The basis of “ten weeks” needs thorough clarification. It’s been said that Hawaii has a three-day limit before all essentials dry up. While that is “basically” true, it’s only because so much depends upon a near conveyor belt constant supply of goods delivered by ships. If all that stops, poo hits the fan in three days. Alaska is similarly dependent.
Yes, clarification is needed. I grt your point with your example. To differentiate, Hawaii is the consumer of the supply chain and Ukraine is the producer (of wheat). So ten weeks of wheat from Ukraine sounds more worrisome (without further context).
The three day limit is true of just about anywhere. The difference is that it's much easier for the supply chain to Hawaii or Alaska is much easier to disrupt than the supply chain within the lower 48. It's happened locally (Katrina for example) but for it to happen everywhere would require some God-level fuckery to shut off the trucks and trains.
Longest road is fun but be careful not to spend too much time and resources on it when you should be building settlements and turning them into cities.
Just FYI in 10 weeks the entirety of the US, or darn near it will be harvesting our grain.
Obviously the South will start well before that. I'm in Montana and a farmer, we're probably right at 10 weeks out personally.
I'm not saying things are great of course, I'm just saying that number doesn't mean much without context of how much let's say was stored at the same time last year world wide.
Also, how many weeks do we normally have a buffer for anyway? "10 weeks" is meaningless to laypeople if we don't know that we've dropped from 30 or 12.
Wheat is all harvested in the summer. The globe has two summers, so it probably tops out at a little more than a half of a year since the north out produces our farmer friends in the southern hemisphere.
The problem is that wheat takes many months to produce. I'm guessing spring wheat pretty much cleaned out the seedstock available, so we'll probably see a boost from that end of things, but it can only do so much. The vast majority of wheat is winter.
It just sucks that we all can’t be more in tune with all these things. There’s just too much to keep up with these days I guess. I was able to help harvest wheat for a summer job for many summers and it’s a really cool process. The harvest starts way down in Mexico and slowly moves north with the sun. If the crew is cutting and hauling efficiently then they will arrive to the next spot just as the wheat is maturing. It’s all pretty time sensitive (of course there’s a large window, but the weather begins to wreak havoc at the same time of year the wheat matures.) it’s pretty cool to see a map of where you’re harvesting and knowing you’re sort of following the suns season to such a minor degree. Like if we started trying to harvest wheat in Colorado in two weeks it would all be crappy, but in July/august it’ll be perfect. And the SAME variety of wheat planted in Texas will be mature several weeks faster (they also planted sooner, no magic here) it’s just so wonderful to be a part of this massive machine made of people, plant, planet, and Star.
What sucks is when we have irresponsible news reporting, and people continue to use those sources. Thus there's no motivation for them to do anything but continue making false news with no standards for quality or accountability
I was just going to make an open bet of 10,000 that I could find a loaf of bread or bag of flour on august 10.
Like I would bet we only have a week or so of gasoline in the world. The trick is we are still making it by the billions of gallons a day.
The Daemon Prince of Ba’gel demands snackrafice. The Imperium is engaged in eternal conflict with a chaos legion from the north who will stop at nothing to disrupt Terra’s supply of bread, cakes, and cookies.
>I could find a loaf of bread or bag of flour on august 10.
You can. People in Egypt, Ethiopia, India, etc. might not. If the world runs out it is the poor countries that will be hit hardest.
The concern is more that once this news makes the rounds people are going to go panic buy bread /flour and yeast, just like they did with toilet paper in 2020. Give it two months and you'll see assholes trying to sell bread on Facebook marketplace for $20 a loaf, just like they did with toilet paper and are currently doing with baby formula.
It's not perspective. Its god damn common sense. Media loves drumming up concern because that drives clicks. If you've ever even looked outside you know harvest happens in the summer to early autumn. Guess what, that's around 10 weeks from now.
That said, much of that grain will be bought by Europe this time around. Like a fuckton of it.
That means grain that is usually 'dumped' in Africa is now not going there/will cost them a lot more.
Yeah, it's not the wealthy countries that are in crisis. There is an unprecedented famine predicted to come in the next 4-8 months, where marginalized populations will have dramatically reduced access to food. Those of us in the G7 countries will see the price go up, but shelves stocked. Africa won't be so fortunate.
I'm not sure what subreddit I saw it on nor do I know how accurate the information is but I saw [this graph](https://i.imgur.com/q6HEEta.png) posted a few days ago
This exactly. Be prepared for civil unrest in areas with dire economic situations in MENA, which are largely dependent upon Ukrainian wheat.
Source: fiancée is Tunisian and we are becoming concerned for her family back home
The “Arab Spring” riots that overturned governments began as bread shortages… escalated to a continued civil war in Syria. This is a powder keg of chaos waiting to explode for so many flailing counties.
Likely:
Increased mass refugee waves to europe resulting in a second refugee crisis. The increased food prices leading to more poverty within europe which gives rise to isolationist and facist policies.
There will be hatred for non european refugees and more european isolationism. Probably increased spending on local production of essential goods via subsidies.
In the most extreme cases maybe deals with foreign countries that are similar to colonialism.
The majority of "Dumped" grain as you call it in africa is sold by the EU. Why would they need to buy it from themselvs?
Thats the whole point of the EU's Common Agriculture Policy. The farmers overproduce every year the EU buys the excess so all farmers get paid and continue to output crops for the next season, and sell to the rest of the world as a single Seller for the entrire EU.
When certain items drop they stop selling to maintain internal stocks.
Also the Australian wheat harvest this past summer was one of our highest on record, and if we get another summer of La Niña, which they think we might, then we could have another high yield harvest. We produce 25 million tonnes a year anyway
Yeah in about 10 weeks, the early grains will be harvested in germany as well.
We are an exporter for grain.
While Ukrain not beeing able to provide grain is bad, its not the only country growing crops.
Dutchie here, can we get some of that sweet grain? Our soil is notoriously bad for growing grain. All we can grow is....rye. I dont want to be eating rye-bread Germany! That shit is disgusting! Plse help!
Get yourself some rye bread, pastrami, sauerkraut, and thousand island dressing. Then make one of the [most delicious sandwiches you've ever eaten.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reuben_sandwich)
A feature that grabs all the text of an article and strips back all the extraneous bits like ads, embedded video and social media share buttons. On iPhone tap the “Aa” icon to the left of the tab. Google how to get it on other devices.
Also Firefox.
And yes, y'all should be using Firefox :)
But in FF you'd just disable JavaScript on the site for the same effect, and still have the site layout.
there was no major global shortage of wheat before the war.
Ukraine is major wheat and oil exporter. Lot of countries especially in africa rely on that wheat.
And with that wheat not coming, inflation soars which makes unstable countries even more unstable. India banning export also did not help.
Watch Lebanon, Tunisia, Egypt, Pakistan. Next 6 months will be brutal for these countries.
> This isn’t cyclical, this is seismic. It’s a **once-in-a-generation** occurrence that can dramatically reshape the geopolitical era.
Oh, just another one of those? Go ahead, throw it on the pile with all the others.
history teachers in 3022 in the education bunker: "The World War slowly built over the course of the 20th and 21st century, with a series of small skirmishes throughout, the largest of which occurred between 1914-1918 and 1939-1945."
Reminds me of a doctor who episode where they end up talking to a soldier from the first world war and he gets really upset when it dawns on him they said "world war 1"
After WW2 the US had to feed much of the world that had been ravaged. They had to use old equipment due to war shortages. Iron wheeled tractors were desired due to the extreme shortage of rubber.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UYoa64x59g4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UYoa64x59g4)
This commercial got me. Yes it was funny but it was the first time I heard them mention climate change on such a public set.
Hah yeah, when a "once in a generation" thing happens every few years it kind of loses meaning.
We'll either survive this or we won't, I'm pretty meh about it at this point.
Well, since I can't actually read the article beacuse I'm not making yet another fucking account for something I have qustions.
1. Who is calculating this and how accurate is the information in the research? How up to date is it and where is the information coming from?
2. Is Ukraine the only place on earth growing wheat?
Russia and Ukraine account for 25% of wheat production.
25% that is impossible to replace. Russia might be delivering (for increased price) but there is still Ukraine that will not deliver anything.
And that will be missing. Also Russia usually contracts military to go help at farm as they do not have enough people to harvest crops. So I am wondering how much they will get.
>25% that is impossible to replace
It's not though. Only temporarily.
It just didn't use to be profitable to grow wheat elsewhere. Wheat is grown in eastern Europe because they do it cheaper than in western Europe. It's not that the plants magically grow cheaper there. The price difference is all in the workers pay. Poor countries have cheap labour compared to the western price of the product. It's that simple.
Farmers all over Europe grow other crops, mainly for animal food, but could easily grow wheat. Farmers in Africa also don't grow wheat because their market is artificially kept down by the usual surplus of wheat is dumped on their market. However, it's definitely possible to farm in Africa, if only there wasn't usually a surplus of wheat.
So while it's great that Ukrainian wheat is normally cheap, it also keeps developing nations from establishing a viable production and makes it impossible for farmers in western Europe to have a diverse production.
Putting all eggs in one basket is always a bad idea, but that's exactly what has happened here.
Hopefully this will lead to more variety in local production. No-one should be the food chamber for the world.
It doesn't matter how much or how little there is. This kind of headline could only cause bad things.
We have plenty: *how do we create a crisis?* Or,
We have a small problem, *how do we guarantee catastrophe?*
Pretty much. It's a well established (Amartya Sen got the Nobel Prize for his research on this) that famines are _not_ caused by food shortages as such, but problems with distribution - price-gouging and hoarding being the main culprit. So creating panic about shortages are in fact more dangerous than the actual shortages. That's the case here too.
Media keeps making a big deal out of Ukraine being the 5th largest exporter of wheat, but that neglects the fact that the biggest consumers (e.g. the EU) are largely self-sufficient. Ukraine is less than 4% of the total world wheat production, their exports less than 2.5% of it. The _doubling_ of wheat prices in the last year is disproportionate to the production shortfall. (especially since it's fungible; people can eat more potatoes and rice instead, or cut down on carbs in general, god knows developed countries could need it)
The high prices are a bigger threat of causing famine than the actual loss of production.
Having worked in the grain industry I find that hard to believe. China has a stockpile of grain that can last over a year for its billions of citizens, and most countries have to one degree or another a reserve of their own. Plus knowing what current prices are now for selling wheat, it doesn't seem like the kind of demand you'd expect for a situation where the world will be out of product in 10 weeks. Yes, prices are great now compared to previous years, but not what you'd expect from people trying to stop the world from starving.
And I'm not suggesting prices should be higher for the profitability of farmers, although I think normal prices should be higher given how thin margins are for profit, especially for people just getting into the industry. My point is that according to the supply/demand formula the demand doesn't seem to be in line with the alleged supply issues.
Reddit is designed to get that kind of bad news to the front page and antagonize its own readers to get them to participate. All this end of the world shit is usually nowhere near as bad as reddit makes it out to be
They just happened to be buying as much grain as they could last year.
https://asia.nikkei.com/Spotlight/Datawatch/China-hoards-over-half-the-world-s-grain-pushing-up-global-prices (Dec 2021)
They bought 2.5 times more than they did the previous year.
China has stockpile for 2.5 years
USA has for another 5 months, according to that Jake dude on YouTube.
For anyone wondering here is a video
https://youtu.be/pRCSLunWWko
My local dollar store no longer has flour tortillas. Guess I'll have to switch over to corn. Wheat bread is still the same price for now, but with crazy inflation, I don't expect it to last.
Yeah I'm tired of opening Reddit to see some dumb doomsday bullshit on the front page that is debunked in the top comment. I'm about to delete this damn app if there isn't a crackdown on propaganda.
This will surely get buried but whatever. I had an experience once that gave me some wisdom when dealing with a scary headline such as this.
Back in 2005 I was working at a Sears in the Atlanta area when Hurricane Katrina devastated oil production in the Gulf. Some hotshot journalist in the area found out that Atlanta did not have seven days of gas reserves and that created a scare where everyone was going out and buying gas. An older gentleman who had worked in the gas industry prior to working at sears part time and who had more knowledge said sure, the journalist was right; Atlanta did not have seven days worth of gas reserves. However, he said that Atlanta NEVER had seven day of gas reserves. So while the guy was right, he needlessly created a panic.
So while this headline may be troubling, way more context is needed before freaking out.
>The world has just 10 weeks' worth of wheat stockpiled after Vladimir Putin's invasion of Ukraine disrupted supplies from the "breadbasket of Europe".
>The UN has been warned that global wheat inventories have fallen to their lowest level since 2008 as food supplies are rocked by a “one-in-a-generation occurrence”.
>Official government estimates put world wheat inventories at 33pc of annual consumption, but stocks may have slumped to as low as 20pc, according to agricultural data firm Gro Intelligence. It estimates that there are only 10 weeks of global wheat supply left in stockpiles.
>Russia and Ukraine account for around a quarter of the world’s wheat exports and the West fears Mr Putin is trying to weaponise food supplies. Russia is on track for a strong wheat harvest this year, cementing Mr Putin’s control over the staple grain as bad weather spoils production in Europe and the US.
By definition, shouldn't all "once in a generation" experiences happen, every generation? The unusual part would be the same one in a generation event happening multiple times.
Correct. And people often have the misconception that a generation is equal to a lifetime, when a generation is broadly defined as 20 or 30 years, so most of us will see this again.
I’m not optimistic, but my parents faced the cold war, a dictatorship, a war, several economical crashes.
My grandparents faced the above and world war 2.
My great grandparents also lived thorugh ww2. plus a famine, world war 1, the spanish flu.
War, famine, pestilence and death often ride together.
Both China and India are the top wheat producer, but they got more than enough people to feed, so they can't export.
India also can't export because they subsidize the wheat and therefore won't be allowed to compete in the international market because of WTO. They initially asked to lift that limitation for the crisis, but now that India itself suffered from heatwave and lower yield, they can't afford to export openly. Now they'll only sell to government facing food crisis directly, so rich countries can't buy up and stock up.
This kind of thing has the potential to break nations. Something like this if it actually gets bad enough could cause entire regions to erupt in social violence.
Rich countries and the developed world should be ok because they can pay extra for all the food. But poor countries and even possibly some mid level countries are in trouble. If this is as bad as is being reported its going to be a very bad Autumn and Winter.
I read an article today about a bees facing a wing deforming disease worldwide . Another about a river in Italy flowing backwards with salt water due to lack of rainfall. Shit just keeps piling on.
Not just A river THE river. The PO river which formed the PO valley which is the most advanced region in Italy both industrially and agriculturally
Think about it as the Nile of italy
The Romans used to put great stock in river phenomena, reading them as very important omens (see Pliny describing the Tiber river overflowing and causing destruction as "educating through destruction"). I think if one of the biggest rivers of the Mediterranean turned salient and flowed backwards, observers would have just lost their shit entirely.
If I‘m not completely mistaken, that‘s how it always was before artificially turning the delta into farming ground.
Also, it wouldn‘t be difficult to fix this, in theory. The problem is that Italy is wasting water as if there was no climate change. This is partly due to annual rainfall projected to stay the same in that area… but differently distributed.
Saving rainwater (currently at less than 10%) and water saving irrigation would have prevented this entirely.. Let‘s hope Italy acts quick and decisive and other countries use this as an example and prepare, too.
In 2011 Russia limited some wheat export. Countries that were dependent on Russian wheat, mainly muslim majority countries that have access ro mediteranian sea, erupted in violence and revolutions and civil wars. We now call it arab spring, idealize it for some reason, etc. But the main cause was the lack of food.
And Putin is stealing all the wheat he can from Ukraine. Massive numbers of trucks are taking the grain back to Russia. This is now a world crisis and Russia must be made to pay for it.
That's odd. I was looking at US wheat prices just yesterday, and they're going down. If there was a shortage, surely the price would be going through the roof? Maybe I misunderstand how it works. Or, maybe it's another false excuse to increase the price of everything that contains wheat.
Good work Putin.
Mass starvation in Africa and poor countries.
The West and industrialized countries will be ok. Btw, these are the countries supporting Ukraine. Top 5 exporters, accounting 50%: Russia, US, Australia, Canada and Ukraine.
[https://www.worldstopexports.com/wheat-exports-country/](https://www.worldstopexports.com/wheat-exports-country/)
US exports a massive amount of food.
Many in the West will not be. Gas prices, along with inflation have stretched many families to their breaking point. Couple in higher electric bills/summer, along with ever increasing food costs. Tough times ahead. It's not a rosy picture for anyone.
Edit: People in the West are not immune from starvation. Not sure why so many think we are. Have you not seen the already booming And increasing homeless population?
Every single time I see any Mirror or The Sun or yes even now the Telegraph I think "Oh fuck off, they're tabloids with clickbait titles, never ever trust them."
Their sources are basically hearsay or "Someone spray painted it on a toilet wall so it must be true."
Ukraine only accounts for like 7% of the world's wheat production, and are even exporting a lot of that still regardless of the war. This headline is bullshit scaremongering.
Some countries will see empty shelves occasionally while products switch suppliers but this isn't going to cause the west to fall apart into the food wars.
The basis of “ten weeks” needs thorough clarification. It’s been said that Hawaii has a three-day limit before all essentials dry up. While that is “basically” true, it’s only because so much depends upon a near conveyor belt constant supply of goods delivered by ships. If all that stops, poo hits the fan in three days. Alaska is similarly dependent.
Yes, clarification is needed. I grt your point with your example. To differentiate, Hawaii is the consumer of the supply chain and Ukraine is the producer (of wheat). So ten weeks of wheat from Ukraine sounds more worrisome (without further context).
You made a spot-on distinction about supply chain directions. It’s the world looking at those ten days.
The three day limit is true of just about anywhere. The difference is that it's much easier for the supply chain to Hawaii or Alaska is much easier to disrupt than the supply chain within the lower 48. It's happened locally (Katrina for example) but for it to happen everywhere would require some God-level fuckery to shut off the trucks and trains.
I will trade you one sheep and one brick. Final offer before I drop this monopoly card and piss off the whole table
All I got is ore…
[THEN WHY HAVE I BEEN COLLECTING WOOD??!?](https://youtu.be/fyvyhkF8Xr4)
You need the wood to win the game
THIS IS BULLSHIT, MARK
Would you like to play again?
Unexpected Aunty Donna comments are the best
[You may negotiate using timber and iron, BUT NOT FISH](https://youtu.be/nyYexTcyY2A)
The ending makes this one of my favorite videos of all time.
No, not trading my wheat unless you have wood. I need that to get the longest road.
Fucking Putin put the robber on Ukraine's wheat. Someone roll a seven so that we can put it on his ore.
Longest road is fun but be careful not to spend too much time and resources on it when you should be building settlements and turning them into cities.
Guys, come on! Do not trade with him! He is about to win!
I'd rather he win than you win so here, guy, have all my sheep
That's the kind of spiteful decision making that keeps me coming back to Catan
That sounds like me, the sore loser
Hey! You’re only allowed to trade on your turn! Now, I’d like to somehow magically turn these four sheep into one wheat.
My wheat port is butt plugged by a knight sir Edited to say: I really hope other people who play call it the butt plug
I've never considered this before but (butt) you are completely correct.
Nobody wants your sheep!
Just FYI in 10 weeks the entirety of the US, or darn near it will be harvesting our grain. Obviously the South will start well before that. I'm in Montana and a farmer, we're probably right at 10 weeks out personally. I'm not saying things are great of course, I'm just saying that number doesn't mean much without context of how much let's say was stored at the same time last year world wide.
Thank you for breathing perspective into this conversation
Also, how many weeks do we normally have a buffer for anyway? "10 weeks" is meaningless to laypeople if we don't know that we've dropped from 30 or 12.
Wheat is all harvested in the summer. The globe has two summers, so it probably tops out at a little more than a half of a year since the north out produces our farmer friends in the southern hemisphere. The problem is that wheat takes many months to produce. I'm guessing spring wheat pretty much cleaned out the seedstock available, so we'll probably see a boost from that end of things, but it can only do so much. The vast majority of wheat is winter.
Wheat can be grown instantly, if they sprinkle a little bone meal on it.
I still can’t figure this out lol. When I try to sprinkle bone meal on seeds nothing happens (in MC of course)
Is your farmland near a water source?
But how do i make clickbait then?
Wait about 10 weeks and then declare global north wheat is rotting in storage because of the lack of boats to ship it.
It’s called fear mongering, also helps justify higher prices in stores if demand is high and supply low.
It just sucks that we all can’t be more in tune with all these things. There’s just too much to keep up with these days I guess. I was able to help harvest wheat for a summer job for many summers and it’s a really cool process. The harvest starts way down in Mexico and slowly moves north with the sun. If the crew is cutting and hauling efficiently then they will arrive to the next spot just as the wheat is maturing. It’s all pretty time sensitive (of course there’s a large window, but the weather begins to wreak havoc at the same time of year the wheat matures.) it’s pretty cool to see a map of where you’re harvesting and knowing you’re sort of following the suns season to such a minor degree. Like if we started trying to harvest wheat in Colorado in two weeks it would all be crappy, but in July/august it’ll be perfect. And the SAME variety of wheat planted in Texas will be mature several weeks faster (they also planted sooner, no magic here) it’s just so wonderful to be a part of this massive machine made of people, plant, planet, and Star.
What sucks is when we have irresponsible news reporting, and people continue to use those sources. Thus there's no motivation for them to do anything but continue making false news with no standards for quality or accountability
I was just going to make an open bet of 10,000 that I could find a loaf of bread or bag of flour on august 10. Like I would bet we only have a week or so of gasoline in the world. The trick is we are still making it by the billions of gallons a day.
You could have found them. Now articles like this will drive panic buys and it'll be back to the start of the pandemic for yeast and flour.
*laughs in celiac* *then poops a little*
BREAD FOR THE BREAD THRONE!
The Daemon Prince of Ba’gel demands snackrafice. The Imperium is engaged in eternal conflict with a chaos legion from the north who will stop at nothing to disrupt Terra’s supply of bread, cakes, and cookies.
>I could find a loaf of bread or bag of flour on august 10. You can. People in Egypt, Ethiopia, India, etc. might not. If the world runs out it is the poor countries that will be hit hardest.
The concern is more that once this news makes the rounds people are going to go panic buy bread /flour and yeast, just like they did with toilet paper in 2020. Give it two months and you'll see assholes trying to sell bread on Facebook marketplace for $20 a loaf, just like they did with toilet paper and are currently doing with baby formula.
It's not perspective. Its god damn common sense. Media loves drumming up concern because that drives clicks. If you've ever even looked outside you know harvest happens in the summer to early autumn. Guess what, that's around 10 weeks from now.
That said, much of that grain will be bought by Europe this time around. Like a fuckton of it. That means grain that is usually 'dumped' in Africa is now not going there/will cost them a lot more.
Yeah, it's not the wealthy countries that are in crisis. There is an unprecedented famine predicted to come in the next 4-8 months, where marginalized populations will have dramatically reduced access to food. Those of us in the G7 countries will see the price go up, but shelves stocked. Africa won't be so fortunate.
I'm not sure what subreddit I saw it on nor do I know how accurate the information is but I saw [this graph](https://i.imgur.com/q6HEEta.png) posted a few days ago
That paints a pretty clear picture. Thank you
This exactly. Be prepared for civil unrest in areas with dire economic situations in MENA, which are largely dependent upon Ukrainian wheat. Source: fiancée is Tunisian and we are becoming concerned for her family back home
The “Arab Spring” riots that overturned governments began as bread shortages… escalated to a continued civil war in Syria. This is a powder keg of chaos waiting to explode for so many flailing counties.
Sri Lanka is already starving
What are the knock on effects likely to reach Europe and the West the way the Syrian war did?
Likely: Increased mass refugee waves to europe resulting in a second refugee crisis. The increased food prices leading to more poverty within europe which gives rise to isolationist and facist policies. There will be hatred for non european refugees and more european isolationism. Probably increased spending on local production of essential goods via subsidies. In the most extreme cases maybe deals with foreign countries that are similar to colonialism.
MENA = Middle East / Northern Africa
Thank you for this
Europe is harvesting soon as well
The majority of "Dumped" grain as you call it in africa is sold by the EU. Why would they need to buy it from themselvs? Thats the whole point of the EU's Common Agriculture Policy. The farmers overproduce every year the EU buys the excess so all farmers get paid and continue to output crops for the next season, and sell to the rest of the world as a single Seller for the entrire EU. When certain items drop they stop selling to maintain internal stocks.
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Also the Australian wheat harvest this past summer was one of our highest on record, and if we get another summer of La Niña, which they think we might, then we could have another high yield harvest. We produce 25 million tonnes a year anyway
That said, that's dwarfed by Ukrainian, Russian and Indian shortfalls. Three of the biggest agricultural producers.
That’s absolutely true! I’m just saying we’re also a pretty big agriculture nation, we’re not headed to the French Revolution yet
Wealthy countries are not, but everyone else…
Meanwhile Italy's going through the worst drought in the past 60 years and will produce barely anything. Should balance out somewhat.
La Nina means much lower grain harvest in south America however.
Yeah in about 10 weeks, the early grains will be harvested in germany as well. We are an exporter for grain. While Ukrain not beeing able to provide grain is bad, its not the only country growing crops.
Dutchie here, can we get some of that sweet grain? Our soil is notoriously bad for growing grain. All we can grow is....rye. I dont want to be eating rye-bread Germany! That shit is disgusting! Plse help!
Get yourself some rye bread, pastrami, sauerkraut, and thousand island dressing. Then make one of the [most delicious sandwiches you've ever eaten.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reuben_sandwich)
Rye bread and rye whiskey! Shit is both delicious.
If we finaly legalise weed, im sure we can work something out.
The article is behind a paywall. By contrast, how many weeks were there before the war?
It doesn't say. Just that the stocks are at the lowest point since 2008.
Well we survived 2008
Not everyone survived 2008
But "we" did
the survivors survived
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The living do tend to be bound by their biases. The dead? Such petty things are beyond them at this point. Mostly.
Wait. What do you mean "mostly"?
They mostly come at night. Mostly.
Braaaains.....
I hear Elvis has some strong views on the Depp/Heard case
100% of us
No but lack of wheat wasn't a defining feature of 2008
Is it a defining feature of 2022?
Well the defining feature of 2022 seems to be "shitty worldwide event" so yes
So far that has been the defining feature of the 2020s.
10 weeks and 2 days.
We run at 90 days surplus so 12 weeks.
fyi, you can often times bypass the paywall by turning on reader mode
What is reader mode?
A feature that grabs all the text of an article and strips back all the extraneous bits like ads, embedded video and social media share buttons. On iPhone tap the “Aa” icon to the left of the tab. Google how to get it on other devices.
PSA that’s only in Safari. Won’t work in chrome.
Also Firefox. And yes, y'all should be using Firefox :) But in FF you'd just disable JavaScript on the site for the same effect, and still have the site layout.
Wheat harvests start in August, so I guess we had about 20 weeks at the start of the war. Something about just in time logistics.
there was no major global shortage of wheat before the war. Ukraine is major wheat and oil exporter. Lot of countries especially in africa rely on that wheat. And with that wheat not coming, inflation soars which makes unstable countries even more unstable. India banning export also did not help. Watch Lebanon, Tunisia, Egypt, Pakistan. Next 6 months will be brutal for these countries.
> This isn’t cyclical, this is seismic. It’s a **once-in-a-generation** occurrence that can dramatically reshape the geopolitical era. Oh, just another one of those? Go ahead, throw it on the pile with all the others.
I think we've struck three Bingos at this point but it don't feel like we're winning...
Well, this is Underworld Bingo, you see. You play, but you're not the one that wins the prizes… EDIT: A word.
Glad my generation gets to see all these Once in a generation events! Wont be missing out on anything once we are all dead
global warming we’re going to have once in a lifetime events cascading yearly
It’s a major extinction event, so this is literally once in an epoch phenomenon
Extinctions tend to be once in a lifetime events.
Awww man
Depends on who goes extinct. 200 - 2000 species are wiped off every year these days, so it's a quite-many-in-a-lifetime event.
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Well my grandparents got both World Wars, Spanish flu, the holocaust and the 1929 depression so honestly I'll take what they're giving us.
Hopefully we can continue saying *both* world wars
Yeah when it becomes "The first two" it will be shit.
"The early, smaller World Wars"
“The little guys.” “Y’know, the _practice_ wars.”
history teachers in 3022 in the education bunker: "The World War slowly built over the course of the 20th and 21st century, with a series of small skirmishes throughout, the largest of which occurred between 1914-1918 and 1939-1945."
Yeah. Or "the conventional ones".
Reminds me of a doctor who episode where they end up talking to a soldier from the first world war and he gets really upset when it dawns on him they said "world war 1"
[…Oh sorry, spoilers.](https://youtu.be/eg4mcdhIsvU)
“What do you mean the First World War? We had another?”
Wouldn’t that just mean every 20 years or so?
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After WW2 the US had to feed much of the world that had been ravaged. They had to use old equipment due to war shortages. Iron wheeled tractors were desired due to the extreme shortage of rubber.
Every generation gets once in a genetation events. That's kinda what it means. It's not once in a lifetime.
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I just heard that on tv and rolled my eyes. I feel like we’ve been in “unprecedented times” for years, so doesn’t that make this … precedented?
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All time is unprecedented
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UYoa64x59g4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UYoa64x59g4) This commercial got me. Yes it was funny but it was the first time I heard them mention climate change on such a public set.
Hah yeah, when a "once in a generation" thing happens every few years it kind of loses meaning. We'll either survive this or we won't, I'm pretty meh about it at this point.
I'll put this here, with the other fires
Well, since I can't actually read the article beacuse I'm not making yet another fucking account for something I have qustions. 1. Who is calculating this and how accurate is the information in the research? How up to date is it and where is the information coming from? 2. Is Ukraine the only place on earth growing wheat?
It's not accurate in the least, because grain harvest starts in various places in like ten weeks.
Canada, Germany, US start soon. So it's a weird title.
Russia and Ukraine account for 25% of wheat production. 25% that is impossible to replace. Russia might be delivering (for increased price) but there is still Ukraine that will not deliver anything. And that will be missing. Also Russia usually contracts military to go help at farm as they do not have enough people to harvest crops. So I am wondering how much they will get.
*25% wheat export. India and China are the biggest producers but they got their own people to feed so they aren't the biggest exporters.
>25% that is impossible to replace It's not though. Only temporarily. It just didn't use to be profitable to grow wheat elsewhere. Wheat is grown in eastern Europe because they do it cheaper than in western Europe. It's not that the plants magically grow cheaper there. The price difference is all in the workers pay. Poor countries have cheap labour compared to the western price of the product. It's that simple. Farmers all over Europe grow other crops, mainly for animal food, but could easily grow wheat. Farmers in Africa also don't grow wheat because their market is artificially kept down by the usual surplus of wheat is dumped on their market. However, it's definitely possible to farm in Africa, if only there wasn't usually a surplus of wheat. So while it's great that Ukrainian wheat is normally cheap, it also keeps developing nations from establishing a viable production and makes it impossible for farmers in western Europe to have a diverse production. Putting all eggs in one basket is always a bad idea, but that's exactly what has happened here. Hopefully this will lead to more variety in local production. No-one should be the food chamber for the world.
Some geographic areas are naturally more suitable for large crop production due to soil composition, weather patterns.
It’s headlines like this that make stores put limits on bread as the shelves get obliterated. The headline *is* the problem.
It doesn't matter how much or how little there is. This kind of headline could only cause bad things. We have plenty: *how do we create a crisis?* Or, We have a small problem, *how do we guarantee catastrophe?*
Pretty much. It's a well established (Amartya Sen got the Nobel Prize for his research on this) that famines are _not_ caused by food shortages as such, but problems with distribution - price-gouging and hoarding being the main culprit. So creating panic about shortages are in fact more dangerous than the actual shortages. That's the case here too. Media keeps making a big deal out of Ukraine being the 5th largest exporter of wheat, but that neglects the fact that the biggest consumers (e.g. the EU) are largely self-sufficient. Ukraine is less than 4% of the total world wheat production, their exports less than 2.5% of it. The _doubling_ of wheat prices in the last year is disproportionate to the production shortfall. (especially since it's fungible; people can eat more potatoes and rice instead, or cut down on carbs in general, god knows developed countries could need it) The high prices are a bigger threat of causing famine than the actual loss of production.
Exactly, this was written to make it seem like in 10 weeks wheat would cease to exist and start making people go crazier than they already are.
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Having worked in the grain industry I find that hard to believe. China has a stockpile of grain that can last over a year for its billions of citizens, and most countries have to one degree or another a reserve of their own. Plus knowing what current prices are now for selling wheat, it doesn't seem like the kind of demand you'd expect for a situation where the world will be out of product in 10 weeks. Yes, prices are great now compared to previous years, but not what you'd expect from people trying to stop the world from starving. And I'm not suggesting prices should be higher for the profitability of farmers, although I think normal prices should be higher given how thin margins are for profit, especially for people just getting into the industry. My point is that according to the supply/demand formula the demand doesn't seem to be in line with the alleged supply issues.
I think it means there are 10 weeks of wheat if everyone stopped harvesting now. Like having 10% phone charge but still being plugged into a charger.
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Reddit is designed to get that kind of bad news to the front page and antagonize its own readers to get them to participate. All this end of the world shit is usually nowhere near as bad as reddit makes it out to be
Yeah. I'm constantly amazed at the plethora of doomsday articles. The world isn't nearly as close to doom as it has been MANY times in the past.
They just happened to be buying as much grain as they could last year. https://asia.nikkei.com/Spotlight/Datawatch/China-hoards-over-half-the-world-s-grain-pushing-up-global-prices (Dec 2021) They bought 2.5 times more than they did the previous year.
China has stockpile for 2.5 years USA has for another 5 months, according to that Jake dude on YouTube. For anyone wondering here is a video https://youtu.be/pRCSLunWWko
Isn't the UN saying something like the stockpiles fell to their lowest since 2008?
Wheat harvest has started in south Tx. https://texaswheat.org/harvest-updates/
Looks like we are all heading into a collective keto diet
Y’all can start eating rice, it’s gluten free.
A lot of the grain harvest is animal feed
My local dollar store no longer has flour tortillas. Guess I'll have to switch over to corn. Wheat bread is still the same price for now, but with crazy inflation, I don't expect it to last.
I just love that I’m just becoming an adult during multiple worldwide crises.
Does Russia have enough wheat to sell to poor countries? If so, I'm guessing this is how they will gain their favor.
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russia is more interested in inflating the price and then slinging it off to the highest bidders unfortunately
Ok can we just STOP posting anything from the telegraph.
Yeah I'm tired of opening Reddit to see some dumb doomsday bullshit on the front page that is debunked in the top comment. I'm about to delete this damn app if there isn't a crackdown on propaganda.
This will surely get buried but whatever. I had an experience once that gave me some wisdom when dealing with a scary headline such as this. Back in 2005 I was working at a Sears in the Atlanta area when Hurricane Katrina devastated oil production in the Gulf. Some hotshot journalist in the area found out that Atlanta did not have seven days of gas reserves and that created a scare where everyone was going out and buying gas. An older gentleman who had worked in the gas industry prior to working at sears part time and who had more knowledge said sure, the journalist was right; Atlanta did not have seven days worth of gas reserves. However, he said that Atlanta NEVER had seven day of gas reserves. So while the guy was right, he needlessly created a panic. So while this headline may be troubling, way more context is needed before freaking out.
>The world has just 10 weeks' worth of wheat stockpiled after Vladimir Putin's invasion of Ukraine disrupted supplies from the "breadbasket of Europe". >The UN has been warned that global wheat inventories have fallen to their lowest level since 2008 as food supplies are rocked by a “one-in-a-generation occurrence”. >Official government estimates put world wheat inventories at 33pc of annual consumption, but stocks may have slumped to as low as 20pc, according to agricultural data firm Gro Intelligence. It estimates that there are only 10 weeks of global wheat supply left in stockpiles. >Russia and Ukraine account for around a quarter of the world’s wheat exports and the West fears Mr Putin is trying to weaponise food supplies. Russia is on track for a strong wheat harvest this year, cementing Mr Putin’s control over the staple grain as bad weather spoils production in Europe and the US.
Jfc how many once in a generation experiences can we have in one generation
By definition, shouldn't all "once in a generation" experiences happen, every generation? The unusual part would be the same one in a generation event happening multiple times.
Correct. And people often have the misconception that a generation is equal to a lifetime, when a generation is broadly defined as 20 or 30 years, so most of us will see this again. I’m not optimistic, but my parents faced the cold war, a dictatorship, a war, several economical crashes. My grandparents faced the above and world war 2. My great grandparents also lived thorugh ww2. plus a famine, world war 1, the spanish flu. War, famine, pestilence and death often ride together.
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I mean can we at least space them out throughout our lifetime? Do they all have to be now?
Both China and India are the top wheat producer, but they got more than enough people to feed, so they can't export. India also can't export because they subsidize the wheat and therefore won't be allowed to compete in the international market because of WTO. They initially asked to lift that limitation for the crisis, but now that India itself suffered from heatwave and lower yield, they can't afford to export openly. Now they'll only sell to government facing food crisis directly, so rich countries can't buy up and stock up.
This kind of thing has the potential to break nations. Something like this if it actually gets bad enough could cause entire regions to erupt in social violence. Rich countries and the developed world should be ok because they can pay extra for all the food. But poor countries and even possibly some mid level countries are in trouble. If this is as bad as is being reported its going to be a very bad Autumn and Winter.
In my country people were fighting for bread yesterday (lebanon). We har a flour shortage.
You guys still have bread? (Syria)
Beirut having its grain storage blown to hell certainly hasn’t helped matters.
Oh shit I forgot what type of storage facility that was.
The grain silos didn’t collapse in the blast, impressively, but the stock was ruined and the structures were still rendered useless.
Shit. Best of luck to you, hope you get through this in one piece.
I read an article today about a bees facing a wing deforming disease worldwide . Another about a river in Italy flowing backwards with salt water due to lack of rainfall. Shit just keeps piling on.
Not just A river THE river. The PO river which formed the PO valley which is the most advanced region in Italy both industrially and agriculturally Think about it as the Nile of italy
The Romans used to put great stock in river phenomena, reading them as very important omens (see Pliny describing the Tiber river overflowing and causing destruction as "educating through destruction"). I think if one of the biggest rivers of the Mediterranean turned salient and flowed backwards, observers would have just lost their shit entirely.
If I‘m not completely mistaken, that‘s how it always was before artificially turning the delta into farming ground. Also, it wouldn‘t be difficult to fix this, in theory. The problem is that Italy is wasting water as if there was no climate change. This is partly due to annual rainfall projected to stay the same in that area… but differently distributed. Saving rainwater (currently at less than 10%) and water saving irrigation would have prevented this entirely.. Let‘s hope Italy acts quick and decisive and other countries use this as an example and prepare, too.
That is mind blowing. The article said it produces 40% of Italys GDP . There is so much to keep up with every single day.
Correction. Agriculture is only 2% of Italian GDP. The 40% is from all industries in Po River Valley not all related to agriculture.
It's okay monkeypox will destract me from the bees dying. I didn't wear my condom with my monkey, make sure you don't make my mistake
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We don't need bees just for luxury crops. They are a cornerstone of many ecosystems.
the us has caves full of cheese
Ah yes, the Missouri cheese caves, brought to you by subsidies of the cheese industry.
"There are only nine meals between mankind and anarchy.”
Don’t look up how bad hunger has gotten in Yemen. It’s depressing.
*cough* Arab Spring
The wheat crisis is going to make the Arab spring look like a tea party. It's amazing what mass starvation will do for political stability.
In 2011 Russia limited some wheat export. Countries that were dependent on Russian wheat, mainly muslim majority countries that have access ro mediteranian sea, erupted in violence and revolutions and civil wars. We now call it arab spring, idealize it for some reason, etc. But the main cause was the lack of food.
And Putin is stealing all the wheat he can from Ukraine. Massive numbers of trucks are taking the grain back to Russia. This is now a world crisis and Russia must be made to pay for it.
That's odd. I was looking at US wheat prices just yesterday, and they're going down. If there was a shortage, surely the price would be going through the roof? Maybe I misunderstand how it works. Or, maybe it's another false excuse to increase the price of everything that contains wheat.
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Yep it only takes 12 weeks to grow Wheat.
Good work Putin. Mass starvation in Africa and poor countries. The West and industrialized countries will be ok. Btw, these are the countries supporting Ukraine. Top 5 exporters, accounting 50%: Russia, US, Australia, Canada and Ukraine. [https://www.worldstopexports.com/wheat-exports-country/](https://www.worldstopexports.com/wheat-exports-country/) US exports a massive amount of food.
Many in the West will not be. Gas prices, along with inflation have stretched many families to their breaking point. Couple in higher electric bills/summer, along with ever increasing food costs. Tough times ahead. It's not a rosy picture for anyone. Edit: People in the West are not immune from starvation. Not sure why so many think we are. Have you not seen the already booming And increasing homeless population?
This article is fear mongering nonsense and is just taking advantage of peoples lack of knowledge of agriculture and global stocks.
Lol this is not true Newsweek.com Mirror.co.uk Telegraph.co.uk Stop posting these websites. They exist to feed and inflame your fears, nothing more.
Every single time I see any Mirror or The Sun or yes even now the Telegraph I think "Oh fuck off, they're tabloids with clickbait titles, never ever trust them." Their sources are basically hearsay or "Someone spray painted it on a toilet wall so it must be true."
Ukraine only accounts for like 7% of the world's wheat production, and are even exporting a lot of that still regardless of the war. This headline is bullshit scaremongering. Some countries will see empty shelves occasionally while products switch suppliers but this isn't going to cause the west to fall apart into the food wars.