Global Food Crisis by the End of Year May Be Inevitable

At the beginning of the year, the speaker of New Zealand’s Parliament Trevor Mallard for once was right on the money when he suggested New Zealanders needed to stock up on food essentials.

Now Mallard – a man who likes to play his music loud and water the lawn while doing it was referring to an overseas trend which seen food shortages and supply chains being disrupted because of the outbreak of Omicron.

In New Zealand today we see lots of empty shelves at the supermarket and think oh yeah, it’s because of Omicron or the war in the Ukraine or as this government will have you believe, it was because of the nine years of neglect from the previous National Government.

But that’s not the real reason.

When I mentioned in an earlier podcast warning of an emerging global food crisis several months ago, many assumed that I was exaggerating things. 

Sadly, I was not exaggerating one bit. 

As I mentioned last year China is stockpiling grain and so is Israel who have learned from the lessons of the past when Egypt under the direction of Joseph spent seven years stockpiling food for the following seven years of famine,

Today we see the price of fertilizer soaring, extreme global weather patterns, shocking crop failures and an epic global supply chain crisis had combined to create a “perfect storm” even before the war in Ukraine began.  

Of course, the war has made things far worse because Russia and Ukraine collectively account for about 30 percent of all worldwide wheat exports under normal conditions. 

For a while, the mainstream media and our leaders in Wellington were in denial about what was happening, but now everyone is finally admitting the truth. 

 In fact, at this point shortages causing rising prices and an opinion poll drop has seen the Ardern Government acknowledge that troubled times are on their way but have fallen short to conceding that a global food crisis is here… But don’t worry, they will catch up.

The White House recently confirmed they expect certain parts of the world to suffer a food shortage as an effect of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.

Speaking at the daily White House press conference recently, Press Secretary Jen Psaki said “the Biden administration anticipate that higher energy fertilizer, wheat, and corn prices could impact the price of growing and purchasing critical food supplies for countries around the world,”

I wish our politicians were talking about this.

It might get a lot more people to understand the seriousness of the crisis that we are now facing.

According to Psaki, the poorest parts of the planet are expected to be affected the most…

She said food shortages were not expected to hit the United States, but rather countries in Africa, the Middle East, and Southeast Asia.

This is what I have always said.  Those at the bottom of the economic food chain will be hit the hardest at first.

But New Zealand, a food producing nation is already feeling the pain too.

One of the primary factors that is causing this new global food crisis is the price of fertilizer which has doubled in the past 18 months.

“Now, the bigger problems are fertilizer and energy.

WE saw in the news of NZ farmer speaking about having to pay as much as three times the amount a year ago to fill his harvester,

And it’s just not the energy price to run the tractors, but to run the trucks, to run everything else.

And the price of phosphorus, potassium, and nitrogen. Those are the three major things we use to make fertilizer … this is causing so much stress on the farmers that farmers all around the world are not planting their fields.

How long will it be before we see New Zealand farmers doing the same.

At this point, we are still eating food that was grown last year.

By the end of the year, we will primarily be eating food that was grown this year, and this year a lot less food will be grown than originally anticipated.

David M. Beasley, the executive director of the World Food Program, the United Nations agency that feeds 125 million people a day

“Ukraine has only compounded a catastrophe on top of a catastrophe,” said. “There is no precedent even close to this since World War II.”

Beasley has no idea how we are going to be able to feed everyone.

But here in New Zealand, most will not start paying attention until it starts to affect them personally.

The good news is that nobody in this country is currently facing starvation, but without a doubt the cost of food is going up, and you can see it for yourself at the supermarket.  $9 for a Cabbage $7 for cauliflower. $3 plus a litre for petrol.

Needless to say, this is just the beginning.

Like I said, we are still eating what has been previously harvested.

By this time next year, things are going to look completely different.

If you want to be ahead of the curve, I back Trevor Mallards recommendation about stocking up at your local supermarket while you still can.

I know that food prices may seem high now, but the truth is that they are never going to be lower than this ever again.

So, take advantage of these food prices while they are still reasonable.

There has not been a global famine in any of our lifetimes, and so we don’t know what that would look like.

But here I am warning that if the situation does not turn around “hundreds of New Zealanders will experience famine like conditions by the end of the year”.

Hopefully I am wrong.

But what if I’m not?