Potential Food and Energy Shortage Across the World

Grocery prices keep going up slowly but surely. A few cents at a time. There's a noticable difference in prices form 6 months ago though. One example that comes to mind is Granny smith apples. They used to be 52 cents on the early days of pandemic, now they're at 96 cents... Gas prices keep going up and down slightly, but mostly stay around the $3 mark. On the labor shortages, most of the vacant jobs are entry level, with crappy wages or schedules/no benefits. Basically the jobs nobody wants.
 
How is it looking where you are as well as across the wider horizon?
Northeast USA: I noticed my local supermarket now interrupts its muzak with recorded messages about how they're doing the best they can to deal with shortages and keep shelves stocked as best they can. This is defensive, but also conditioning, I suppose, for those who've been slow to notice that there isn't the inventory there was. The message does double duty by cheerfully announcing that they want to hire people, acknowledging the worker shortage, which is also quite evident there.

A second thing I noticed was lack of availability of certain specialized, high-tech, electronic system components I inquired about purchasing for my involvement in the live-music business, and the absence even of used items. This was blamed on the microchip shortage.

A third was the inability of a relative to afford a first motor vehicle, because used vehicles have risen dramatically in price. I just spent 50% more on a car battery than I did on the last one a few years back.

Finally, a fourth. There seems to be no shortage, but rather an enormous stockpile of covid vaccine! :)

That Technocracy News piece is really well written. I appreciate that skill. Thanks for bringing that to show & tell, @Michael B-C
 
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Here in Quebec the shelves are mostly intact for now. Bacon has gone up 25%. I used to buy organic mushrooms pre-covid and they are gone and afaik, no more organic mushrooms has been put on the shelves since.

Looking at the map about imports per states/province, Canada seems better fitted to withstand the backlash and unsurprisingly, Quebec has the most outside imports while Ontario has all of it coming from Canada. I would not be surprised if this was staged from the start to make life more miserable for Quebec for the coming shortage.
I've worked in trucking and manufacturing in Manitoba for 20+ years, and what Esprit is saying for Quebec is accurate from what I hear and see coming. Much of eastern Canada (despite being the majority of the Canadian population) is more reliant on importing food and goods from the U.S. and through the St. Lawrence Seaway than the prairies are. The immense backlog of ships in L.A. and Vancouver from Asia is now re-routing some ships to go through the Panama Canal and unload in Montreal.

Although this sounds like a positive development, it's actually very concerning. The products coming from Asia on container ships aren't food. And they probably are mostly Dollar Store items of little use. What the ships are re-loading with is raw materials for Asian manufacturing. Canada would export those anyway, but the problem lies in that there is now a bigger demand for truck capacity out of Montreal (to move the Asian goods that would have come out of L.A. or Vancouver) so that none of us out west (or even on Toronto) can get any capacity. Trucks leaving here and heading to Montreal are all being automatically "Roundtripped". What this means is that the transportation equipment balance for inbound and outbound goods in Montreal is very out of whack. Less of the essential cross-Canada goods are leaving Montreal and less will be returning because the warehoused Asian container goods are taking road truck capacity. Think of Dollar Store tea towels and dog toys taking up truck after truck to leave Montreal heading for Chicago, St Louis and Minneapolis by the droves (an exaggeration, but even 10 trucks a day can throw the balance out in a big Canadian city going in a different direction - not crushing - but disruptive)

As Christian in Ice-Age farmer mentioned, global supply chain is like a cardiovascular system. But unlike it, there is no single heart, there are many. Before the opening up of China and the collapse of the Soviet Union, the super-ships of very extended supply chains didn't exist due to both geopolitics and technology. I got to meet a number of people from the big shipping companies in Germany and Denmark that were spearheading this in the late-90's. They believed it was panacea. But it's too extended and does not take extreme weather into account.

I think Christian's right in pointing out that port cities of large populations can be held hostage for food and supplies. Although these new cross-border vax passes coming in this month will be a big problem - at least in the short-term. This will effect Canada much more than the United States - Canada exports raw materials much more to the U.S. that aren't as reliant on trucking as finished goods are. The much larger problem is how the trans-national shipping companies have set the globalist system up. Whether they intended disaster, I don't know. It looks more like insane greed to me at this point, but it's a completely opaque industry and always has been.

In terms of Canada - our infrastructure is essentially Victorian. And that's been allowed to happen because we're a ribbon along the U.S. border that can easily rail and road goods a few hundred Km's from another country cheaply. The central U.S. and Southeast are relatively self-sufficient - a brilliant grid of rails and interstate highways, but the coasts are dependent on ocean moved goods.

But the U.S. has fallen behind with its ocean port upgrades and especially its ending of dominant ship building.

As Michael B-C mentioned above, the supply chain disruptions will play into the climate change, fake food push. I think all of us here know that glyphosate soaked, fractionated pea protein, soylent green is going to be the new cause de celeb once the virus is played out.

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The morning of Jan 10th, news sources and twitter are showing photos of ***bare*** shelves in stores...food and other supplies. States were Pa, Va, NJ, NY, Ct, NC, DC....

Next day I looked and it was all on how supply chains have been broken and the push is on for un-natural, to us, foods. Photos of meat from cells....and the canabilistic end of it too (remember meat made from celebrities' cells?). Insect based food, printed food, food from plastic, etc..... This is on many alternative sites also. So, right on que, feeding info faster and faster, humanity is being presented with these scenarios....All being directed from the apex of the control system...

Some final observations on the photos of bare shelves, from eastern states.

First, my son did a big shopping run for us yesterday, which was needed. Stores were well stocked, except for some on sale items; normal there. Oh, he did say dog food was low, but not so much the cat food shortages ppl have been posting.

Second, on the days before these photos were shown, the east had snowstorms. Especially storms in the southern states would have impacted transport of goods, as they are unprepared for significant amounts of snow. Northern states recieved enough snow to affect transportation, also. So, there could have been panic buying, which is common enough when ppl hear weather forcasts. I do think one should take mental checks on all around availabilty of food and supplies; in these days, that's wise to do.

I am trying to watch patterns to see a broader reality....one which may or not be one that's being projected to us.
 
western Australia:
I actually walked into the shops just before and have never seen the meat section so bare. I know Victoria has mandated boosters for meat and seafood workers. But i was very surprised with how decimated the shelves were here in W.A

I work in the resources sector and my job is heavily reliant on china for our processes. We were informed at out last staff meeting that supplies got so bad they nearly turned everything off and called it a night at the plant. Somehow they managed to keep it going and things got better and stabilised over christmas. We have now gone back to using inferior quality goods again and i can tell my manager is stressed. I think those same problems are back so will be interesting to see what happens. i think what bothers me most is that they didn't inform us before hand, they were just going to close. So not a particularly good sign.

Skynews has just run a story that our national grocer coles has implemented a purchase cap. Mostly on toilet paper, pandadol etc. Im pretty sure this has also been implemented to meat. Looks like i will be coles hopping.


Its mostly focusing on staff shortages as the cause. They are asking the unemployed to help out. Maybe due to mandates many have left.? However I think thats the red herring their using. Will be interesting to see how the situation goes. I think this is going to snowball and it wont be long until SHTF.

Fuel at the moment is $1.91 per litre and thats for the lowest quality too. I have never see that price ever. It's only taking months now for substantial price increase across the board on prices that had already increased. Better baton down the hatchet!
 
Inflation will probably start playing a larger role within a year or two. The real inflation of the dollar was at least 10-15% in 2021.

So even if inflation stays the same as in 2021, within a year or two a lot of people will lose a third of their purchasing power. As prices go up, the wages stay more or less the same for many if not most.

If the wages are not adjusted to keep pace with the inflation, then there will be a financial breaking point for many. And it cannot be more than a few years away, considering that the rise in inflation will likely accelerate.
 
Down here in the Houston area the shelves are stocked. Strangely enough, there have been frequent sales on meat, like buy-one-get-one-free on beef chuck or pork shoulders. It's like they're trying to get rid of them the deals are so good. Apart from that, I've noticed eating out at restaurants is getting very expensive.
Like axj mentioned, I think inflation will skyrocket this year, but then again I've been saying that every year for awhile now.
 
Down here in the Houston area the shelves are stocked. Strangely enough, there have been frequent sales on meat, like buy-one-get-one-free on beef chuck or pork shoulders. It's like they're trying to get rid of them the deals are so good. Apart from that, I've noticed eating out at restaurants is getting very expensive.
Like axj mentioned, I think inflation will skyrocket this year, but then again I've been saying that every year for awhile now.
Yeah, same thing here, except buy one get one free is a normal practice in my area, north of Pittsburgh, Pa. Although, ground beef was advertised at a low price I haven't seen for awhile, $3.99 and $3.79 per pound. The sales flyers change today, so it wasn't much of a surprise that they were out of the ground beef on sale yesterday. The only other thing I could add as a speculative observation as to why so cheap, and perhaps dumping meat, as you mentioned, is that there has been a recent alert on grd. beef for e. coli contamination.
 
East Coast US here. Shortages in the supermarket have been off and on and rather random for quite some time now. More or less every time I go shopping (which is every couple of days, the supermarket is in walking distance and I prefer fresh food), I notice some item that's run out or low. It hasn't generally affected me much, as it's only infrequently something on my list. Since I'm close to the coast, I suspect that shipping is relatively easy here.

Prices, on the other hand, are noticeably higher. A couple bags of groceries can easily run $100 or more. I've got enough slack in my budget that it hasn't affected my standard of living much, but then again I'm a single guy on a good salary. If I had mouths to feed and was making the median income, things would be getting pretty tight.

Restaurants have gotten a bit absurd. I figure part of that is cost issues, part is having to pay workers more due to the labor shortage, and part of it is trying to make up for all the lost revenue during lockdowns.
 
How is it looking where you are as well as across the wider horizon?
Excellent post and perfectly timed thread, Michael. Thank you! On Tuesday afternoon here in south-east Queensland, Australia, I noticed for the first time at my local Woolworths supermarket that there were significant numbers of empty shelves, which I initially put down to a busy day (it was approximately 6:00pm local time) until I saw the toilet paper aisle completely empty. So it seems there was some level of rushed buying that had been taking place. Aside from the toilet paper aisle, the next most affected areas were frozen foods and discount goods - all the discount shelves, aside from one or two items, were empty.

The CEO of Woolworths gave a statement regarding supply chain issues, which is mostly being blamed on a lack of rapid antigen tests and restrictions due to Megatron. ABC News Australia starting focusing on this beginning the 4th of January, and I expect that the media narrative will increasingly shift from the coronavirus to the economy over the next few months.

One tangential point - this Friday (14th) is the beginning of a Mercury Retrograde astrological configuration to last three weeks. Although I don't pay too much attention to astrology, it does seem like Mercury Retrograde periods are more chaotic than usual, and Mercury was traditionally known as the god of (among other things) communication, commerce, travellers and boundaries; pretty relevant for the topic of the global supply chain, yes?
 
Inflation will probably start playing a larger role within a year or two. The real inflation of the dollar was at least 10-15% in 2021.

So even if inflation stays the same as in 2021, within a year or two a lot of people will lose a third of their purchasing power. As prices go up, the wages stay more or less the same for many if not most.

If the wages are not adjusted to keep pace with the inflation, then there will be a financial breaking point for many. And it cannot be more than a few years away, considering that the rise in inflation will likely accelerate.
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Things are semi-normal here in Florida such that a casual observer wouldn't really be able to tell the difference between 2019 and 2022, but things have been bubbling under the surface. Shelves are well stocked and I haven't seen any outright shortages since the toilet paper scare. I have noticed that inventory gets low near the end of a store's restocking cycle for certain items, where that never really happened before, but they don't run completely out, they just get low and there's some spaces on the shelves. This seems to be primarily affecting processed food, chicken, and soft drinks at the moment. Not things I buy that much, and you have to catch it on the right day to see it. Beef and seafood are abundant. Prices are creeping up across the board, however I can buy things on sale almost as cheaply before the pandemic as after. Since I buy my meat for a month or more at a time, I can usually wait out the grocery store games and catch a markdown. Also, the butchers sometimes give me a discount if I spend over $500 in the meat department. Over the past year I've seen non-sale prices of certain pork ribs I like to buy double and steaks up 50%. If you don't have the funds and freezer space to stockpile, the situation bites a whole lot worse.

I went to buy some work boots a couple of weeks ago and noticed that their inventory was quite low. They were out of a certain shoe that I like, however we were able to substitute a similar shoe without issues.
 
No food shortages here in Saskatchewan, but prices on beef, pork, and chicken have increased, most significanlty on beef. Pork and chicken probably around 10-20%, depending on the cut. Vegetables have not risen, at least that I noticed. Then again, my veggie purchases are rice, potatoes frozen peas, organic carrots, and frozen veggie mixes for rice dishes etc.
Nor have I noticed empty shelves or shortages of non-food items.
Just speculating, but an advantage to living in Saskatchewan, notwithstanding the recent brutally cold -50C weather, is a low population of 1.2 million, abundant local-with some organic-beef, chicken, pork, production/ processing, dairy farms, small scale vegetable growers (potato, leafy greens, carrots, tomatoes, organics, etc). Also, Alberta is next door and they are a major vegetable and meat producer/ processor as well.
Also, although industrial mega-farming is a huge industry, Saskatchewan has a plethora of cheap land suitable for small-scale acreages for self-sustaining food production ( poultry, rabbits, berries, market gardens, organic or otherwise).
As far as supply chain issues, even though the larger food chains could possibly be affected, that could probably be off-set by the small local producers who do their own trucking and selling, ie farmer's markets, with some sales to the smaller local retail grocers.
There's more I could elaborate on as far as pros and cons go about living in Saskatchewan, but I'll leave it for now.
FWIW
 
I work in one of the distribution warehouses for a supermarket chain here in Canada and from what I've noticed lately at work is that our outflow is starting to exceed our inflow. The racking where freight is stored is starting to look barren in some areas. At two of the store locations we service, I've noticed they're strategically placing product (like canned goods) at the edge of the shelves to make it look like the shelves are fully stocked.

In another interesting twist, we're also having labour shortages in the last few weeks due to workers who have tested positive for Covid isolating at home. In the past month since the push to have everyone get tested began, there have been 2-3 people every few days that have had to isolate. Yesterday, the company announced a new policy for people having to isolate. If you are unvaccinated, you have to isolate for 10 days at home and the company pays only for 5 of those days. If you are vaccinated, you only have to isolate for 5 days and the company pays you for those 5 days (which amounts to a week off with pay!). It's like an incentive for vaccinated employees to get tested as often as they are able to get time off with pay if they test positive! This is just compounding the problem of empty store shelves.
 
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