Peak Oil News and Message Boards

Newfie wrote:

kiwichick wrote:i'd bet that any country with a reasonably competent government will try to ensure the essential services are maintained; including the system that provides food for their citizens

Well then the U.S. is stuffed!

I know its half in jest, but that's not really fair. Our system of insuring that crops make it from field to grocery store is quite effective. There are both direct farm supports, production management, and the SNAP card to keep the demand side alive in any economic situation. The amounts are relatively easy for congress to adjust should the need arise, and congress has proven that when the bankers come to them and say, "this is an emergency, you need to act NOW," they act immediately.

We learned how to do this in the previous iteration when the government tried its hand at buying and distributing/destroying. They were horrible at it. SNAP card accomplishes the objective, is easy to manage, and is easy to adjust to conditions as they arise.

If famine does become more global... we will be a very lucky people living here, with this system.

Not.

No Room in U.S. Grain Silos Means Dumping Wheat in Parking Lots

[...]

While farmers expanded storage in recent years, that’s been undermined by global crop surpluses and a strong dollar. Once the world’s biggest wheat exporter, the U.S. saw its shipments in the year through Tuesday drop to the lowest since 1972. With inventories up 30 percent and expected to swell further, the price outlook is getting more bearish. Chicago futures tumbled for three straight years, and in February touched the lowest level since 2010.

The glut may only get bigger. Global supply, including production and inventories, will exceed consumption by the most ever in the year that ends in June 2017, with the harvest expected to be the second-highest on record, the International Grains Council said May 26.

[...]

Good news, as an old farmer friend of mine once said "but it puts a strain on the soil!"

We'll just have to hope that common sense prevails and they don't starve the agricultural sector of investment in the next couple of years, otherwise we'll have shortages in three years!

Like what is about to happen in the oil industry.

On ground fumigated & tarped storage isn't dumping. 90% of Aistralia's wheat harvest spends from a few days to a year in such set ups every year.

SeaGypsy wrote:On ground fumigated & tarped storage isn't dumping. 90% of Aistralia's wheat harvest spends from a few days to a year in such set ups every year.

Exactly, short term storage while it is waiting to be processed or moved into long-term storage.

If you read the Ag departments world grain summary it all looks good on a worldwide basis this year. Everything is up without any offsets in other grains. That is a good thing considering that there are 80 million new people to feed and another 80 million expected each year. Change those two and three percent crop increases into five to ten percent decreases due to drought or diseases and the situation could turn around in any year.

"and another 80 million expected each year"

That is actually expected to drop to 50 million because of increased death rates due to an older global population over the next couple decades (and that's without the massive dieoffs we have been expecting here).

I was surprised to notice that we're almost up to seven and a half billion already! It seems like not that long ago that we crossed, the seven billion mark.

The FAO Food Price Index is lower than it's been in the last few years, but it's actually on the rise and looks likely to exceed 2015 prices within the next few months. (And of course it's far above where it was at the beginning of the century.) http://www.fao.org/worldfoodsituation/f ... sindex/en/

dohboi wrote:"and another 80 million expected each year"

That is actually expected to drop to 50 million because of increased death rates due to an older global population over the next couple decades (and that's without the massive dieoffs we have been expecting here).

I was surprised to notice that we're almost up to seven and a half billion already! It seems like not that long ago that we crossed, the seven billion mark.

The FAO Food Price Index is lower than it's been in the last few years, but it's actually on the rise and looks likely to exceed 2015 prices within the next few months. (And of course it's far above where it was at the beginning of the century.) http://www.fao.org/worldfoodsituation/f ... sindex/en/

It is tapering off(The rate of increase) but even if it drops to 50MPY in 2046 you get an average of 65MPY for a total of 1.3 billion added on to the present 7.5!
Looking at it another way that 80 million need the equivalent of 14 bushels of wheat each to survive. or 1120 million bushels per year. Our center of wheat production is Kansas. They harvest on average 350 million bushels per year in Kansas. So we need three new Kansas-es this year and by 2046 will need 52 more Kansas-es or 9 more of the USA's entire wheat belt. (@2 Billion bushels per year currently).

Good points.

Meanwhile, locusts are eating up the Russian wheat crop: https://robertscribbler.com/2016/06/02/ ... in-russia/

While it is unlikely that anyone in a grain growing country will have trouble buying bread this year, it's important to remember that a large part of humanity's strategy on this involves simple luck. We are rolling the dice that these types of misfortunes will never happen to all the large grain growing regions in the same year. Problem of course, is that climate-zone wise, there really aren't a large enough number of these regions to make such an assertion a guarantee. Its not all that hard to roll snake-eyes, when you do it year, after year, after year.

Problem is, of course, that the stake on the table... is the starvation of billions of ruthless, cruel, territorial, medium weight predators.

Which is honestly, why the grain production side of climate change is really the only factor of climate change that touches even a hint of dread in my mind. The rest are "meh, carry on, keep breathing, play the cards as they are dealt.."

Good points, A. All other crises will continue to be local and regional for a while. But if just two or three of the major wheat producing regions in the world were hit at the same time with major weather/climate catastrophes, we'd be in major trouble right away.

(And ignore the troll--we've already been over that soggy ground many times.)

pstarr wrote:Sad to be you

Why? I enjoy being me just fine.

No need to dismiss; accept and embrace work better.

@ pstarr....sorry dude it's already happening.....we are in the middle of the 6th great extinction event ....and we are the cause of it

@ ps.......are you living under a rock?


http://www.biologicaldiversity.org/prog ... on_crisis/