I’ve posted warnings from Michael Yon in these pages over the past few months, warning of what he terms PANFAWAR (Pandemic, Famine, War) and its consequences. More and more knowledgeable people are picking up on the same clues he’s seeing, and coming to agree with him. Most recently, he stated flatly:
Famines always create enormous HOP: Human Osmotic Pressure.
OGUS — Occupation Government United States — is down here in Panama increasing the migration flow to the United States. As the other continents go into famine, millions of people will dump through this artery to America. During famine. This is an act of war by OGUS.
There’s more at the link.
I’ve seen what Yon calls “Human Osmotic Pressure” in action in the Third World, and I agree with him: it’s an inevitable consequence of societal disruption, whatever the cause. It’s already happening in the Horn of Africa, and spreading from there to central Africa, as a drought-caused famine dries up local food supplies. The loss of Ukrainian and Russian grain means those dried-up supplies are suddenly far more difficult (and expensive) to replace – impossibly so, for poorer countries.
Now politicians in Europe are beginning to sit up and take notice. For example:
Italian League party leader Matteo Salvini has warned that if the war in Ukraine does not end soon, chronic food shortages will cause an immigration wave that will lead to 20 million African migrants trying to enter Europe.
If Ukrainian grain supplies continue to be impacted, Salvini cautions, “Significant hunger is expected on the African continent, which will be a humanitarian, then a social, and finally an Italian problem.”
“Without peace there will be famine in the autumn and 20 million Africans will be ready to go,” he added.
Again, more at the link.
The Conversation points out that the loss of Ukrainian and Russian grain production will have crippling consequences.
Ukraine produced about 80 MMT of grain (a category that includes wheat, corn and barley) in 2021, and is expected to harvest less than half of that this year. A shortfall of 40 MMT is enough missing calories that a country like the UK could only make it up by having everyone stop eating for three years. That’s the thing about tonnes of grain: a million here and a million there and pretty soon you’ve got a real issue on your plate.
The total world production of cereals is about 2,200 MMT per year, which is quite a bit more than is needed to feed the caloric needs of every person on Earth. Those 2.2 trillion kilos of cereals would be over 7 quadrillion calories if they went straight into human mouths, which is 20% more than the 5.8 quadrillion calories that the nearly 8 billion humans need to survive the year.
. . .
The international cereals market remains stubbornly international, and there is no such thing as a problem that belongs completely to someone else. People in France or Italy were never expecting to have any Ukrainian wheat shipped to them, but they are now competing against Egyptians and Moroccans who are now suddenly looking for new sources of bread.
The Conversation claimed that Indian wheat exports would help make up for the shortfall. Unfortunately, Indian production won’t be available:
India has banned exports of wheat effective immediately, citing a risk to its food security, partly due to the war in Ukraine.
. . .
India … had set a goal of exporting 10 million tons of the grain in 2022-23, looking to capitalize on the global disruptions to wheat supplies from the war and find new markets for its wheat in Europe, Africa and Asia.
Much of that would have gone to other developing countries such as Indonesia, the Philippines and Thailand.
India isn’t the only nation blocking export of foodstuffs; it’s a growing phenomenon, and it’s affecting more and more food-importing countries. Iran appears to be the latest country to see internal unrest as a result of food shortages and rising prices.
Protests over soaring food prices continued in several cities in Iran on Saturday, according to postings on social media, while an Iranian lawmaker told local media one person was killed in a demonstration in the south-west.
The protests were triggered last week by a cut in state subsidies for imported wheat that caused price hikes of as much as 300% for a variety of flour-based staples. The government of President Ebrahim Raisi also raised prices of basic goods such as cooking oil and dairy products.
We’re seeing the effects of these shortages on our own grocery shelves as well. Shortage of supplies, a lack of choice, and product substitution (buying what’s available, instead of getting what we really want) are going to become the norm for almost all of us this year. (Old NFO blogged this morning about an issue we encountered during breakfast on Sunday. When restaurant chains start holding back on basic commodities like this, you know it’s getting bad.)
We’ve already seen riots over food price and availability (as well as other problems) in Sri Lanka, Peru and other nations. We’re going to see a lot more of them around the world as the grain shortage bites harder and harder. As things get worse, more and more people are going to decide that they have no hope where they are; so they’re going to take to their feet, and any other transport they can get hold of, and make their way to richer countries, where they hope to find food for today and a better tomorrow.
We’re going to see refugee flows that make our current southern border problems look trivial by comparison. They’re going to affect every First World nation, and most likely all Second World countries as well – and, as Michael Yon correctly points out (see above), the powers that be in the United States are going to use the crisis for all they’re worth, in an open attempt to swamp existing Americans beneath a tidal wave of illegal aliens. If we let that happen, our constitutional republic will be gone beyond redemption, rescue or recall.
Peter
I don't understand.
The whole article is based on a shortage of 50% of the grain from Ukraine – 40 MMT. OK, sounds serious. But the next paragraph says the world production is 2,200 MMT.
40 is 1.8% of 2,200. So the world is going into widespread famine and war over a change of 1.8%? What's the annual variation in how successful these cereal crops are? I wouldn't be surprised if it was at least that big, but that's a WAG.
It is not just the lack of Ukrainian grain that is the problem. Odessa is the port where most of the Eastern European grain destined for the Mideast and N Africa is shipped out, and it is closed.
Russia, Beylorus, and Ukraine account for 1/3 or more of exports of fertilizer worldwide, and that has stopped. Russia had supplied half of Brazils' fertilizer. That has stopped. Argentinian wheat and beef exports may also be impacted.
Europe has competing demands for natural gas, in electricity and fertilizer, and like the US, has changed crops as a result. The shortage of diesel on the East coast is a result ofmuch higher prices in Europe, $10/gal+, which drives oil companies to export, until prices here go up that much.
Diesel supply is also reduced by the US lack of heavy crude oil, which we usually get from Russia or Venezuela. The oil we have produces more gasoline than diesel, and we are reducing our supplies of that oil.
This, and the Russia Ukraine war may be just the crisis of the day for the Resident and the Prog/internationalists, but I don't think so. I think that the pooch has well and truly been screwed, and that our time of comfort and plenty will soon be over.
I hope that we can muddle through on a local or State level, but I think that the Federal "gatherers and sharers" may interfere with that.
Dominoes, SiG.
Suppose you only have 1.8% more passengers than you have lifeboats.
So the ship goes down. only that 1.8% should die.
but they don't meeklys sit back, roll over, and accept their fate.
They swim to the next nearest lifeboat.
And swamp it.
Swamp one lifeboat, and only 50 more people should die.
But those people swim to the next lifeboat, and swamp it.
In short order, everybody dies, unless a boat or ten finally clues in, and rows away faster than the dogpaddling mob can get to it.
Now imagine a bank is only short by 2% of the funds people want to withdraw.
And it starts a run.
Which generates runs on any five or ten banks not originally affected.
Now it's Black Friday, 1929.
Or in SiG-esque terms:
Let's just say the hole in Challenger's SRB one fateful morning was only a burn of 1.8% of the fuel.
So, what happened when it spread to the main fuel tank?
That's famine, bank runs, and aerospace engineering, in a nutshell.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kvNAid29vv8
This
And if the illegal problem keeps up unmitigated, the solution will be "shoot, shovel, and shut up", and it will include and fed-goofs trying to referee the soiree. After a couple of weeks, there will only be the "shoot" part in operation, and your meat-suit will be your uniform, from San Ysidro to Brownsville, and probably as far north as Seattle and Buffalo.
Last week a young woman approached me at the Walmart checkout, her arms full of clothing and a box of Hershey bars and other assorted crap, and handed me a worn index card where the print asked me to pay for her stuff. She apparently could not speak English except for a plaintive "Buy me?". Could have been Middle Eastern, or maybe South/Central American. I refused and she turned away back into the store.
Fifteen minutes later, I was pumping gas into my car, and this minivan with temporary tags pulls up on the opposite side of the pump I was using. I'd noticed them jockeying around when I pulled up to the pump, but just assumed they were lining up on the correct side for their vehicle. No such luck. The young man inside asked me, with a heavy accent, if I would buy him some gasoline. Lo and behold, the girl in the front seat next to him was the Wallmart checkout begger. She turned her head away so I couldn't see her face. The man spent a fair amount of time trying to talk me into buying him gas. He showed me a mattress in the minivan and said they were sleeping in it. His English wasn't too terrible, but I would guess a Middle Eastern accent. I mentioned I wouldn't give them anything, and why were they going after chocolate if they were so destitute. Seemed like kind of a luxury item to be begging other people to pay for you. All I got was the he "needed chocolate."
Where the hell are these people coming from? Do they plan on just begging for the rest of their lives? When their begging is turned away and they get desperate enough, what do you suppose they plan on doing? Never been so happy to have my 1911 in a shoulder holster under my jacket. Breathed a sigh of relief when they finally drove off.
The amazing part is that some will see this as other than intentional actions by the WEF and Globalists intent on destroying the global middle class. The OTHER amazing part is that no one will do anything about it until it is too late and the West returns to feudalism.
That total cereal amount includes corn, a huge crop here in the US. However, we turn a third of that corn into alcohol and blend it with gasoline. 15 billion bushels becomes 10 billion bushels, and because it's 'saving the environment', our overlords won't change that, even though 5 billion bushels of corn would feed millions of hungry people.
The VIPs in charge do want to stop animal husbandry, making beef, pork, chicken and fish unavailable to the common folk. We should be eating insects and fake meat instead. This is claimed to be for providing more total calories. Trust our benevolent ruling class!
Not sure if this was pointed out, the grain situation in Sri Lanka is a self-own. The new President there decreed that Sri Lanka would go to 100% organic farming, and output was down at least 20%
Progressivism seems to be a race to the past.