Bayou Renaissance Man recently posted another essay regarding food security.
One commenter stated that "The United States imports more food than we export" and contended that we were also doomed under BRM's set of assumptions.
I decided to look into the commenter's statement.
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| In 2021 we imported $170 billion of food and ag products (source) |
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| And we exported $177 billion of food and ag products |
So the original commenter was NOT correct in implying that the US is a net importer of food.
Where he also misleads is that BRM was talking about gross calories, not dollar amounts. He would have us believe that the following transaction is a "wash" in terms of food imported/exported:
If I import three, 24 oz loaves of bread at $3 each then I imported $9 of food. Those three loaves of bread contain a pound of wheat flour each or about 6000 Calories.
If I export a $9 bushel of wheat then I exported 60 pounds of wheat or almost 20 times as many Calories as when I imported the manufactured loaves of bread.
Approximately 2% of our ag imports are "bulk" goods while 36% of our exports are bulk grains, soybeans and the like.
Bottom line: The United States exports vastly more calories than we import due to our mix of imports/exports.
So, what kinds of manufactured and high value goods does the US import?
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| I apologize. The source changed the units to Percent of market rather than dollars. |
- Grain and oilseed milled products (Examples: White rice, palm oil, oilseed cake for animal feed supplements are examples of milled products)
- Sugar and confections
- Beverages (Scotch whisky, wine from France and Argentina, beer from Mexico, Canada)
- Preserved fruits and vegetables (Raisins, dried apricots and figs, pickles, canned and frozen vegetables from Mexico)
- Meat products (Beef from Latin America for fast-food chains, hams from Poland and Spain)
Unless you shop "local" local, most of the meat and fruits and vegetables are coming from overseas.
ReplyDeleteI eat quite a bit of fish. Farmed Salmon comes from Chile. The last chunk of Halibut I had, came from Russia. Tilapia, which I don't eat, comes from Mexico. Wild caught Salmon comes from Canada, I believe.
Raspberries and blackberries come from Latin America, unless you spend twice as much and buy organic.
Thoughts from the edge of the forest..
ReplyDeleteThis year's events/opinions/discussions made Me think about what I could provide for my self without any outside help.
Heat/cooking fuel/lumber. I live in a place if I don't mow everything turns to trees, quickly.
Water, how would I get water out of my well without electric power. Hand pump, dip line, it has to be small to fit in a 5" well pipe.
Cooking stove without any outside inputs I cannot produce myself. Rocket stove? Wood cook stove? Cooking on the ground over an open fire.
++Food can I grow enough? Potatoes, beans, flint corn, squash. I also have an infestation of woodchuck, rabbits, and deer(they jump). Fencing works kind of. Trees grow in the fence here if I don't mow mulberry, elm, cherry, oak.
I find myself adding old wisdom farming1 books to my printed library.
I like the word prudent better than the new use word hoarding.
Flojak for your well. The zon carries it but probably
Deletecheaper elsewhere.
And as for your infestation of critters just
Deleteturn them into food.
ERJ, as you correctly point out it is largely based on what we actually import (and export) instead of raw numbers.
ReplyDeleteWhat has been (and is) interesting to me is the nature of those imports - to Mike's point above, many of our commonly available foods are actually seasonal and as such, are brought in from other places. Could we get raspberries and blackberries from internal sources? Sure - blackberries grow wild at The Ranch, but they only produce for about a month in August and I have to fight off the bears and birds to get them. And if you are inland, there is a high degree of likelihood your ahi tuna is coming from somewhere else than the Mississippi. If the current supply chain and food woes continue, we will likely still have the calories, but they will look somewhat different and quite possibly a lot more seasonal.
Your points about the seasonal aspect of many foods hits the nail on the head.
DeleteThe Indians called this time of year "the hungry times" because the fresh foods have not started (at 43 degrees north) and the other foods have mostly been eaten.
There is something to be said for "sprouts". While they reduce the calories available they bring vitamins and flavor to an otherwise dreary time of year.
It's fish Friday for dinner tonight. I'm having Swordfish steak. I checked and it comes from Ecuador, wild caught. It was $4.74/lb because I pulled it out of the half price cooler.
DeleteI can see the price of fish being fairly stable, with the caveat of rising transportation costs, but it won't see the astronomical price increases we face for beef, pork and chicken because of the increase in feed costs on top of transportation. And also chicken and turkey supplies will be lower because of the Bird Flu so demand will drive those costs up to.
I'm not surprised. There is a huge market in the US for various foreign/ ethnic foods, some of which are quite expensive per unit of measure (pound, bottle, etc).
ReplyDeleteIn contrast, the US exports millions of tons of grain by the shipload, and other bulk products. For example, last time I checked, there was a tanker dedicated to orange juice exports.
Our specialty items are not in demand overseas, but our bulk items are.
As pointed out above, much of the foreign lower cost items we get are out of season here - or are high labor items like berries, lettuce, etc that it is harder and harder to find workers to harvest in the US. (And some items are both, with a short US season).
I don't doubt the US could survive solely on domestic food, but it would require changed diets that some people would complain mightily about.
I'm considering buying a still to reduce our dependence on foreign beverages.
ReplyDeleteI don't think we grow coffee anywhere in the USA.
ReplyDelete