Food Price Watch Thread

[weatheriscool]

India bans wheat exports as heat wave hurts crop, domestic prices soar
Source: CNN

India banned wheat exports on Saturday — days after saying it was targeting record shipments this year — as a scorching heat wave curtailed output and domestic prices hit a record high.

The government said it would still allow exports backed by already issued letters of credit and to countries that request supplies "to meet their food security needs."

The move to ban overseas shipments was not in perpetuity and could be revised, senior government officials told a press conference.

Global buyers were banking on supplies from the world's second-biggest wheat producer after exports from the Black Sea region plunged following Russia's Feb. 24 invasion of Ukraine. Before the ban, India had aimed to ship a record 10 million tonnes this year.

Read more: https://www.cnn.com/2022/05/14/business ... index.html

[caltrek]

Common Dreams has a recent article that looks at the crisis in both fuel and food. I have extracted below portions of the article dealing with food.

The Energy and Food Crisis Is Far Worse Than Most Americans Realize
by Richard Heinberg
May 18, 2022

Extract:

(Common Dreams) Nitrogen fertilizer, made from natural gas, is seeing unprecedented price hikes, largely as a result of the Russia-Ukraine war. In response, farmers everywhere are preparing to test the limits of how little fertilizer they can apply without threatening yields. Forecasts are bleak. For West Africa, reduced fertilizer use is projected to shrink this year's rice and corn harvest by a third. Costa Rica could see coffee output falling as much as 15 percent next year if farmers reduce their fertilizer application by one-third.

For many years, organic and ecological agriculture advocates have argued that the world could produce just as much food without resorting to fossil fuel-based fertilizers and pesticides. But their alternative methods require knowledge and time for transition. Going cold turkey on fertilizer without planning and preparation will almost certainly lead to sharply lower yields over the short term. In response, the EU is now delaying rules intended to reduce farming's environmental impacts, including curbs on pesticide use. It also aims to put four million hectares of fallow land into cultivation.

Food security is being threatened by problems with distribution chains for all the inputs into agricultural system—from spare parts to packaging to cooking fuel. Once again, as with energy prices, there are several mutually interacting causes, including lingering effects of the pandemic and the Russia-Ukraine war. The latter has led to the loss of wheat shipments from Ukraine and Russia, which together are responsible for nearly 30 percent of world supplies. Recently, Russia has rained missiles on Odesa, a major port for grain shipments, further disrupting global food distribution.

Altogether, foods exported from Russia and Ukraine normally account for more than 10 percent of all calories traded globally. The two countries also export a significant portion of the world's vegetable oils used in cooking and preparing food. As a result of the conflict, there are now shortages of sunflower oil in Europe, and supermarkets in the UK are limiting purchases of cooking oil.

Low-income countries that were already destabilized by economic havoc from the pandemic are seeing further shocks now from higher food prices. Egypt is considering raising the price of subsidized bread for the first time in four decades, even though the subsidy is widely credited with keeping social unrest at bay.

Source: https://www.commondreams.org/views/2022 ... ns-realize

[wjfox]

[Yuli Ban]

For the past few years, scientists have been frantically sounding an alarm that governments refuse to hear: the global food system is beginning to look like the global financial system in the run-up to 2008.

In recent years, just as in finance during the 2000s, key nodes in the food system have swollen, their links have become stronger, business strategies have converged and synchronised, and the features that might impede systemic collapse (“redundancy”, “modularity”, “circuit breakers” and “backup systems”) have been stripped away, exposing the system to “globally contagious” shocks.

[Yuli Ban]

[Yuli Ban]

[raklian]

I think rising costs will justify investing in indoor/vertical farming in the same manner rising oil prices lead to the expansion of high-cost offshore and shale oil drilling. The hydroponic technology as well as other critical technologies such as LED lighting have come a long way in the past few years. I expect as this food crisis progresses, we'll see greater money flows into investing and developing indoor farms.

[Yuli Ban]

It will, but the cold fact remains that building vertical farms will take time, time we don't have. It's going to feel stressful for a little while.

[raklian]

It will, but the cold fact remains that building vertical farms will take time, time we don't have. It's going to feel stressful for a little while.

You're probably right. I still think we'll come out of the coming crisis in a better position to blunt the next one whenever it may be. I think blockchain technology will play a critical role in ways that is not obvious to us today.

[funkervogt]

Once household robots are common, people will be able to tell them to create backyard gardens, which will boost global food supplies and give people more control over the inputs that go into their own foods.

https://www.theseasonalhomestead.com/th ... er-acre-1/

[Yuli Ban]

Once household robots are common, people will be able to tell them to create backyard gardens, which will boost global food supplies and give people more control over the inputs that go into their own foods.

https://www.theseasonalhomestead.com/th ... er-acre-1/

Getting close to independently rediscovering my old showerthought about the probability of the rise of a technological "helot" class.

If I have a household robot that can plant a garden outside my home, why wouldn't I sell its services so that it also worked at a larger fully-automated municipal farm that could allow for a much larger surplus of food? And why stop there: I could sell its services to the city for it to do multiple things when I don't need personal service from a robot. But if I'm not willing to sell its services, the city could have its own helot droids that run a collective farm all the same so that there's never a food shortage. After all, I live in an apartment, so my prospects for a backyard garden aren't great... but I could always rely upon these helots for backup.

[raklian]

Once household robots are common, people will be able to tell them to create backyard gardens, which will boost global food supplies and give people more control over the inputs that go into their own foods.

https://www.theseasonalhomestead.com/th ... er-acre-1/

I concur with Yuli Ban's helot idea. There's going to be landlords who won't allow tenants to grow crops on their properties, so it's going to be a patchwork of farming at home and indoor/vertical common farms in the local community.

[funkervogt]

If I have a household robot that can plant a garden outside my home, why wouldn't I sell its services so that it also worked at a larger fully-automated municipal farm that could allow for a much larger surplus of food?

It would probably be more cost-efficient for the large farm to rent larger, more expensive farming robots from big companies, or to buy them. If you only have a 1/4 acre yard, obviously a smaller, cheaper robot will be the best option for you if you want to create a garden. That type of machine will be suboptimal for a large farm.

It would make more sense if you rented your small farming robot to people in your neighborhood so it could make gardens in their yards. It would be like sharing a lawnmower.

And why stop there: I could sell its services to the city for it to do multiple things when I don't need personal service from a robot.

The key insight you should incorporate into your thinking is that not all robots will be equal. Depending on the type of task and the scale of the task, it will make sense to use different kinds of robots. Renting small, privately-owned robots from random citizens to do big tasks will be inefficient for most large enterprises.

For example, say there's a large university campus with several large, grass fields. It wouldn't be efficient for them to hire 50 local people to come there each week and mow different parts of the fields with their push mowers. The best choice is to hire one professional landscaping company that uses extra-wide, zero-turn mowers and can get it all done in one day.

But if I'm not willing to sell its services, the city could have its own helot droids that run a collective farm all the same so that there's never a food shortage. After all, I live in an apartment, so my prospects for a backyard garden aren't great... but I could always rely upon these helots for backup.

The best arrangement for you would be to rent space in a community garden or vertical farm community garden, and to send your robot there to tend the crops and bring them to you when ready.

[Tadasuke]

It would probably be more cost-efficient for the large farm to rent larger, more expensive farming robots from big companies, or to buy them. If you only have a 1/4 acre yard, obviously a smaller, cheaper robot will be the best option for you if you want to create a garden. That type of machine will be suboptimal for a large farm.

An android tending a garden/small farm could be multi-functional AGI, that could do at least everything a human can. So you wouldn't buy a robot only to take care of your small garden.

[citali_]

I think junk food will not be popular foods in 10 or 20 years. Foods like potato chips, sodas, snack cakes, with high fat, sugar, and caffeine. To me the future of food looks very plant and soy based. I once saw a YouTube video about a baking company that makes cockroach bread instead of regular bread because it supposedly contains more protein...but I don't think it will be a very popular food item in the future. Fingers crossed, it will all just be plant based! I don't want to eat insects.

[Vakanai]

I think junk food will not be popular foods in 10 or 20 years. Foods like potato chips, sodas, snack cakes, with high fat, sugar, and caffeine. To me the future of food looks very plant and soy based. I once saw a YouTube video about a baking company that makes cockroach bread instead of regular bread because it supposedly contains more protein...but I don't think it will be a very popular food item in the future. Fingers crossed, it will all just be plant based! I don't want to eat insects.

If everyone I know or have ever known is any evidence, including those of the younger generation, junk food ain't declining in popularity that much. There'll be more and better healthy options, but potato chips and chicken nuggets will remain pretty popular. And that's okay. Junk food will probably always be popular, but health foods will also increase in popularity. So it'll achieve a balance I think.

Or maybe all the kids and teens in my family are the exception to their generation.

[wjfox]

I don't want to eat insects.

I tried a bag of "crisp" insects a few years back. They tasted delicious, almost like bacon!

They were crickets, I think. Doubt I'd try cockroaches, though... that's just too icky.

[raklian]

I don't want to eat insects.

I tried a bag of "crisp" insects a few years back. They tasted delicious, almost like bacon!

They were crickets, I think. Doubt I'd try cockroaches, though... that's just too icky.

Think we'll ever make an insect burger? You know, a tightly packed mass of crickets between buns made out of insect flour?

[funkervogt]

I ate fried crickets in Mexico and Thailand. The bugs themselves have no taste, and take on the taste of whatever they're seasoned with. The problem is that the texture of crickets can be weird. I'd compare it to the feeling you get in your mouth after eating a handful of popcorn and realizing there are a bunch of tiny husks and fragments stuck in your gums and between your teeth.

[weatheriscool]

A food insecurity expert predicts that there's only 10 weeks of wheat supplies left in the world as
Source: Insider

The world has about 10 weeks of wheat supplies stored as Russia's invasion of Ukraine enters its fourth month, a food insecurity expert told the UN.

Sara Menker, the CEO of agriculture analytics firm Gro Intelligence, told the UN Security Council that the Russia-Ukraine war was not the cause of a food security crisis but "simply added fuel to a fire that was long burning."

Ukraine is considered the world's "breadbasket" and Russia and Ukraine combined account for almost a third of the world's wheat exports.

Read more: https://www.insider.com/world-has-10-we ... rns-2022-5