How The Energy Crisis Will Accelerate The Food Crisis

Here's How The Energy Crisis Will Accelerate The Food Crisis

DAISY LUTHER

The cost of living is going nowhere but up. Everyone has been touched by skyrocketing inflation, high fuel prices, and the availability of certain supplies. And now, we're facing a massive energy crisis. We've seen the signs for a while but theory is quickly becoming reality.

Energy prices in Europe have catapulted to dizzying heights, leaving some folks facing bills of up to $10,000. And the United States is not untouched. Prices for power are already escalating here. Anecdotally, my own utility bill for September was double the price of my bill for August, and I used less energy. This upward trend is growing more common if my inbox is any indication.

But it isn't just the price of essential utilities like heating and cooking that are going to be affected. The price and availability of food will be affected as well. We're about to get handed a food crisis.

All over the world, manufacturers are shutting down production to combat the price of energy. And in a world already seeing food shortages and empty shelves, this is a massive hit.

A source in Sweden tells me that two large greenhouses have said they're shutting down production for the winter due to energy prices. And while I don't have links for Sweden specifically, Reuters reports that other manufacturers in Europe are also doing this.

Across northern and western Europe, vegetable producers are contemplating halting their activities because of the financial hit from Europe's energy crisis, further threatening food supplies...

Surging power and gas prices will impact crops grown through the winter in heated greenhouses, such as tomatoes, peppers, and cucumbers, and those which need to be placed in cold storage, such as apples, onions, and endives...

European farmers are warning of shortages. The anticipated hit to production and jump in prices means supermarkets may switch to sourcing more goods from warmer countries such as Morocco, Turkey, Tunisia, and Egypt.

Surging gas prices are the biggest cost vegetable farmers cultivating inside greenhouses face, farmers said. Meanwhile, two French farmers renewing their electricity contracts for 2023 said they were being quoted prices more than ten times those of 2021. 

A major supplier of canned goods and other preserved food in the Netherlands, HAK, has announced they're shutting down production during the coldest part of the year due to energy costs.

HAK, a major seller of conserved foods such as peas, beans, and apple sauce in the Netherlands, is to temporarily halt production this winter due to high energy costs, with a spokesperson saying the pause would last six weeks from January.

According to Dutch Chamber of Commerce records, HAK and related companies had sales of 100.2 million euros ($98 million) and operating profit of 10.2 million euros in 2021.

"If companies have to sell under their cost price for months on end, then things will turn out badly," NOS further quoted Hoogeboom as saying.

I fear that Europe is the canary in the economic coal mine. I think it's only a matter of time before the United States sees the same thing. We've already gotten glimpses of a fertilizer shortage - The OP posted about it here back in 2021. This was worsened when Russia vowed to halt fertilizer exports.

But it goes much further than that. Resilience.org published an article about the big picture.

Food security is being threatened by problems with distribution chains for all the inputs into the 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.

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