“Due To A Poor Harvest Season, We Are Experiencing Shortages On Many Of Our Canned Vegetable Items”

July 16, 2019 by Michael Snyder



I know that this headline is alarming, but it is actually a direct quote from a notice that was recently posted in a Kroger supermarket. And as you will see below, similar notices are being posted in the canned vegetable sections of Wal-Mart stores nationwide. I would encourage you to examine the evidence in this article very carefully and to come to your own conclusions about what is happening. At this moment, social media is buzzing with reports of shortages of canned vegetables all around the country. But so far, the mainstream media is being eerily quiet about all of this. Is there a reason why they aren’t saying anything? For months, I have been reporting on the extremely bizarre weather patterns that are causing crop failures all over the planet. But I certainly did not expect that we would already begin to see product shortages on the shelves of major U.S. supermarkets this summer. What I am about to share with you is shocking, but the truth needs to get out. For those that share my articles on your own websites, I know that all of the images in this article are going to be an inconvenience, but it is imperative that you include them when you republish this article because they tell a story. All of the images are taken directly from Facebook, and they prove that we are now facing a nationwide shortage of canned vegetables.

So let’s get started.

This first image was posted on Facebook by Scott L. Biddle, and it shows a “product shortage” notice that was posted in the canned vegetable section of a Wal-Mart in Tennessee…



All the way over on the west coast, similar notices were photographed by Gina Helm Taylor in the state of Oregon on July 12th…



And here are a couple of notices that Daniel Moore was able to photograph during his lunch break at his local Wal-Mart…



It appears that the exact same notices were sent to Wal-Mart stores all across America. Here is another one from Carol Guy Hodges…



And lastly, here is a photo that was shared by Randy Sevy…



This certainly isn’t the end of the world, and we can definitely survive without canned vegetables for a few weeks.

But as crop failures around the globe continue to intensify, will shortages such as this start to become increasingly common?

Earlier today, I received a very detailed email from a reader that had some excellent intel about what was going on at his own local Wal-Mart. The following is an excerpt from what he sent to me…


This is alarming in and of itself, however, they are experiencing shortages across most product categories. The only information I could find online was pointing to a driver shortage. I noticed the shortage over the holiday weekend and returned this past weekend to take a closer look. There were problems with paper products, OTC medications, pickles (everyone wanted pickles?), lunch meats and hot dogs, vinegar, produce, alcohol, eggs, cereal, and feminine hygiene products. None of these items had signs like those posted in canned veggies, instead there were small tags placed over the original price tag the say “out of stock” in very small print.

While a driver shortage could cause issues, it’s a little odd to me that there are 12 packs of toilet paper and 6 packs of coke but no 24 packs of either. One of the items being restocked were more of the 12 packs of toilet paper. Does a driver shortage account for this? Another oddity is that one Walmart may have pickles but no tortillas while the exact opposite will be true for a different Walmart. The employees that would normally be stocking were instead counting products (manually) and pulling product to the front of the shelves. There was a six foot stretch of Cheerios along one shelf that was one box deep, hiding the empty shelves behind them.

One more item to note is that the first trip I made over the fourth of July weekend was to purchase canned corn. They had 9 cans of what I was looking for so I purchased them all. The following weekend they had restocked the same corn (there were 10 cans) but the price had increased almost 30%! The original purchase was for $1.44 while one week later the price had increased to $1.88.

Sadly, the economic law of supply and demand is going to continue to push prices higher.

And the tighter that food supplies become, the higher prices will go.

Since the mainstream media is being completely silent about this, many people on social media don’t have much information to go on. Speculation is rampant, and many are fearing the worst.

One Facebook user named Stephen Dubaniewicz believes that all of the product shortage notices at his local Wal-Mart could mean that a food shortage is on the way…



Hopefully we have some more time before things start getting really bad, but I would encourage you to use this time to get prepared while you still can.

For months, I have been documenting the problems that U.S. farmers have been experiencing due to all of the endless rain and flooding in the middle of the country.

But sometimes a picture is worth a thousands words, and this before and after photo from Nebraska speaks volumes…



We know that food production in the United States is going to be way below expectations this year.

And as I just showed you, it appears that a shortage of canned vegetables has already begun.

A full-blown crisis has not arrived yet, but perhaps one is a lot closer than many of us had anticipated.

This is a huge story, and I will continue to keep you updated.

That's a reason the wife and I are putting as much back and canning ourselves this year. So far we have canned over 60 quarts and 18 pints of Green Beans alone. Garden is still producing strong and it is only 50x50 feet big.

Folks need to find what they need now because the stuff to do it is getting hard to find and getting REAL expensive! For example flats have almost doubled in price from last year.

If you wait until the stores are empty before you plant a garden, you'll wait too long.

Onward and upward,
airforce

Local produce is terrible this year. Expensive and not worth eating. We had the wettest June on record. It's rained every day for a month and a half. Everything is water logged and rotting.

I was surprised that half my asparagus survived our deluge, and are actually thriving. I'll have a fair "second cut" which I use for trading with others. It won't be nearly as good as the harvest we usually have, but we won't be hurting - especially since most of us keep a years supply of produce on hand for emergencies.

Onward and upward,
airforce

I'm told there's a Rib Crib restaurant in Stillwater with a "We Finance" sign out front. The price of BBQ has skyrocketed.

Onward and upward,
airforce

There are thousands of acres of the Platte River in Nebraska that is not even planted this year due to 1-4’ of sand sitting atop the topsoil! The same is happening on the Missouri River, but they are still under water. A family that my brother knows said that the cost to reclaim the soil back to farmable condition is greater than the highly inflated land value.

I have a TINY garden (3 4x5’ beds) where I grow the few things my family uses the most. One of these is carrots. I have become an expert in growing them, and have even learned how to keep seed (which they produce the second year). If you know carrots, their seeds are tiny! I have about a quart of carrot seeds, plus that much more from this year’s harvest any day.

I have purchased one of those walk behind seeders with plates. Since I have a bulk of seed (which otherwise would be expensive) I will be planting a HUGE crop out at my family’s farm, and going out periodically to tend them.

Biggest need for most folks is Heirloom seeds that allow reproducing year after year. Unless you get Heirloom you will be buying 'Terminator Seeds'. These are under the control of the 6 companies that produce seeds and where you can't keep planting from the seeds you get from them as they are hybrids.

Next biggest need is a 7 quart pressure canner. Times were you could find one in EVERY complete kitchen. Today you are lucky is a yuppie millennial has a complete set of pots and pans. If you do find one at an estate or yard sale you can usually get its pressure gauge tested at your local county extension agents office either for free or a couple of dollars. They also do soil tests for folks so they can get their ground where it can grow things. Right now I am up to three pressure canners. One from the wife's Grandmother, one from my Mother, and the third I bought from an estate sale. This is probably the biggest expense folks will have.

I think the biggest expense is probably the jars. True, you only have to buy them once - but that one time is pretty painful.

A dehydrator is nice, but I found myself using ours less and less every year. I just haven't been able to keep dried foods as long as canned foods. I personally think dried foods taste better, but I doubt there's any difference in nutritional value between dried and canned.

Onward and upward,
airforce

Pressure canning is my next step. I’ve wanted to try canning deer this way. Going deer hunting this fall/winter for the first time. The old Lee Enfield is going to get some action with the scout scope all tuned up.

As for seeds, this week s a big thing for most “gardeners”, as these are becoming rarer these days. They know how to only grow tomatoes and peppers that they buy at the garden store already 1’ tall in pots. When I do run across these types, they are amazed at what I grow. If you keep seeds from most of the tomatoes and peppers you will not get true or even productive plants.

On the farms it is worse. Without access to internationally grown biotech seeds every spring 999.9 of a 100 farms would be put indefinitely out of commission growing only weeds. This is my greatest fear, is that the nation’s (and world’s) breadbasket is just one disrupted planting season away from famine.

I’ve often wondered about storing several 55 gallon barrels with CO2 full of open pollinated corn, wheat, oats, and several edible beans... out on the farm to be able to plant a crop. Beyond food value, this crop would be worth its weight I. Good as seed to farmers desperate to have a crop the second year. Such a growing gold mine would be well worth a local militia guarding.

Shock Survey: 12% Of U.S. Corn Farmers Didn’t Get Their Crops Planted, 48% Expect “Below-Average Yields This Harvest”
So now that crops are failing all over the planet, what are we going to do?


By Michael Snyder | End Of The American Dream Thursday, July 25, 2019

Crops all over America are failing, and the true extent of this crisis is starting to become clearer.

Months of endless rain and nightmarish flooding prevented many farmers in the middle of the country from getting their crops planted on time, and millions of acres didn’t get planted at all. And if all that wasn’t enough, this month record high temperatures have been absolutely brutal for vulnerable young crops across the Midwest. We shall see how the rest of the summer goes, but at this point it appears that yields are going to be way, way below expectations, and that has very serious implications for all of us.

I told my readers that I would stay on top of this story, and things have deteriorated substantially since the last time I wrote about this.

Earlier, I stumbled upon a brand new AGPRO survey of U.S. corn farmers that seems to indicate that things are worse than almost all of us thought. According to that survey, 12 percent of U.S. corn farmers didn’t plant crops at all this year, and 48 percent expect “below-average yields this harvest”…

Forty-eight percent of U.S. farmers say they expect their corn crop will deliver below-average yields this harvest, according to a Farm Journal Pulse survey conducted on Tuesday.

Of the 1,082 farmers who responded to the survey, 12% say they didn’t get their crop planted. Only 10% of farmers surveyed say their crop is above average this year.

In other words, corn farmers are telling us that they aren’t going to grow very much corn this year.


When the elite get their wish and crash the economy, their escape plan to hide in their bunkers will implode on themselves.

And the latest USDA crop progress report confirms that. In particular, the numbers coming from the Upper Midwest are absolutely disastrous…

Minnesota: 21% of corn had silked by July 21, compared with the five-year average of 56%; 57% was rated good or excellent, the rest fair to very poor.

North Dakota: 10% of corn had silked by July 21, compared with the five-year average of 32%; 77% was in good or excellent shape, the rest fair to very poor.

South Dakota: 9% of corn had silked by July 21, down from the five-year average of 50%; 58% was rated good or excellent, the rest fair to very poor.

You can look at the raw numbers for yourself right here. Nationally, 35 percent of corn had silked as of July 21, but on July 21 last year that number was sitting at 78 percent.

That is less than half.

Earlier this year, there were some that were criticizing me for sounding the alarm about crop failures, but after these numbers what is happening should be apparent to everyone.

And a similar pattern is happening with soybeans. Here are more numbers from the Upper Midwest…

Minnesota: 47% of soybeans had bloomed by July 21, compared with the five-year average of 70%; 60% was in good or excellent condition, the rest fair to very poor.

North Dakota: 49% of soybeans had bloomed by July 21, compared with the five-year average of 70%; 66% was in good or excellent shape, the rest fair to very poor.

South Dakota: 45% of beans had bloomed by July 21, compared with the five-year average of 65%; 47% was rated good or excellent, the rest fair to very poor.

Nationally, 40 percent of soybeans had bloomed as of July 21, but on July 21 last year that number was sitting at 76 percent.

That is just over half.

And just because crops are on schedule does not mean that they are in good condition.

According to one report, over 20 million corn and soybean acres are “in poor to very poor condition”…

More than 20 million U.S. corn and soybean acres remain in poor to very poor condition. Illinois leads with 4.2 million acres in poor or unfavorable condition. The news isn’t much better in Iowa where 2 million acres are also listed under similar conditions.

Let that sink in for a moment.

20 million acres.

And all of this is happening at a time when crops are failing all over the world due to nightmarish weather conditions. For much more on this, please see my previous article entitled “Look At This Map – It Shows Devastating Crop Losses Are Literally Happening All Over The Globe”.

For U.S. farmers, weather conditions at the end of the growing season are going to be critical. Many are hoping that warm weather will last as long as possible in order to allow their crops time to catch up and come to maturity.

But if an early hard frost comes along, that is going to be absolutely devastating.

In any event, it has become crystal clear that production is going to be way, way down this year. Of course we are all going to want the same amount of food to eat next year, and so that is going to put an enormous amount of stress on the system.

Any college course in economics will teach you that when demand remains the same and supply goes down, prices go up. In the short-term we should expect to see food prices steadily rise, and that trend should accelerate as this crisis intensifies. I would very much encourage you to get prepared while you still can.

Globally, we are in an even more precarious situation. More than 7.5 billion people currently live on our planet, and we really struggle to feed them all even during the best years.

So now that crops are failing all over the planet, what are we going to do?

I suspect that those at the bottom of the economic food chain will be hit the hardest. As food supplies get tighter, the wealthier countries will have the resources to secure what they need, and that will leave a whole lot of others to fend for themselves.

According to the World Bank, close to half the population of the planet currently lives on less than $5.50 a day. We are talking about billions of people, and they are simply not prepared to handle a radical shock to global food prices.

My brother said that the seed corn companies are HURTING for acres as their eastern plantings got destroyed or never planted.

They were going as far as paying farmers to destroy their planted and growing crops to plant their seeds for seed production... doubling or their acres of seed production in Nebraska.

This means that much less feed grain in the market here come fall.

Also there is going to be a BIG lack of corn to turn into blended gasoline and ethanol. So much for biofuel.

Due To The Weather, Midwest Farmers Fear Widespread Crop Failures And A “Record-Low” Harvest In 2019

October 15, 2019 by Michael Snyder


Snow usually blankets the Upper Midwest around the first week of November, and so that means that many farmers in the Midwest only have about two weeks to salvage what they can before everything is lost. The unprecedented October blizzard that we just witnessed dumped massive amounts of snow on millions upon millions of acres of crops from Colorado to Minnesota. Even if the weather is absolutely perfect between now and November 1st, farmers are still “expecting massive crop losses”. In fact, one South Dakota lawmaker told the press that the crop losses will be “as devastating as we’ve ever seen”. And as you will see below, even parts of the Midwest that didn’t get hammered by the recent blizzard are potentially facing “record-low” harvests this year. We have never seen a year this bad for Midwest farmers in modern American history, but if the weather does not cooperate things could rapidly get much, much worse over the next two weeks.

Because of all the rain and flooding earlier in the year, many Midwest farmers faced serious delays in getting their crops planted, and so they were counting on good weather at the end of the season so that their crops could fully mature. Unfortunately, that didn’t happen, and the recent Midwest blizzard was definitely a nightmare scenario…

Wall Street Journal writers Jacob Bunge and Kirk Maltais reported on Monday that, “Farmers who delayed planting in waterlogged fields this spring face a new threat as they race to harvest their crops: snow.

“Heavy snowfall and high winds over the past several days buffeted northern Farm Belt states where many farmers faced historic planting delays last spring. The early blizzard bookended a trying year for U.S. farmers. Crop prices generally remain under pressure because of high supplies and slackened demand as a result of the U.S.-China trade war. And many crops now threatened by a freeze are immature because they were planted so late.”

When the snow began blanketing the Dakotas, most of the corn was not even mature yet. The following numbers originally come from the Wall Street Journal…

The Journal writers explained that, “The cold weather is a big threat to vulnerable crops. Only 22% of corn in North Dakota was mature as of Oct. 7, and 36% in South Dakota. In the 18 biggest corn-producing states, 58% of this year’s crop was mature, versus an average of 85% by that date over the previous five years, according to the USDA.

Right now, there are millions upon millions of acres of crops that farmers cannot even get to because of all the snow.

If we do not get some warm weather over the next two weeks, they may not be able to salvage much at all, because winter weather season is rapidly approaching…

In normal years, winter weather hits much of the Upper Midwest portion of the Great Plains around the beginning of November, Isane said. After that, it is too late to bring in most crops.

That means, farmers have about two weeks to carry out their harvest — or lose it.

Essentially, we are potentially facing a crisis unlike anything we have ever seen before.

The next two weeks will determine whether many Midwest farmers make a paycheck for the year or not, and so at this point “the stress level is off the charts for these guys”…

“Nobody really knows what will happen because we don’t know what the weather will be,” said Luther Markwart, the executive vice president of the American Sugarbeet Growers Association. Most of the sugarbeets in the country are grown in the Great Plains area that was hit by last week’s blizzard.

“So, the stress level is off the charts for these guys,” Markwart said. “Just think if your entire year’s paycheck was made in the next two weeks — or not.”

The Wall Street Journal and a few other mainstream news outlets are reporting on this, but most mainstream news sources are so obsessed with reporting on President Trump 24 hours a day that they are completely missing this story so far.

And even without the recent blizzard we were still facing very serious crop failures across the Midwest. Most parts of Michigan didn’t really get hammered by the recent blizzard, but it is being reported that farmers in Michigan “could see record-lows in their crops in 2019″…

Michigan farmers could see record-lows in their crops in 2019, according to the latest U.S. Department of Agriculture October Crop Production Report.

According to the USDA’s National Ag Statistics Service (NASS), Michigan farmers will be bracing for a rough harvest due to extremely variable crop conditions, wide-ranging stages of crop maturity and muddy fields.

A lot of people don’t seem to understand that if farmers don’t grow our food, we don’t get to eat.

So is anyone out there willing to dramatically reduce the amount of food that they will eat in 2020 so that everyone else will have enough?

Because what we are facing is not pretty. According to the report that I just quoted, soybean production in Michigan this year will be down 31 percent…

The soybean production in Michigan was projected at 75.7 million bushels, a 31% decrease from last year and the lowest since 2008.

And actually the numbers in the Dakotas will be far, far worse than that if farmers are not able to get out into their fields over the next two weeks.

Meanwhile, the African Swine Fever crisis over in China continues to escalate. The following very alarming information comes to us from Zero Hedge…

In a report on Monday, we detailed how pork spot prices have soared across China as the African Swine Fever has killed 50% of the country’s hog population. The price increase (as ‘pig ebola’ spreads) has already pushed up consumer inflation to a six-year high. Now analysts are telling Reuters on Tuesday that pork prices are expected to move significantly higher through year-end.

New data published Monday from the Ministry of Agriculture of the People’s Republic of China showed the pig-apocalypse continues to get worse.

Retail pork prices in the country have jumped 84% from last year to $2.78 a pound.

Needless to say, this crisis is pushing up pork prices all over the globe, and what we have witnessed so far is just the beginning.

We are entering a season of time that will be unlike anything we have ever seen before. Here in the United States, it has always been safe to assume that our supermarkets will always be teeming with plenty of inexpensive food, but now a major shift is happening.

Everyone acknowledges that food prices are going to go up. The real debate is about how high they will ultimately go.

The next two weeks are absolutely critical. It is “make or break time” for many Midwest farmers, and they are itching to get out into their fields.

So let us hope that the weather cooperates, because we essentially need a miracle at this point.

A terrible pandemic is killing pigs, and it may be coming here. I wish we had a Strategic Bacon Reserve.



Onward and upward,
airforce

Time for those who can, to start raising their own. Feed em local corn and stay away from imported feed.

Bacon is easy to can....lots of youtube vids on how to do it...

Sausage is good too.

Canning fatty foods is pretty easy, but I just have a personal thing against it. My mom, my grandmother, and my great grandmother would never can meat at all, because they felt it was somehow dangerous, and I guess that just sort of rubbed off on me. I've dehydrated lots of meat, but it's not something you can do with fatty meats.

Years ago, i did a thread on making pemmican, but I can't find it now. When I get time, I'll do another topic on it.

Onward and upward,
airforce

I’ve seen directions on how to PRESSURE can deer... looks like a good way to save some meat that won’t all go bad as soon as the power goes out. Some people will put onions , garlic, carrots and the like in with it so you have a ready to make stew/soup, casserole of what ever sorts you want to make. It would make meal prep a breeze for every day cooking, and would be amazing efficient post-SHTF. Would also be s good way to preserve part of the vegetable harvest as well.

Now I just need one of those critters to be within range of me with the Lee Enfield in deer season!

Good Hunting!

You thought I ws joking about the Strategic bacon Reserve, didn't you?



Onward and upward,
airforce

Record Low Temps Up To 50 Degrees Below Normal Threaten To Absolutely Wreck The Rest Of The Harvest Season

Despite all of our advanced technology, farmers are still deeply dependent on good weather, and if farmers do not grow our food we do not eat

By Michael Snyder | End Of The American Dream Thursday, October 31, 2019

It isn’t supposed to be this cold in October.

The official start of winter is still almost two months away, and yet the weather in much of the western half of the country right now resembles what we might expect in mid-January. All-time record lows for the month of October are being set in city after city, and this extremely cold air is going to push into the Midwest by the end of the week. Temperatures in the heartland will be up to 50 degrees below normal, and unfortunately about half of all corn still has not been harvested. Due to unprecedented rainfall and extreme flooding early in the year, many farmers faced extraordinary delays in getting their crops planted, and so they were hoping that good weather at the end of the season would provide time for the crops to fully mature and be harvested. Unfortunately, a nightmare scenario has materialized instead. A couple of monster snow storms have already roared through the Midwest, and now record low temperatures threaten to absolutely wreck the rest of the harvest season.

When temperatures get significantly below zero for more than a few hours, scientists tell us that it will kill standing corn…

A significant freeze (28°F or colder for a few hours) will kill the whole plant, and any frost will act to defoliate plants, resulting in diminished grain filling for the seeds, especially on the upper half of the plants.

And right now we are facing a crisis because less than half of all U.S. corn has been harvested.

In fact, according to the latest USDA Crop Progress Report just 41 percent of all U.S. corn has been harvested so far…

In its weekly Crop Progress Report, the USDA pegged the U.S. corn harvest at 41% complete, below the trade’s expectation of 48% and below a five-year average 61%.

Minnesota is behind the most regarding picking corn: 22% vs. a 56% five-year average.

So when I used the term “nightmare scenario” earlier, I was not exaggerating.

The low temperatures that we have seen this week are hard to believe. According to USA Today, the temperature in one community in Utah actually hit 45 degrees below zero on Wednesday…

Subzero cold was recorded as far south as the Grand Canyon on Wednesday morning, the Weather Channel said. Big Piney, Wyoming, plunged to minus 24 degrees before sunrise Wednesday.

Notorious cold spot Peter Sinks, Utah, dipped to an incredible minus 45 degrees early Wednesday. This appeared to be the coldest October temperature on record anywhere in the Lower 48 states, according to Utah-based meteorologist Timothy Wright.

That is seriously cold.

And we have also seen many other all-time October lows in cities all across the western half of the country…

-Bozeman, Montana: minus 14 degrees (Oct. 29 and 30)

-Casper, Wyoming: minus 8 degrees (Oct. 29 and 30)

-Grand Junction, Colorado: 12 degrees (Oct. 30)

-Livingston, Montana: minus 12 degrees (Oct. 29)

-Rawlins, Wyoming: minus 20 degrees (Oct. 30)

-Rock Springs, Wyoming: minus 6 degrees (Oct. 30)

-Salt Lake City: 14 degrees (Oct. 30)

We have never seen anything like this during the month of October ever before.

In Denver, they have actually set record lows for three days in a row…

The temperature in Denver officially dropped to 3 degrees above zero early Wednesday morning. It was cold enough to shatter the previous record low for October 30 by 4 degrees. It was our third record temperature in 3 days and one more record is expected Thursday morning.

It is strange that so much of the nation is experiencing such bitterly cold weather while much of California is being burned to a crisp by horrific wildfires.

But this continues a theme that we have been tracking all year. Everywhere we look there have been bizarre weather extremes, and many expect that to continue into the winter season.

This week, even “warm weather cities” are experiencing extremely cold temperatures. For example, the forecast called for a record low of just 19 degrees in Albuquerque, New Mexico on Thursday morning…

Thursday morning in Albuquerque is expected to have a record low temperature of 19 degrees. It will feel like 11 degrees with the wind chill. The current record low for Oct. 31 in the city is 21.

According to the National Weather Service, locations from Albuquerque southward, including east central and southeast New Mexico, “have not seen temperatures this cold since February.”

But the real damage will be done as this extraordinarily cold air moves into the Midwest. According to USA Today, we could see temperatures “30 to 50 degrees below normal” in the central plains…

High temperatures Wednesday were forecast to be 30 to 50 degrees below normal across Colorado, Texas and the central Plains, according to meteorologist Ryan Maue of BAM Weather.

Right now, much of the Midwest is currently covered by snow. This has prevented a lot of farmers from being able to harvest their crops, and now devastatingly cold air is moving in.

It is likely that the crop losses in many areas will be severe. And considering what is going on elsewhere in the world right now, this is something that we cannot afford.

Despite all of our advanced technology, farmers are still deeply dependent on good weather, and if farmers do not grow our food we do not eat.

This was already going to be an absolutely abysmal year for U.S. agriculture, and now this snap of record cold weather is going to be the nail in the coffin for many U.S. farmers.

Without a doubt, this is an incredibly important story, and I will continue to keep you updated as I learn more.

1/4 of all pigs could die of swine fever.



Onward and upward,
airforce

Global Crop Failures Continue: In Australia This Is Going To Be The WORST HARVEST Ever Recorded

February 19, 2020 by Michael Snyder


Global food production is being hit from seemingly every side. Thanks to absolutely crazy weather patterns, giant locust armies in Africa and the Middle East, and an unprecedented outbreak of African Swine Fever in China, a lot less food is being produced around the world than originally anticipated. Even during the best of years we really struggle to feed everyone on the planet, and so a lot of people are wondering what is going to happen as global food supplies become tighter and tighter. The mainstream media in the United States is so obsessed with politics right now that they haven’t been paying much attention to this emerging crisis, but the truth is that this growing nightmare is only going to intensify in the months ahead.

In Australia, conditions have been extremely hot and extremely dry, and that helped to fuel the horrific wildfires that we recently witnessed.

And everyone knew that agricultural production in Australia was going to be disappointing this year, but it turns out that it is actually going to be the worst ever recorded…

Australia’s hottest and driest year on record has slashed crop production, with summer output expected to fall to the lowest levels on record, according to official projections released Tuesday.

The country’s agriculture department said it expects production of crops like sorghum, cotton and rice to fall 66 percent — the lowest levels since records began in 1980-81.

The continent of Australia is considered to be one of the breadbaskets of the world. According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, in 2018/19 Australia exported over 9 million tons of wheat to the rest of the world.

But thanks to relentless crop failures, Australia has started to import wheat, and that is likely to continue for the foreseeable future.

So instead of helping to feed the rest of the world, Australia is now relying on the rest of us to help feed them.

And what is happening this year didn’t just barely break the old records. In fact, one senior economist says that this will be the worst summer crop production the country has ever seen “by a large margin”…

“It is the lowest summer crop production in this period by a large margin,” Peter Collins, a senior economist with the department’s statistical body ABARES told AFP.

Of course if the rest of the world was doing great we could certainly survive a downturn in Australia.

Unfortunately, that is definitely not the case.

Right now, billions upon billions of locusts are voraciously devouring farms in eastern Africa and the Middle East. As I detailed the other day, giant armies of locusts the size of large cities are traveling up to 100 miles per day as they search for food. When they descend on a farm, all the crops can be consumed literally within 30 seconds. It is a nightmare of epic proportions, and UN officials are telling us that this crisis is only going to get worse over the next couple of months.

In Uganda, the army has been called out to help fight this locust plague, but it is making very little difference…

Under a warm morning sun scores of weary soldiers stare as millions of yellow locusts rise into the northern Ugandan sky, despite hours spent spraying vegetation with chemicals in an attempt to kill them.

From the tops of shea trees, fields of pea plants and tall grass savanna, the insects rise in a hypnotic murmuration, disappearing quickly to wreak devastation elsewhere.

The most effective way of fighting these locust swarms is to spray insecticide on them from the air, but even that only produces very limited results.

However, at least it is better than doing nothing.

The UN is trying to raise a lot more money to get more planes into the air, because if nothing is done the number of locusts “could grow up to 500 times by June”…

The U.N. has said $76 million is needed immediately. On Tuesday, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo during a visit to Ethiopia said the U.S. would donate another $8 million to the effort. That follows an earlier $800,000.

The number of overall locusts could grow up to 500 times by June, when drier weather begins, experts have said. Until then, the fear is that more rains in the coming weeks will bring fresh vegetation to feed a new generation of the voracious insects.

Overall, these locusts are affecting nations “with a combined population of nearly 2 billion”, and the amount of food that these locusts are destroying is unprecedented.

Meanwhile, China has been dealing with the worst outbreak of African Swine Fever in history.

African Swine Fever does not affect humans, but it sweeps through herds of pigs like wildfire. There is no vaccine, there is no cure, and once African Swine Fever starts infecting pigs in a certain area the only thing that can be done is to kill the rest of the pigs to keep it from spreading anywhere else.

Unfortunately, China has not been able to get this outbreak under control, and the losses have been staggering.

According to the New York Times, the number of pigs that have been wiped out in China already is equivalent to “nearly one-quarter of all the world’s pigs”…

The disease was first reported in Shenyang, Liaoning Province, in early August 2018. By the end of August 2019, the entire pig population of China had dropped by about 40 percent. China accounted for more than half of the global pig population in 2018, and the epidemic there alone has killed nearly one-quarter of all the world’s pigs.

But of course China is not the only one dealing with African Swine Fever.

In fact, cases of African Swine Fever have now been identified “in 50 countries”, and U.S. pig farmers are deathly afraid of what would happen if this disease starts spreading here.

As a result of this crisis, pork prices in China have gone through the roof, and many families are no longer able to eat pork at all.

Never before in the modern era have we seen so many major threats to global food production emerge simultaneously.

There are more than 7 billion people living on our planet today, and we need to be able to grow enough food to feed everyone.

If we aren’t able to do that, food prices will start to get really high, and people in the poorest areas simply will not have enough food to feed their families.

From Michael Snyder there’s another tertiary effect of the Chinese Virus on the world- our food supply. Pointing out the fragility of our just-in-time supply system, Snyder correctly predicts that the global prices on food will increase amid the economic recession caused by a global economic shutdown. What is going to happen when the canneries and packing plants are closed?

This reality coupled with the fact that much of the US’ farms are heavily financed and live on floating debt doesn’t help matters. The economic woes will be felt for some time:

Meanwhile, our farmers are facing severe problems of their own. The following comes from CNBC…

The U.S.-China trade war sent scores of farmers out of business. Record flooding inundated farmland and destroyed harvests. And a blistering heat wave stunted crop growth in the Midwest.

Now, the coronavirus pandemic has dealt another blow to a vulnerable farm economy, sending crop and livestock prices tumbling and raising concerns about sudden labor shortages.

The chaos in the financial markets is likely to continue for the foreseeable future, and it is going to remain difficult for farm laborers to move around as long as “shelter-in-place” orders remain in effect on the state level.

Iowa farmer Robb Ewoldt told reporter Emma Newburger that “we’ve stopped saying it can’t get worse”, and he says that this coronavirus pandemic looks like it could be “the straw that broke the camel’s back”…

I can personally attest to the fact that nearly all in the commercial farming industry have been financing farm implements the same way the automotive industry does- with payment and interest rates being roughly the same. And while we can say that the economy will come ‘roaring back’ as some conservative pundits put it, the reality is that an already overstrained economic underpinning of commercial agriculture could very well cause long term shortages of staple crops.

Governments of other nations are paying attention to this metric as well- leading the UN to make statements warning of the potential. This is all the more reason to seek self sufficiency in all areas and top among them, the ability to grow your own food.

"We Can't Give Our Product Away" - Farmers Toss Thousands Of Acres Of Fruits, Veggies As Sales Plummet

by Tyler Durden
Thu, 04/09/2020

As some misguided liberals complain about fruits "left rotting on the trees" because Trump's immigration crackdown has left no undocumented migrants to pick the vegetables (a demonstrably false assumption), the Associated Press has offered an explanation for this phenomenon that also illustrates how disruptions in the businesses like the hospitality and food-service industry work their way through the supply chain, ultimately sticking farmers in the American Farm Belt with fields of vegetables that they can't sell, or even donate as local food pantries are now full-up with donations from restaurants.

The AP started its story in Palmetto, Fla. a city in Manatee County on the Gulf Coast, where a farmer had dumped piles of zucchini and other fresh vegetables to rot.

As the AP reported, thousands of acres of fruits and vegetables grown in Florida are being plowed over or left to rot because farmers who had grown the crops to sell to restaurants or other hospitality-industry buyers like theme parks and schools have been left on the hook for the crops.

As the economy shuts down across the country, injecting what the Fed described as massive levels of uncertainty, farmers in the state are now begging Ag Secretary Sonny Purdue to get some of that farm bailout money. Without some kind of industry-specific bailout, these farmers might go out of business.

The problem - in a nutshell - is that these farmers have longstanding sales relationships, but suddenly, those customers have disappeared. And many other companies in the US that are still buying produce already have contracts with foreign suppliers.

It would be great if Trump could come in with agricultural tariffs that would effectively cut off foreign competition, but such a move would likely be widely panned by the establishment, who would sooner watch every small farmer commit hari-kari than see continued pullback in globalization and more limits on free trade.

“We gave 400,000 pounds of tomatoes to our local food banks,” DiMare said. “A million more pounds will have to be donated if we can get the food banks to take it."

Farmers are scrambling to sell to grocery stores, but it’s not easy. Large chains already have contracts with farmers who grow for retail — many from outside the U.S.

“We can’t even give our product away, and we’re allowing imports to come in here,” DiMare said.

He said 80 percent of the tomatoes grown in Florida are meant for now-shuttered restaurants and theme parks.

And the problem isn't unique to farmers in Florida. Other states are having similar issues. Agricultural officials said leafy greens grown in California have no buyers, and dairy farmers in states like Vermont have been hit especially hard. Dairy farmers in VT and Wisconsin told the AP they've had to dump surplus loads of milk.

An association for farmers in Florida asked the administration if their veggies could be donated to food-stamp or other federal welfare programs, but reportedly, they never heard back.

Among states that harvest in the winter, California has a lot of leafy green veggies that are about to come out of the ground.

"The tail end of the winter vegetable season in Yuma, Arizona, was devastating for farmers who rely on food service buyers," said Cory Lunde, spokesman for Western Growers, a group representing family farmers in California, Arizona, Colorado and New Mexico. “And now, as the production shifts back to Salinas, California, there are many farmers who have crops in the ground that will be left unharvested,” particularly leafy greens.

He said a spike in demand for produce at the beginning of the outbreak has now subsided.

"People are staying home and not visiting the grocery stores as often," Lunde said. "So the dominoes are continuing to fall."

Some farmers have experimented with selling crops directly to customers, with one Florida farmer in Palmetto selling boxes of roma tomatoes for just $5 a box, an amazing bargain in a time of tremendous need. But the sales are well short of what he needs and likely won't do more than put a dent in his losses. But at least it's something.

"This is a catastrophe," said tomato grower Tony DiMare, who owns farms in south Florida and the Tampa Bay area. "We haven’t even started to calculate it. It’s going to be in the millions of dollars. Losses mount every day."

Florida leads the US in harvesting tomatoes, green beans and cabbage. Can you imagine what life would be like if tomatoes and tomato sauce prices soared because all of these medium-sized and small farmers around the country have gone out of business? Or if you walked into the grocery store a year from now and there simply weren't any tomatoes.

It could happen much more easily than you might believe - that is, if not enough is done.

GOP Rep. Massie Warns USA Weeks Away From Food Shortages
'You have people running the government that have no clue about how the economy works and how their food gets to the table'


By Kelen McBreen | INFOWARS.COM Monday, April 13, 2020

Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) is warning Americans that a very serious food shortage could hit the country within weeks, not months.

Massie released a tweet on Monday linking to an interview he did with the Tom Roten Morning Show.

“We are weeks, not months, away from farmers euthanizing animals that would have been sold for meat/food,” he wrote. “Also, fruits and vegetables are going to rot in the fields. A drastic change in policy this week could ameliorate this inevitability.”

Listen to the interview by clicking the link below:

We are weeks, not months, away from farmers euthanizing animals that would have been sold for meat/food. Also, fruits and vegetables are going to rot in the fields. A drastic change in policy this week could ameliorate this inevitability.

Listen here:https://t.co/bCzTX763r1

— Thomas Massie (@RepThomasMassie) April 13, 2020

“You have people running the government that have no clue about how the economy works and how their food gets to the table,” Massie said to kick the interview off.

“The shocking thing is that farmers are watching the value of their hogs and steers, cows, go down. In fact, they’re going to some of the lowest levels ever,” he continued. “So the question is: Why is the price of meat going up in the supermarkets and the price of cattle going down at the auction ring? It’s because our supply line is brittle.”

Explaining why the supply line is so fragile, Massie said, “You have to take cattle, steer, beef, whatever, hogs, to a processing plant. And these processing plants, like much of industrial America right now, are shutting down because of absentees, which has been exacerbated by the unemployment program the federal government has instituted — plus the $1,200 checks that are about to hit, plus some of the regulations that the states have put in place.”

At least six giant meat processing plants around the country have shut down and many others could do the same in the near future.

Predicting what the next step might be for farmers, Massie warned, “I’m afraid you’re going to see … cattle and hogs being euthanized or incinerated and buried while we have shortages at the supermarket. And you talk about civil unrest when you start seeing that. And it’s all because of the brittle food supply chain.”

The Kentucky Republican has introduced a bill called the PRIME Act to try and help meat packers sell individual cuts of meat instead of only being allowed to sell a quarter or half a cow.

The GOP Rep. made an appearance on Glenn Beck on Friday to discuss food shortages, the latest relief bill working its way through Congress and much more.

https://youtu.be/qk1X0c02MJg

Meat processing plants are shutting down. Meat production is down about 25%, but hamburger is selling well.



With any luck, they'll have a sale on short loin. But I'm not counting on it.

Onward and upward,
airforce

One of America's largest meat producers has ominous warning about the grocery store supply

'...severe, perhaps disastrous, repercussions'

Chris Enloe

Smithfield Foods, one of the nation's largest meat producers, has an ominous warning about America's food supply.

The company announced on Sunday that it was closing its Sioux Falls, South Dakota, plant after nearly 300 employees there tested positive for coronavirus, the Associated Press reported. The plant is one of the largest pork processing centers in America, and is responsible for producing 18 million servings of food per day.

In a statement, Smithfield President and CEO Kenneth Sullivan said the COVID-19 outbreak is having disastrous impacts on the U.S. food supply chain.

"The closure of this facility, combined with a growing list of other protein plants that have shuttered across our industry, is pushing our country perilously close to the edge in terms of our meat supply," Sullivan warned.

"It is impossible to keep our grocery stores stocked if our plants are not running. These facility closures will also have severe, perhaps disastrous, repercussions for many in the supply chain, first and foremost our nation's livestock farmers," he explained.

More from the AP:

Other meat processing plants have also closed temporarily because of outbreaks of the coronavirus, including a Tyson Foods facility in Columbus Junction, Iowa, where more than two dozen employees tested positive.
...
Smithfield said there will be some activity at the plant on Tuesday to process product that's already in inventory. It will resume operations in Sioux Falls after receiving further directions from local, state and federal officials. The company said it will continue to pay its workers for the next two weeks.

The closure of Smithfield's plant and other food processing centers is strictly to protect the health of workers.

The Department of Agriculture has said there is no evidence that COVID-19 has been transmitted through food or its packing, the AP reported.

Smithfield Foods is owned by the Chinese-based WH Group. The company, which is known as Shineway Group outside of Asia, bought Smithfield Foods in 2013. WH Group is the largest pork producer in the world.

People won't buy steaks when they are out of work. That's OK the food processors can grind the over priced steaks they can't sell into hamburger. A lot of people are eating rice and beans now instead of meat.

Monday morning one of the bulls is headed for the slaughter house. He's going to look good sitting in my freezer.

When I was a kid, one of our staple dinners was red beans and ham hocks. I don't think my grand kids would know what a ham hock is unless they looked it up on the internet.

Onward and upward,
airforce

The coronavirus could fundamentally change America's food supply.




Onward and upward,
airforce

You are watching a movie. May the patriots win.

Here's another reason for the food shortage - and it's probably one you didn't expect. You know all that food that's labeled for restaurant use, that restaurants can't use because they can't open? Well, they can't sell it to consumers like you and me either - because the federal regulations on labeling food are different for restaurants. Yes, it's the same food you buy in grocery stores. But the labels are different. Seriously.

You can't make this stuff up.

Onward and upward,
airforce

The UN Is Now Admitting That This Coronavirus Pandemic Could Spark Famines Of “Biblical Proportions”

April 21, 2020 by Michael Snyder


What the head of the UN’s World Food Program just said should be making front page headlines all over the globe. Because if what he is claiming is true, we are about to see global food shortages on a scale that is absolutely unprecedented in modern history. Even before COVID-19 arrived, armies of locusts the size of major cities were voraciously eating crops all across Africa, the Middle East and parts of Asia, and UN officials were loudly warning about what that would mean for global food production. And now the coronavirus shutdowns that have been implemented all over the planet have brought global trade to a standstill, they are making it more difficult to maintain normal food production operations, and they have forced countless workers to stay home and not earn a living. All of this adds up to a recipe for a complete and utter nightmare in the months ahead.

David Beasley is the head of the UN’s World Food Program, and on Tuesday he warned that we could actually see famines of “biblical proportions” by the end of this calendar year. The following comes from ABC News…

The coronavirus pandemic could soon double hunger, causing famines of “biblical proportions” around the world by the end of the year, the head of the World Food Programme, David Beasley, told the U.N. Security Council on Tuesday.

Beasley warned that analysis from the World Food Programme, the U.N.’s food-assistance branch, shows that because of the coronavirus, “an additional 130 million people could be pushed to the brink of starvation by the end of 2020. That’s a total of 265 million people.”

He described what we are facing as “a hunger pandemic”, and he insisted that urgent action must be taken in order to avoid a nightmare scenario.

But in some parts of the globe a nightmare scenario is already unfolding. For example, close to half the population of South Sudan is currently facing starvation, and for many of them the only food that is available is what gets dropped from the sky…

The villagers hear the distant roar of jet engines before a cargo plane makes a deafening pass over Mogok, dropping sacks of grain from its hold to the marooned dust bowl below.

There is no other way to get food to this starving hamlet in South Sudan. There are no roads, and the snaking Nile is miles away.

Over in South Africa, the “chronic food shortages” have already become so severe that they are starting to spark rioting, looting and civil unrest…

UNREST broke out in parts of South Africa amid chronic food shortages sparked by the coronavirus pandemic.

Looters raided shops, attacked each other, the army and police after breaching one of the strictest lockdowns in the world.

Police fired rubber bullets and teargas to disperse the mobs but local community leaders fear more outbreaks of violence are imminent.

Here in the western world we don’t have to worry about such things yet, but without a doubt the number of needy people is rapidly rising.

This past Saturday, vehicles literally began lining up at 2 AM in the morning for a food distribution event at the San Antonio Food Bank…

The San Antonio Food Bank teamed up with Atascosa County to feed meals and hope to hundreds of people Saturday morning. Vehicles began to line up around 2 AM Saturday outside the county courthouse, winding through neighborhoods at least two miles away.

I have never heard of people lining up so early before.

I have heard of vehicles lining up at the crack of dawn around the country in recent days, but 2 AM is absolutely nuts.

But these people realize that when the food is gone there will be no more handouts that day, and there are many that are absolutely desperate to get something to feed their families.

As this coronavirus pandemic has created an enormous amount of fear all over the country, empty shelves have been reported in frozen food sections all over the nation, and the fact that an increasing number of meat processing plants are being temporarily closed down is certainly not helping things. According to CBS News, at least 17 meat processing plants in the United States have been shut down so far…

Coronavirus infections in at least 17 meat processing plants across nine states are contributing to a spike in confirmed cases in the Midwest. Although 13 plants are already closed temporarily or operating at reduced capacity, Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds says shutting down plants would hurt farmers and the national food supply.

In a desperate attempt to keep as many facilities in her state open as possible, Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds has enlisted the help of the National Guard…

Hundreds of National Guard personnel are being activated in Iowa as coronavirus sweeps through meat-processing plants in a state that accounts for about a third of U.S. pork supply.

Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds said 250 National Guard members have been moved to full-time federal duty status and could help with testing and contact tracing for workers at plants operated by Tyson Foods Inc. and National Beef Packing Co.

The good news is that authorities are telling us that any product shortages should just be temporary and that all of these processing plants will eventually be brought back on line.

But for the planet as a whole, life is not going to be getting back to “normal” any time soon.

In fact, Takeshi Kasai of the World Health Organization is warning that we need to accept “a new way of living” until a vaccine finally arrives…

“At least until a vaccine, or a very effective treatment, is found, this process will need to become our new normal,” he said.

“Individuals and society need to be ready for a new way of living.”

But now that scientists have discovered approximately 30 different strains of this virus, that is going to greatly complicate matters.

Coming up with a successful vaccine for any coronavirus would be a historic feat, and now scientists also have to hope that they will pick the particular strain of COVID-19 that will become dominant in the future.

And of course many people around the globe will not want to take any vaccine that is developed under any circumstances.

So those that are thinking that there will be an easy way out of this crisis are likely to be deeply disappointed.

Meanwhile, the global economic downturn is getting deeper with each passing day, and global food supplies are getting tighter and tighter.

A global famine is coming, and the UN is sounding the alarm.

Unfortunately, most people in the western world are still not listening.

It seems to me this would be a good time to pass the PRIME Act, H.R. 2859. Let local cattle farmers meet local demand,

Here is the text of the bill.

Onward and upward,
airforce