Wednesday, March 6, 2024

Alarm Bells For The U.S. Food Supply?


Alarm Bells For The U.S. Food Supply



How much more are you spending on food each month compared to two or three years ago?  In recent years, our leaders have been flooding the system with money at the same time that global supplies of food have been getting tighter and tighter.  On the other side of the world, hundreds of millions of people do not have enough food to eat on a regular basis and children are literally dropping dead from starvation.  Here in the United States, nobody is dropping dead from starvation, but demand at food banks is absolutely exploding as U.S. households struggle to deal with how oppressively expensive groceries have become.  Unfortunately, things are about to get even worse.
 
Right now, the largest fire in the entire history of Texas continues to rage out of control

The biggest inferno in Texas history is being fueled by winds and high temperatures as it rages Sunday, threatening to incinerate more buildings, cattle and livelihoods across the Texas Panhandle while residents sift through ashes of what used to be homes.

Critical fire weather conditions were expected to continue Sunday in the area, with strengthening winds gusting to 50 mph and dry conditions combining to set the stage for rapid wildfire spread, the National Weather Service warned.

The Smokehouse Creek Fire has been burning for nearly a week and has torched more than 1 million acres in Texas alone, making it the largest fire on record in the state – and it is only 15% contained.


With each passing hour, even more cattle are being engulfed by the fires.

Nobody knows for sure how many have been killed so far.

Most news reports that I have seen say that it is “thousands”

The largest wildfire in Texas history has devastated the state’s agriculture, blazing through more than 1 million acres of land in the Panhandle, killing thousands of livestock, destroying crops and gutting infrastructure.

The agriculture industry, a big driver of the state’s economy, was already facing pressures from prolonged and widespread drought that forced ranchers to manage smaller herds, contributing to a decrease in beef production nationally. The series of wildfires in the Panhandle this week is another blow as many ranchers tried to rebuild their herds and operations during the cooler months of the year.


According to Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller, there are more than 10 million head of livestock in the region…

State Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller told The New York Times that the Panhandle is home to roughly 85% of Texas’s cattle herds.

The region supports over 10 million head of livestock. Most of the cattle are kept in feedlots and dairy farms as farmers and ranchers attempt to shield their herds from the wildfires, Miller said.

“There are millions of cattle out there, with some towns comprising more cattle than people,” Miller told The Wall Street Journal.


Even before this disaster erupted, supplies of beef were really tight.

At this point, the size of the U.S. cattle herd is the smallest since 1951, and the size of the Canadian cattle herd is the smallest in 30 years

Canada is the next nation to report a multi-decade low cattle herd.

At the beginning of the year, the USDA reported the lowest total U.S. head since 1951 at a little more than 87 million.

Now, Statistics Canada is reporting the Canadian cattle herd is at its lowest level in more than 30 years, totaling just 11 million cattle and calves on farms.


And even without the tragedy in Texas, we were already being warned that the U.S. cattle herd would get even smaller this year because we are looking at the “smallest beef calf crop since 1948”

But that supply of feeder cattle will likely tighten during the rest of this year. The smallest beef calf crop since 1948, brought on by drought and high feed prices and the contraction of the beef cow herd, along with a significant decrease in replacement beef heifers, means that there won’t be as many cattle to put in feedlots to replace those going out.

Of course it isn’t just beef that is going to become more expensive.

All over the western world, “green policies” are making things extremely challenging for farmers and ranchers.

During a recent appearance on Fox News, one industry insider warned that more U.S. farmers are going out of business “every day”

While nationwide organizations like the FFA are going strong and statewide affairs like the annual Pennsylvania Farm Show and Iowa State Fair continue to draw exhibitors and guests alike, beneath the surface are troubling signs, two guests on “The Ingraham Angle” warned this week.

Globalist “green” policies as well as inflation and rising costs have led to thinner herds, and in some instances, foreclosure or shuttering of farms altogether, bringing with them a potential domestic food crisis, they said.

“Farmers are going out of business every day,” said John Boyd Jr., founder of the Black Farmers of America.








2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Fear mongering?

Matthew 6:25-34

Because of this I say to you, do not worry about your life, what you should eat or what you should drink; nor your body, what you should put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air. They do not sow nor do they reap, nor do they gather into barns, and your Heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? And who of you by worrying is able to add one cubit to his stature?

And why do you worry about clothing? Consider carefully how the lilies of the field grow: They do not labor nor do they spin. Yet I say to you that not even Solomon in all his glory was adorned like one of these. But if God thus clothes the grass of the field, existing today and tomorrow being thrown into the furnace, will He not much more clothe you, O you of little faith?

Therefore do not be anxious, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ Or ‘What shall we drink?’ Or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the Gentiles seek after all these things. For your Heavenly Father knows that you have need of them all. But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things will be added unto you.

Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Sufficient to the day is its own trouble.

Anonymous said...

Great Comment!