The Famine Sign:

Global Supplies Of Wheat, Corn And Soybeans Are “Shrinking”, And This Is Causing Hunger To Explode All Over The Planet

Michael Snyder

It turns out that things are even worse than we originally thought.  Did you know that global supplies of wheat are shrinking?  If that wasn’t bad enough, global supplies of corn and soybeans are shrinking as well.  As a result, prices for all three have been soaring and the number of hungry people around the planet is rapidly rising.  The COVID pandemic, widespread crop failures and global supply chain disruptions are some of the factors that are being blamed for this growing crisis.  Unfortunately, it doesn’t appear that things will get much better any time soon.  In fact, Forbes is telling us that we should not expect to see things turn around “until late 2022 – or beyond”…

The relentless rally in grain prices is the result of shrinking global supplies that might not be replaced until late 2022 – or beyond

Supplies of three of the world’s most important grains: corn, soybeans, and wheat, are shrinking, and it will likely take at least the next two growing seasons for supplies to reach comfortable levels again. That’s the prediction the USDA and many private grain analysts have come to in recent weeks, and grain markets have taken notice.

At this point, most people don’t even know about the absolutely devastating crop failure that happened in China last year…

As the global population and economy grows, so too does the use of grains. Hence, any significant supply disruption can have an outsized impact on global grain prices, which is what happened last year when China had a crop failure.

The true extent of China’s 2020 grain production problems may never be known or recognized by official sources, but that doesn’t matter. Markets can see two things that really do matter: the price of grains in China and the amount of grains China imports. Those two inputs have created a bullish formula: Chinese grain prices, particularly corn prices, rocketed last year and remain at elevated levels, and China will import record amounts of soybeans and corn this year. The verdict is still out on Chinese wheat imports, but they are likely to be record high too – Chinese wheat imports are officially already at their second highest level in history.

Of course China is far from alone.  Wild weather patterns have been playing havoc with agricultural production all over the globe, and this isn’t likely to change any time soon.

Sadly, drought is also having a dramatic impact on agricultural production in Argentina and Paraguay…

The drought is also affecting neighboring Argentina and Paraguay. River levels are quickly dropping, forcing barges, carrying farm goods to reduce capacities to avoid grounding. These lighter barge loads have decreased the flow of corn, soybeans, soybean meal, and soybean oil to key export locations.

Here in the United States, farmers in the western half of the nation are dealing with the worst “megadrought” in our entire recorded history.  For much more on this, please see my recent article entitled “Megadrought Nightmare: No Water For Crops, Horrific Wildfires, Colossal Dust Storms And Draconian Water Restrictions”.  Just like throughout much of the rest of the world, agricultural production in the U.S. will be below initial expectations once again this year.

As global food supplies get tighter and tighter, hunger is starting to spread like wildfire…

The 2021 Global Report on Food Crises (GRFC 2021) highlights the remarkably high severity and numbers of people in Crisis or worse (IPC/CH Phase 3 or above) or equivalent in 55 countries/territories, driven by persistent conflict, pre-existing and COVID-19-related economic shocks, and weather extremes. The number identified in the 2021 edition is the highest in the report’s five-year existence.

While conflict continues to displace people, disrupt livelihoods and damage economies, the COVID-19 pandemic and related containment measures have exacerbated pre-existing drivers of fragility, widened inequalities and exposed structural vulnerabilities of local and global food systems, hitting the most economically vulnerable households particularly hard.

For the next several years, we are being told to expect rampant inflation, severe shortages and widespread hunger.

The corporate media is trying to make us feel better by assuring us that things will begin to turn around in 2022 or 2023, but they don’t really know what the future holds.

But one thing we know for sure is that global supply chains are in a state of utter chaos right now, and that is starting to cause great distress in every corner of the globe.