Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by throwaway6532 1553 days ago
>The main thing currently that no one seems concerned about is the reduction of grain production from Russia and Ukraine because of the war. This is going to have a global impact and will increase food scarcity that a 3 month individual supply can not do anything about.

This is the main thing that has gotten me worried. In 2010 there was a heatwave in Russia that affected the wheat harvest and in 2011 we had the Arab spring. There are an increasingly large number of failed states or states that are on the verge of tipping into that in that region of the world too. Lebanon's grain storage capacity was reduced to a month's supply after the Beirut explosion. Water tables are very stressed in Morocco which supplies the majority of the worlds rock phosphate which is the critical input into phosphate fertilizers which massively boost agricultural productivity beyond normal means. When you dig down into it it's clear the world is in a "food bubble" supported by over-pumping of water from aquifers, hydrocarbons, globalization.

The ripple effect the economics are going to have will be pretty far reaching.

1 comments

Then you understand that an individual can not fix these problems on their own which is why I recommended joining folks in your local vicinity that are similarly concerned about these issues and then seeing what can be done at the local level to mitigate them collectively instead of individually.
Yes, I'm very much with you on that.