A hungry man is an angry man.
– Proverb
Henry Kissinger once said whoever controls the food controls the people. Well, there’s a shortage of food around the world and it’s becoming more serious. At some point, governments will have to take charge of this crisis. The question becomes: Are you prepared to be controlled?
Many of us rate a country’s strength by how many missiles it has, others by its reserves of oil and gas. But on the bottom line none of those is edible and all of us need a tasty meal when we are hungry. The problem is that the food shortage is making that more costly. Of still greater concern is that the increase in global tensions is raising fears about whether enough food will be available at any price – even in developed nations.
The number of regions where conflict threatens to erupt is steadily increasing, the latest being between Greece and Turkey. Others areas are of even greater concern. Despite reports of behind-the-scenes negotiations between Russia and Ukraine, fighting is still raging. Just days ago, Russia had to cut oil exports to China and India by 17% – some 600,000 barrels/day – because some of their energy plants were damaged by Ukrainian drone strikes. And in the last few weeks alone, other military and strategic targets were also damaged. Now there are reports that the U.S. may send military contractors to Ukraine, usually a sign of an upcoming escalation.
Meanwhile, Russia is not exactly turning the other cheek. In the last two weeks it has launched massive attacks on several Ukrainian cities, particularly along the border, and has retaken huge swaths of land after heavy fighting.
In addition, tensions in the Middle East also are soaring and could escalate even further. The Houthis have been attacking Israel-related targets for months without any provocation and without suffering any consequences. Then, in a major escalation, their drones attacked Tel Aviv, causing death, injuries and related damage. At that point, Israel had enough and decided to teach the Houthis that a stick has two ends.
On July 20, the IAF unleashed a devastating attack on a key port in Hodeidah in Yemen. This started a blaze large enough to be visible across much of the Middle East, causing extensive damage. Satellite pictures showed that the fires were still burning days later. According to NPR, the port was essentially leveled, which means that, among other things, weapons shipments to the Houthis are now blocked. Firefighters at the scene said the fires might spread to nearby food storage facilities and other structures. At least 33 Yemeni oil storage tankers were destroyed, and this number could go higher because heavy smoke prevented a full assessment of the damage.
Food Wars Ahead?
“It seems we’re on a straight path toward a truly major conflict,” said market commentator Lena Petrova. “This is a good time for people to start waking up to that reality because in one way or another escalation in the Middle East and Ukraine will send shock waves to the rest of the world.”
According to Petrova, escalating global tensions and conflicts are threatening the security of many countries. And that’s putting the supply of food at risk because exporters of commodities such as grains, oil, and other staples will likely increase their own reserves to ensure they have enough for their own populations.
Some countries, among them India, Indonesia, Ukraine, Myanmar, and Hungary, have already lowered the quantity of food they are exporting or have already stopped exporting some foods entirely. However, increasing tensions “Will further limit their exports, causing a surge in commodity prices worldwide,” she says. If this scenario materializes it could cause more hardship for the world and for the poorest nations in particular because they may not be able to afford to purchase adequate supplies of basic foods such as grains. As a result, they could face famine.
The Financial Times very recently published an article explaining why people can no longer take the food supply for granted. One headline cited by that article read “World Headed For Food Wars Warns Major Commodities Trader.” The article elaborates: “The world is headed for ‘food wars’ as geopolitical tensions and climate change push countries into conflict over waning supplies.” Of course, there’s no predicting how people will react when they have nothing to eat.
“If this is not a red flag, I’m not sure what is,” says Petrova.
They Saw It Coming
Although many of the UN’s efforts are unfair and, in some cases, obviously biased, some of their objectives are admirable – at times, at least, they do try to do the right thing. Back in 2015, the UN set a goal of wiping out hunger in the world by 2030. It has become quite obvious, at this point, they won’t come even close to that. In fact, the UN acknowledges that someone around the world dies from starvation “every few seconds.”
Meanwhile, food shortages and crises are becoming worse and this trend may continue for a variety of reasons. According to The Economic Collapse Blog, “Experts agree that what we are experiencing now is just the beginning,” and one reason for that is because land is being degraded quickly and steadily.
Land becomes degraded when droughts and flooding occur frequently. According to the BBC, “the organic matter that binds land together dies, and it is less able to support plant life, reducing crop yields.” The Director of the World Food Programme’s global office pointed out that this is happening in some of the poorest areas in the world.
For example, a report in the publication Foreign Affairs said that as much as five percent of Sudan’s population could die of starvation by the end of the year. Hunger is so intense in Sudan that some people are using water to roll dirt into a ball and eating that!
It is not cast in stone that weather patterns will remain crazy forever or that fertilizer and other farming essentials will remain expensive or in short supply.
But they could. That’s why a growing number of people are prepping – preparing for all possibilities – just in case. There’s nothing we can do about the weather or the events that lead countries to reduce their food exports and the like. But we can prepare for them. Please check out “City Prepping,” a very well researched and informative website that discusses how to survive famine, power outages, droughts, floods, riots, and other dangers. Prepping may literally be today’s survival equivalent of “putting money in the bank for a rainy day.” The expression “Better safe than sorry” always made a lot of sense – and probably even more so these days.
Sources: bbc.co.uk; cityprepping.com; economiccollapseblog.com; ft.com; npr.com; pbs.org; politico.eu; zerohedge.com; YouTube: Lena Petrova, “Food Wars”
Gerald Harris is a financial and feature writer. Gerald can be reached at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
