Fully
I tend to agree with you that the food shortage narrative is getting extreme. Everyone has pounced recently and its gone mainstream to the extent that it will become a self fulfilling prophecy because the wealthy will hoard. And that could result in severe shortfalls including possible starvation in vulnerable importing nations.
Over here in Africa however the vast majority of people are fully engaged in agriculture. Its something like 65% of the people on the continent are involved and small scale farms are so endemic that it would be impossible to actually starve out any one country. What the global shortages will do is simply cause people here to turn to their traditional staples. Mass starvation is therefore unlikely. This is especially so in regions that can sustain three crop cycles a year and there is never any snow or ice.
The other thing besides worries over food scarcity is the news of fertilizer shortages and that story has hit the major media everywhere. Farmers over here are beginning to open fallow fields and plant in new areas. But not because they fear going hungry. Its because they see financial opportunity in export markets. So producers are scaling up to meet future demand.
Remember when the Hunt brothers tried to corner the silver market? Ultimately they were put out of business when the market was flooded with granny’s silverware and the opening of hundreds of silver mines that had previously been non-economic. They had not counted on that happening. It was not even in their equation.
The solution to solving high prices……. is high prices. That is what markets do best.
The other thing we need to understand about Africa and the coming food shortages as it relates to fertilizer is that Africa is the worlds most underserved region. In aggregate, Africa consumes a miniscule 1% or the globes fertilizer market. High prices will have very little impact here. So no, fertilizer shortfalls will not starve Africans. Traditional practices mean fields get nutrients from the animals people own and in any event most farms are very small and family owned. Its all done by hand the old fashioned way.
So what’s really going on? The pundits who don’t do any research are saying the globalist plan is to starve a few hundred million in the most poor regions of the world. Africa is the top target according to them. And yet those same areas are highly independent when it comes to feeding themselves. But one could not be more resilient than to live in a region where most food production is local and imports are not actually necessary.
So I have a map that I think gives a clue to answering the question of both fertilizer imports/exports and potential future food shortages. Have a look at who are the top users of crop nutrients. Now ask yourself who is really the target.
Nitrogen Fertilizer use per Hectare of Cropland 2017
https://ourworldindata.org/fertilizers
If you have seen the link already the answer is China, Russia, India and Brazil. In Russia’s case they are a top exporter. But all the others are extremely heavy users of crop nutrients. They are most susceptible to expensive natural gas therefore and Natgas products like fertilizer. These are the BRICS nations of course and it would appear they are the ones who will be most impacted as they fertilize so heavily with Nitrogen based products.
Could that be why China is locking down its people and shutting down its exports by sea? Are the two trends of nutrient shortages and China’s lockdowns linked? I don’t know the answer but we may be seeing asymmetric warfare playing out before our very eyes and hardly know what is happening because the news is so distracting with reasons that make no sense.
All I am saying is that outside of a few key African nations like Egypt and Ethiopia that have always been vulnerable to food shocks, that Africa itself is not the target of either fertilizer or food shortages. The region can easily overcome both of those adversities in a single crop cycle if real shortages begin to bite.