We have never faced anything quite like this. Diesel fuel and fertilizer have become far more expensive as a result of the conflict in the Middle East, and extreme weather is playing havoc with crops all over the planet. Here in the United States, we just experienced the driest first three months of a year in recorded history. No, that isn’t an exaggeration. Now a “Super El Niño” is coming, and that means that drought conditions are going to get even worse in many areas of the world. The “Super El Niño” of 1877-1878 resulted in widespread droughts that killed more than 50 million people, and now we are being warned that the upcoming “Super El Niño” could be even worse. Our farmers have never faced a “perfect storm” of this magnitude, and global food production is going to be way down in the months ahead.
The UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization is publicly warning that a severe global food crisis could strike about 6 months from now if something really dramatic does not happen…
The closure of the Strait of Hormuz could trigger a severe global food price crisis within six to 12 months unless governments act quickly, the Food and Agriculture Organization warned Wednesday.
Decisions now by farmers and governments on fertilizer use, imports, financing and crop choices will determine whether food prices spike later this year or in early 2027, the agency said.
I don’t know what national governments around the world are supposed to do.
They can’t create fertilizer out of thin air.
Thanks to the closure of the Strait of Hormuz by Iran, millions of farmers all over the northern hemisphere didn’t get the fertilizer that they needed for the spring planting season.
UNDP Administrator Alexander De Croo is telling us that as a result “many places in the world will have problems of food shortage” once harvest season arrives…
Food shortages are expected to hit many parts of the world from September or October following a fertilizer production plunge, the U.N. Development Program’s head said on Monday.
“In September, (or) October, many places in the world will have problems of food shortage,” as agricultural production is expected to be much lower following the fertilizer production slump resulting from high oil prices amid Middle East conflicts, UNDP Administrator Alexander De Croo said in an interview in Tokyo.
Even if fertilizer is available, many farmers simply cannot afford it.
In fact, one recent survey discovered that 70 percent of U.S. farmers could not afford to buy all of the fertilizer that they needed for the spring planting season because it has become so expensive.
Meanwhile, diesel has become painfully expensive as well.
Virtually all farm equipment runs on diesel, and as I write this article the average price of a gallon of diesel in the U.S. is sitting at about five and a half dollars.
But in California, the average price of a gallon of diesel has reached nearly seven and a half dollars…
According to AAA, the average price for diesel fuel in California is about $7.43 per gallon, which is $2.36 higher compared to last year. In Fresno, prices are slightly higher.
“In Fresno, you’re paying about $6.06 for a gallon of regular gasoline, but you’re paying $7.48 for a gallon of diesel,” Johnson said.
You may not care about what is happening in California, but you should because California produces more fruit and more vegetables than any other state by a very wide margin.
Drought is another major problem that U.S. farmers are dealing with.
In West Texas, the cracks in the ground caused by endless drought are big enough to swallow an entire human hand…
Scott Irlbeck crouched in a field of stunted wheat plants in a parched stretch of West Texas and slipped his hand into a crack wide enough to swallow it.
Last autumn, Irlbeck planted a crop that barely grew because rain never came. He now hopes his insurance adjuster will declare it a total loss so he will not need to spend money on pricey fuel to harvest it next month.
Coming into this year, the southwestern portion of the nation was experiencing the worst multi-year drought in at least 1,200 years.
And then the first three months of this year were the driest first three months of a year for the entire country ever recorded.
As a result, it is being projected that the winter wheat harvest will be a disaster…
Crop estimates underscore just how bad the situation is. Growers will see their smallest wheat crop in terms of production since 1972, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture; 1.56 billion bushels this year, down 21% from 2025. That’s especially harmful to Kansas, one of the top overall producers of wheat in the U.S.
This year, only 22 million acres of winter wheat will be harvested, and the abandonment rate is above 32 percent…
Only 32.4 million acres (13.1 million hectares) of wheat were planted this year to begin with, and harvested acreage hit just 22 million, marking abandonment, which is when farmers stop tending to a crop before harvesting, at slightly above 32% of this year’s wheat crop, according to USDA estimates.
Just think about those numbers for a moment.
Our farmers simply gave up on nearly a third of this year’s winter wheat crop.
Wow.
Looking ahead, we are being told that the number of acres of wheat that U.S. farmers are planting in the spring will be the fewest “since record keeping began in 1919”…
U.S. growers were poised to plant the fewest acres of wheat since record keeping began in 1919, as high costs for fertilizer, seeds, and equipment have made it difficult to turn a profit.
In 1919, there were 104 million people living in the United States.
Today, there are more than 340 million people living in the United States.
It doesn’t take a math genius to figure out that we are headed for trouble.
And now a “Super El Niño” is looming…
A “Super El Niño” may be on its way and could impact weather in the United States and worldwide for the next several months.
El Niño is described by the National Weather Service (NWS) as “a state where the water temperatures in the Pacific Ocean near the equator become abnormally warm.” These warmer waters trigger significant weather pattern changes across the globe.
One expert is warning that there is approximately a 50 percent chance that this “Super El Niño” will be the most powerful ever recorded…
“I would suggest there is roughly a 50 per cent chance of the event becoming the strongest in the historical record right now,” Paul Roundy, a professor of atmospheric science at the University at Albany, in the US, told BBC Science Focus. “A few weeks ago, I was suggesting maybe 20 per cent.”
In a previous article, I discussed the fact that the “Super El Niño” of 1877-1878 caused widespread global famines that resulted in the deaths of 50 million people.
So how many will die during the “Super El Niño” that will begin later this year?
According to the UN, the number of people around the world there were experiencing acute hunger was already at an all-time record high even before the war with Iran started.
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