, since growing 4 stomachs is obviously not a serious suggestion, the post was flippant, like,

"now we just need Mr. Fusion bionic stomachs and we'll be set [so we can burn trash, in addition to grass, in addition to grain... this bracketed part is the implied portion of the joke that usually doesn't need to be said]",

since the term "then we'll be set" is almost always used to describe the next step in improving something.

improve upon what, you may ask? your own idea! lol. the humor of the joke is that the suggestion is silly.

Re: A world grain shortage puts tens of millions at risk

#102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, growing is definitely going to be an issue, as is storing it because Russia has been targeting Grain silos, too. The transportation aspect is a critical issue, too, but one would like to think that as Russia is being pushed back to the border that the center and West will be able to transport to Poland/Romania to enter EU markets by the time harvest occurs in the Fall. The main issue is that Russia keeps attackin…

Transportation is the bigger issue. Ukrainian grain exports used to be tens of millions of tonnes per year. That's something like a million semitrucks or a million railway cars. You can't build that kind of capacity in a few months, especially not in the middle of an all-out war. As long as Russia can operate submarines in the Black Sea, it can blockade Ukrainian ports. No foreign cargo ship will approach the ports,…

> Transportation is the bigger issue.

I agree, but, as a person who has a background in supply chain, it's entirely moot if their is no yield to transport; I think what's significant here, is that occupation poses the largest threat.

Re: A world grain shortage puts tens of millions at risk

#103
post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it was from RT I would add "According to Russian media". Is that then a barely noteworthy western propaganda line or just the truth?

Russian crimes are pretty well documented at this point, see eg https://www.bellingcat.com/news/2022/04/04/russias-bucha-fac...

Circular logic. Because Russian crimes are documented (in western media) every war crime attributed to Russians must be true as well.

Re: A world grain shortage puts tens of millions at risk

#104
post #11

let's say if the shortfall makes up 30% of supply.. surely those 70% other farmers would just need to raise by 140% or so to FULLY make up the difference? everyone pitch in a little, shouldn't be THAT big of a deal surely....

https://twitter.com/kannbwx/status/1528832246936920065 ok this doesn't look good at all, time to stock up people. preppers were right after all.
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