This article was originally published by Ethan Huff at Natural News.
In less than three weeks, wheat could disappear from store shelves, suggested a food insecurity expert to the United Nations.
Sara Menker, the CEO of agriculture analytics firm Gro Intelligence, told the UN Security Council that before the end of summer, the world’s wheat supplies could dry up – and that the Russia-Ukraine conflict is not necessarily to blame.
Despite it being an easy scapegoat for Western governments and the media, the war has “simply added fuel to a fire that was long burning.” In other words, the global food supply, at least as far as wheat goes, was already in tatters long before Vladimir Putin decided to make his move.
Together, Ukraine and Russia produce nearly one-third of the world’s wheat exports. Ukraine specifically is considered to be the “breadbasket” of Europe, and right now because of the war, it is no longer exporting crops, cooking oils, or other commodities.
The longer the war goes on, the longer exports from these two countries will be halted. This spells disaster for North Africa, which imports most of its wheat and other crops from Ukraine and Russia via Black Sea ports, which also remain shuttered.
The United States is of course blaming Russia for all of this. U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken claims that Russia is holding food “hostage” and using its protectionist measures as a weapon to starve the world.
“The Russian government seems to think that using food as a weapon will help accomplish what its invasion has not – to break the spirit of the Ukrainian people,” Blinken is quoted as saying.
Keep in mind that the U.S. and NATO are the ones that imposed major economic sanctions against Russia, along with the pull-out of major corporations such as McDonald’s, Sephora, and IKEA, among many others from Russian territory.
In response, Russia told countries that want its oil and gas resources that they would need to start paying for them in rubles. Russia also cut off exports of key food crops in order to maintain supplies for its own citizens amid the crisis.
The real problem according to Menker is that droughts and other extreme weather events have been eroding the global food supply for years. The situation was only exacerbated by the engineered Wuhan coronavirus (Covid-19) plandemic followed by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. (Related: Extreme drought conditions in India have led to export bans there as well.)
“We currently only have 10 weeks of global consumption sitting in inventory around the world,” Menker says. “Conditions today are worse than those experienced in 2007 and 2008.”
Estimates from official government agencies all around the world suggest that current wheat inventories are hovering around 33 percent of annual consumption. Models created by Gro Intelligence, however, suggest that the true figure is more like 20 percent, a level not seen since 2007 and 2008.
“It is important to note that the lowest grain inventory levels the world has ever seen are now occurring while access to fertilizers is highly constrained,” Menker adds.
“And drought in wheat-growing regions around the world is the most extreme it’s been in over 20 years. Similar inventory concerns also apply to corn and other grains.”
Conditions are only expected to worsen in the coming months, so brace yourselves. It will hit the third world the hardest at first, but the West is not immune to what is coming, which is already in motion and accelerating at an exponential rate with each passing day.
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That’s nice…..
This article is dated May 30. I’ve been seeing the warning in other articles going back 2 months there may only be a 10 week supply globally for wheat. Wouldn’t that make it 2 weeks now?And it’s not just wheat but corn, soybeans, other grains and a variety of cooking oils. With the decline of grains is a reduction in meat of course. The food supply situation is quite serious and will manifest itself on a larger scale later this summer. By fall however, there could be real political crises in country after country including the developed world. Food shortages may not actually be much of a problem in the US, but you can bet the price of everything is going to be crazy.
Empty bellies of its people is the worst nightmare for any gov’t. People have little to lose when this happens. If food shortages do occur here this would set in motion a lot of things. Things like limited banking hours, closed ATMs, limited stores hours and gas station hours with teams of armed guards. This is because theft will be out of control for food, fuel, cash money and maybe pharmaceuticals. I suspect we could see lots of home intruders shot, and even martial law to some degree.
Everyone does realize this food shortage is planned, right? Just like the pandemics, and the amorphous “climate change” claim. The warnings for prepping have been strong for months, I hope some heeded it.
Oil at this moment is 118 a barrel! You really should do what I recommended in previous posts! Do it now or pay the price!
I’m not kidding! Oil is going to 200 and gas will be 10 bux a gallon! It’s the plan. Store all you can NOW I have never let you down! Food too but make it non perishable stuff. When you have no gas you go nowhere! Got yer bicycle tires pumped up? Ready to haul big loads? Fit a pallet in yer tesla? meh….
Get a horse.
Hire the out of work Gen z and woke to carry heavy loads
Ha, they can barely carry their manpurse around.
Funny you say that. Got a tire pump for my Ebike, got to put the baskets on to go 13 miles to town. Guys get you gas now. Oil went to 119 earlier Tuesday AM.
Also Natural Gas is 3 times higher than last year, and many won’t be able to heat their homes at that price or afford electricity if your power company runs on gas. Get a wood stove, wood is cheaper. Use solar generator to power your refirgerator and devices to lower your bills, and it will help during these rolling blackouts.
Get an electric golf cart and install solar panels on the roof. Perpetual electric vehicle.
This is harvest time for winter wheat. I think the supply will be going up soon.
I wonder what the normal supply is for this time of year?
(Would look for it but I really don’t know where or exactly what to look for to get that statistical information.)
Well, those who grow the winter wheat have already said it’s looking like a really bad harvest…. THEY have been out warning anyone who will listen…..
The countries with the most surplus people and cheap labour need to import the most food???? Why would that be? Is it because they lack the intelligence to support themselves?
Why is Africa so reliant on all places, the Ukraine?? Shouldn’t they be doing some serious gardening pronto?
Rhodesia alone used to produce so much that it could support all of Africa that needed imports to survive..
But something changed and they just quit producing.
May someday in the far future historians will be able to figure out why.
Zimbabwe Happened!
Putin has insured Russia will have enough grain to feed Russians their “black bread” a staple or the Russian diet, and unlike our bread it has the ability to sustain life.
What has Biden done? Caused a crisis in baby food formula.
10 weeks worth of wheat left. What does this statistic mean?
Ten weeks of wheat currently in silos or storage? Where? Does it need shipped to get to people that need it?
Winter wheat harvests generally start in June and last until August here in the US (and most of the Northern Hemisphere). Summer wheat just went in and will not be ready for 4 months or so. So 10 weeks should be plenty of cushion for producing countries. The Southern Hemisphere has opposite seasons so their harvests would be at different times.
So, somewhere in the world there is usually a harvest of wheat going on at any given time. The main problem is the price to buy it and especially the cost to ship it from North America or Australia or South America. Where it is mostly needed is in the ME and Africa and is unaffordable for most of these needy countries.
Not enough cheap energy to ship globally will be the cause of the next famines…not necessarily the supply of grain. ME and African countries have already turned down shipments of grain because they are unaffordable.
Another important statistic is whether or not the world has enough affordable diesel and fertilizer to harvest the current crop and plant the next one.
Starvation is always the weapon of choice for commies!
The most general population characteristics in people today is mindlessness, learned helplessness, and entitlement, all inculcated. This is a fact. These people are in for a really rude awakening when the SHTF, they simply will not cope. I see them every day. They think growing a garden, or fixing your own toilet, or even working on a home project is low class. They don’t have a single life enhancing or life sustaining skill. They have college degrees and work at a Target or Busch Gardens or a cashier at the local pharmacy. I don’t open doors for women anymore (except my wife), I never stop to help a vehicle if there is only a women there. I was at a store and a female shopper over heard me and a friend talk about some items we repaired on his car. She asked if I can work on cars and I told her yes. She asked if could help her out with her car problems and I said no, have a nice day. She actually became upset. These people will use you while they mutter under their breath you are a piece of sh*t. My wife just can’t get over how these people think they are so special. It almost going to be fun to watch the desperation.
sounds right to me
Oh brother! Give it a rest already. There’s tons of food in the world.
Not without diesel there isn’t Marcy!
You get exactly nothing without fuel for trucking!
Why does Mary get highlighted in red.
Who’s Mary?
Who are you?
Agree: the sheer quantity of obese people I see waddling around every day – and the growth in the American land whale – tells me there are plenty of calories out there.
Life would be considerably more pleasurable if we had more women thinned up and getting healthy. By far the worst examples are in the black communities: the disgusting levels of obesity which ALWAYS leads to more diseases (cancer, diabetes etc.) means we are paying a fortune to keep these resource gobblers alive.
Lol. You got that right. Too many waddlers stuffing their faces with processed foods, donuts, potato chips etc and pop to wash it down. GULP GULP. ???????????? They shovel it all in.
Just run to Walmart and get more! Right?
Been hearing this 10 weeks doom and gloom for 10 weeks. Just like Zero Hedge pleading for money every week or they will cease to exist.
Gradually, then all at once!