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Comment by culi

1 day ago

To be fair, we didn't have the World Food Programme in 1877 which lets us anticipate droughts distribution and crop failures months ahead of time.

That being said, the existing energy crisis and fertilizer crisis can significantly compound the negative impacts of this El Niño even if we are able to anticipate it.

70 comments

culi

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huijzer  21 hours ago

> lets us anticipate droughts distribution and crop failures months ahead of time.

If by “us” you mean big corporations, which will then buy the stuff and sell it at a premium later, then I agree.

  • ben_w  19 hours ago

    Many farmers are subsidised specifically so that food is over-produced in most years, specifically to ensure than in bad years people don't go hungry.

    Corporations may indeed be taking advantage of this, demanding prices so low that the farmers don't get the benefit of those subsidies. However:

    > buy the stuff and sell it at a premium later

    Is the point of a futures market. Futures let people trade a thing before they even know how supply and demand will balance, guaranteeing a price for the producer and letting them plan purchases of machinery and maintenance, with the risks (in bad years) and profit margins (in good years) going up the supply chain.

    • deepsun  18 hours ago

      Another reason why most countries subsidise their agriculture is because in times of war you don't want your enemy to starve you. That's mostly about high calories foods, not fancy salads though.

      12 replies →

    • mapt  16 hours ago

      In the US, we have a massive grainfed meat livestock sector that in an emergency could basically all be slaughtered in favor of feeding the grain to people.

      But we also have recent history demonstrating that this will not be allowed to happen, no matter how much starvation there is in poorer countries, we WILL have our steaks. Not negotiable.

      11 replies →

    • pseudohadamard  39 minutes ago

      > Many farmers are subsidised specifically so that food is over-produced in most years, specifically to ensure than in bad years people don't go hungry.

      Which country does that? Here farmers were (very heavily) subsidised because footage of farmers walking off the land was political suicide for whichever party was in power at the time. When the subsidies were stopped by a government with a safe enough majority to be able to do it, many farmers did walk off the land. I've never heard of a government making sure there's over-production for future lean years.

  • xhkkffbf  12 hours ago

    So are we supposed to demonize the big corporations for making a profit or celebrate them for planning ahead and making sure we don't starve?

    I'm not so sure these days.

  • dukeyukey  14 hours ago

    I mean do we not want food to be stored for tough times? And the people who do this storing should get paid for it?

  • roenxi  20 hours ago

    If you think that is going to happen, you can buy up some supplies and store them yourself. I have relatives with some impressive and substantial pantries because they're prepared to be snowed in for an extended period of time. Running out of food is possible the least novel problem humanity has ever encountered.

    And what would you rather happen? If they don't store up a surplus then everyone will run out of food and prices will go up anyway. If there is less food because of a drought, prices are going up. If corporations start building up a stockpile then prices aren't going to go up as much as if there were no reserves.

    TLDR; Yes. Good. It is a great day when there is food available at the local supermarket.

    • hvb2  20 hours ago

      The world is bigger than your relatives.

      I'm sure he was referring to already food insecure places. The rich countries will have food available, probably at elevated prices.

      In places where there's actual famine people will do crazy things to get their hands on food.

      18 replies →

brewdad  4 hours ago

Does that program still exist in the way we expect it to or has it been DOGE’d like the USAID program?

  • culi  1 minute ago

    It was cut for Yemen, the Congo, Niger, Chad, Mali, Nigeria, and Madagascar. Ultimately, USAID is massive vehicle for subsidizing US agriculture so a lot of cuts related to that got restored. It's also a massive benefit to the competitiveness of US agriculture because a huge influx of "free" (sorta) foreign food is a great way to bankrupt domestic markets. See Haiti for example: https://publicintegrity.org/accountability/haitian-farmers-u...