There has been the sudden realization that the current storm of events will impact fertilizer availability and cause shocks in the food supply.
At a very fine granularity, as gardeners and food-growers, we need to pay meticulous attention to the most basic elements of gardening. We need to run a full-court press against weeds. We need to really pay attention to soil-moisture. We need to plant at optimal times and choose varieties that are productive. We need to harvest food so it is not wasted.
As gardeners we need to examine some of our biases. Will it hurt anything if we tinkle in the orchard when nobody is looking? Maybe we don't dump the chicken litter into a pile but look around and find some plants that look a little bit puny and give them a shovel-full at their drip-line.
At a very coarse granularity, vast numbers of people in Bangladesh, East Bengal, rural China, Syria, Iraq, Egypt, Nigeria and Mexico will depopulate and move to cities where "services" are offered. The good news is that many jet airplanes will be grounded and the mass migration will be restricted to trains, buses and hoofing-it.
At a granularity between the two extremes, meat will be come exceptionally expensive. Various political entities will come to the conclusion that it makes more sense to send grain to the countries mentioned above than to machine-gun refugees from those countries at their(our) borders in wholesale-lots. Grain that went to chickens, pigs and steers will be diverted to Bombay, Dhaka, Lagos, Mexico City and Cairo.
Seafood will increase in price by an even greater percentage. Seafood has a very high "embedded energy" cost that is masked by fuel subsidies by nation-states. If you like meat, buy a pellet-gun and learn how to shoot it. If you like fish, then learn how to tie an Improved Clinch Knot and thread a worm on a hook.
The good news is that food is about to become much more delicious without the benefit of exotic spices. There is no sauce that makes food more delicious than hunger.
Bonus tip
Stock-pile enough sugar for a year's worth of canning.
Our biggest year for applesauce was 180 quarts. Given the amount of sweetening that I prefer, that requires 25 pounds of sugar. Even if I don't choose to can such a ridiculous amount of apple sauce, sugar will have trading value.
Characteristics of Money. Money is:
- Infinitely divisible
- Durable
- Universally accepted
- Compact
Sugar isn't "compact" but it meets the other three criteria. And even if you don't use it for trading, in time you will consume it within your household.
No fertilizer is coming out of the Persian Gulf, but the big news is that Russia just embargoed all fertilizer exports until 21 April. They are pissed at continuing Ukrainian attacks on their fertilizer plants, which the Ukrainians deceitfully claim to be part of the Russian OPK. The Russians are (now were) by far the world's largest exporter of fertilizer.
ReplyDeleteThis will be a disaster for Asia. They will scramble for American fertilizer and probably not get much. Cue the Sally Struthers commercials.
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As food and oil are the two highest exports of America AND we import both (Odd oil, eh?)
ReplyDeleteA Surprising % of our Beef, COFFEE, fruits and veggies from South America BUT THEY Really get their fertilizer from the now closed Middle East so that 15% average of the American Diet is going to get expensive IF available at all.
If we don't close out our exports, then even less food AND Oil are available for Americans.
BUT then our Imports become odd as starving Asia creates Food RIOTS, and such don't export so much cheap underwear, TIRES, and Medicines and such.
A couple of grand in shelf stable foods you like to eat seems prudent as in Proverbs 27 12 The prudent see danger and take refuge, but the simple keep going and pay the penalty.
Worst case if nothing happens you get to eat it.
BTW during Bosnian Civil War, the 3 highest trade value foods was Cooking Oil, Sugar and Salt. All currently as of this afternoon are cheap.
One reason for my selecting sugar is that the US can produce all of the cooking oil and salt we consume. I believe that we import most of our sugar.
DeleteTobacco products also become highly desirable when food is in short supply.
ERJ you might want to look up cooking oil, we import a huge amount. Most of our packaged foods use a lot and weaning America from frozen pizza (and so on) isn't going to be fast as so many folks simply don't know how to cook.
Deleteit's not just "Junk Food" BTW:
SNIP Yes
Yes, dairy replacements can be made of cooking oil. Cooking oils such as vegetable oil, canola oil, and olive oil are commonly used to create dairy-free alternatives for butter, cheese, and other dairy products. These oils can be used in various recipes to achieve similar textures and flavors as traditional dairy ingredients.
Reading labels and seeing partly hydronated this that that are Cooking Oils turned into Dairy replacements.
Our education system it seems failed to teach things like Home Economy, balancing a checkbook (looking at constant use of payday loans and folks at Walmart I SEE using short term credit for Groceries..)
SNIP
Canada is our number one cooking oil supply, some 40-50 percent depending on what sources you read.
SNIP Yes
Yes, America imports salt. In 2023-24, the United States imported salt worth $687.69 million (15.54 million tons). This reliance on imports is significant, as salt is a staple ingredient used in various food products and industrial processes. The US is the largest salt importer in the world, sourcing from multiple countries to meet domestic demand.
While WE CAN produce our own cooking oil and salt for domestic needs AGAIN the offshoring for decades has eliminated much of our factories and trained workers that used to be well paid to work there.
Thus, my mild suggestion that long term shelf stable foods like Cooking Oil, Sugar, Salt and canned foods might be what a "Prudent Man seeing trouble" might do.
Dollars in the bank are GAINING Value or Losing Value as weeks and months go on?
Cost of Food, cooking oil and such are staying steady for now, but what has been the LONG TERM TREND as ERJ often refers too?
Cheap OIL and Cheap Credit as the World saw America as a SAFE Haven for their money gave you and I a very nice lifestyle. I suspect that the "expensive food and fuel" we used to comment about overseas is about to become a American lifestyle.
Loss of fertilizer means loss of food. This will lead to all manner of downstream issues. Including starvation, crime and violence. Be prepared. Nothing brings out the violent beast in homo stupidicus as effectively as hunger.
ReplyDeleteIt's time to bring back green manures to enrich the soil.
ReplyDeleteSteve Solomon, author of Gardening when it Counts, recommends that we make our GARDEN plots twice as big as what we garden and that we alternate food crops and fallow like Red Clover (which fixes nitrogen).
DeleteThe problem is that commercial agriculture cannot afford to take half of the land out of production every year to grow that fallow crop. There isn't enough land. The fixed costs are too high.
Well said ERJ.
DeleteALSO, that Fallow crop isn't food for the American Table.
I'd have to add from substituting homemade chicken, duck and rabbit feed for Purina feed that egg production is about 2/3 of what commercial feeds with their additives.
Milk production for the Jersy I share with a family friend using only homestead feeding almost doubled the acreage needed for that cow but at least production seems fine.
"As food and oil are the two highest exports of America AND we import both (Odd oil, eh?)"
ReplyDeleteAmerica's light, sweet crude is much sought after and very expensive on the international market. It is used to sweeten heavy, sour crudes such as Orinoco from Venezuela, which is much cheaper.
The economics dictate we buy Orinoco at a $ 30 per barrel discount for refineries like Chevron's which are built to process it. Refineries need some sweet crude to process Orinoco, Canadian, and Urals crudes, but their overall feedstock cost is much lower by blending. And the frackers get top dollar for their light, sweet product.
Currently America isn't actually importing any significant amount of Venezuela's Orinoco oil from Google Search.
DeleteAlso, zero American companies have taken President Trumps offer to be the new operators of Venezuela's oil operations. Chevron is reducing operations.
https://energynewsbeat.co/u-s-refiners-seek-heavy-crude-sources-after-chevrons-reduced-role-in-venezuela/
SNIP U.S. Gulf Coast refiners are facing a tightening supply of heavy crude oil as Chevron’s operational role in Venezuela diminishes, a development driven by U.S. sanctions and geopolitical shifts. With Venezuelan crude exports to the U.S. declining, refiners are scrambling to secure alternative sources to meet their blending needs.
If you have links, we are getting more please post.
SNIP As of 2025, the United States imports approximately 30-35% of its total oil consumption. This marks a significant shift from the mid-2000s when imports peaked at 60%. The major suppliers of oil to the U.S. include Canada, which supplies about 60% of all U.S. oil imports, followed by Mexico and OPEC nations.
Any bets that Mexico's oil will go to the highest bidder?
As China has a strong presence in Canada, I suspect that Canadian oil is heading east to China.
I strongly suspect that the 70's oil embargo prices (AND Problems of rationing) will be the baseline of the "New Normal" in America for some time given the DAMAGES done to the oil and gas systems so far.
Our Tar Baby War is giving us "dividends" of the unwanted kind.
Your Google Search pulled up old data. Before Maduro's sudden departure.
DeleteVenezuela's crude oil exports to the United States are approximately 284,000 barrels per day right now. About one quarter of their total production. Chevron has resumed firm control of PDVSA's exports. The remainder of which go to Chinese smalls.
Chevron Pascagoula can only refine heavy, sour crude. It was designed for Orinoco crude, but has had to source other heavy, sour crude in recent years. Think they returned to Orinoco crude immediately after Maduro's departure, if not just before. Chevron Richmond (CA) is capable of refining heavy, sour crude, including Orinoco crude, but has had to sourced other heavy, sour crude in recent years.
EPA regulation changes now pretty much require refineries designed to run heavy, sour crude to blend 10% to 25% light sweet into their feedstock. This is the practice at Marathon Detroit, which was designed for the heavy, sour Canadian tar sands crude. Even so, the the heavy crude refineries have to get rid of a lot of pet coke, which used to be a premium product but now has few homes. Sulphur disposal used to be a problem, but is in high demand right now due to the fertilizer shortage.
Sounds good 10mm x 25mm. Links please.
DeleteEven so 284,000 barrels of crude (until a social disruption like Food Riots occur) from Orinoco vs the SNIP
Approximately 4.1 million barrels per day
In 2024, the U.S. imported approximately 4.1 million barrels per day of Canadian sour crude oil, which accounted for 62% of total crude oil imports. This trend has been consistent, with Canadian sour crude being a significant source of U.S. imports over the past two decades.
SNIP The U.S. primarily imports heavy crude oils from Canada and Mexico. The U.S. imported 6.6 million barrels per day (mb/d) of crude oil in 2024. Canada was the largest source, accounting for 62% of total imports, followed by Mexico at 7%. Over 60% of U.S. crude imports are classified as heavy crude, with a ≤27 API gravity (a measure of density). In contrast, around 80% of U.S. lower 48 crude production is light crude, with an API gravity above 35. The U.S. imports heavier crudes to help meet domestic refining need.
The rest of our imports of heavy crude about 31% USED to come from the middle east.
Just a higher bidder from say China who has quite the economic grasp in Canada and some social disruptions in Mexico who's almost a bit larger import than Orinoco is going to be even more of a problem.
But WE have the American DOLLAR and lots of them.
China has excess fertilizer, MEDICINE (some 90% of world production) and manufacturing import relationships not based on threats to capture or murder their leadership.
Why do I worry about Orinoco crude supply? Well decades of socialism's rob the business neglect has made its oil infrastructure rickety at best. And while we grabbed "BAD MAN" Madro has thing IMPROVED in Venezuela as far as economics and food?
Oil operations during social disruptions isn't very profitable.
Unlike the US Marines working for United Fruit Company during the Chiquita Bananas War cheap drones make highly flammable oil operations impossible.
Our blow everything up "Diplomacy" is noticed by the world. That USE of the American Dollar is Contingent upon being in America's Good Guys list VIA Sanctions and Freezing of Dollar assets has been noticed.
Opening showing contempt for other nations and their leaders is also not exactly a good will generator.
Something about living by the sword and dying by the sword comes to mind.
America COULD in a decade or so with great depression suffering, A NATIONAL WILL to rebuild offshored industry and train productive workers (instead of protestor snowflakes) and I'd suggest a repentance of sins to God again become the City on the Hill we were in the 60's or so. We have the resources aside from factories and trained workers.
Jeremiah 15:19
19 Therefore this is what the LORD says: “If you repent, I will restore you that you may serve me; if you utter worthy, not worthless, words, you will be my spokesman. Let this people turn to you, but you must not turn to them.
Meanwhile the current situation looks like you and I are going to see a return to the Oil Embargo of the 70's SELF INFLICTED.
And Fixed Income Seniors, Retirees and the working poor will suffer the most. Middle class like I see myself will be cutting back a LOT as to have a Bigger Emergency Fund of money and shelf stable foods to assist my extended family.
But what do I know, I'm just an Idiot that did a tour of medical services in Bosnia during their ethnic cleansing, a Grandfather that drove to work during the Oil Embargo and a foolish homesteader hobbyist that is semi-retired EMS who has learned just how HARD it is to grow that 6 pack of sweet corn for the BBQ.
Always go to US EIA (Energy Information Administration) web site for authoritative energy figures. They have a page in their Data section: "Weekly U.S. Imports of Venezuelan Crude Oil." EIA updates the average DAILY imports on this page once a week. They just posted for the week ending 20 March 2026 a big increase to 549,000 average daily barrels. You can see Chevron ramping up now that sanctions have been lifted.
DeleteChina just embargoed all fertilizer exports due to a developing internal deficit. Without plentiful, cheap Russian natural gas their fertilizer plants cannot produce squat.
You don't fix 28 years of Bolivarian socialism overnight. Took 10 years to just stabilize most of the USSR in the 1990's. Cuba will be the same or worse.
Thanks 10x25mm.
DeleteRamping up old abused oil equipment is interesting. Still a LONG way from the 31% sour crude we import from the smoking Middle East (with damaged oil equipment from Iran and Israel trading strikes daily). YEARS of rebuilding I hear.
10x25mm has the daily life of Venezuelan civilians improved enough not to have food riots as fertilizer "ISSUES" reduces world wide food shortages.
Oil production in a socially unstable environment is not going to be good as I mentioned above.
Please check my math if 6.6 million barrels are imported and the middle east is about 31% of that is a deficit of 2 some odd million barrels.
I suppose Venezuelan oil is a decent fraction of that lost Sour Heavy Crude IF Canada and Mexico continue to sell us theirs. Not like any other country is in the market, eh?
10 years of effort to stabilize the ex-USSR, maybe 10 years to rebuild Offshored America. Do we have the National Will to do so. Time will tell.
The heavy, sour crude wild card is Russia. They had been stopped out of world markets by sanctions which got lifted as a consequence of the Iran closure of Hormuz.
DeleteRussians can offset all the heavy, sour losses from the Gulf, if the Ukrainians with their Polish and Balt allies do not destroy Russian export terminals. Monday's combined Polish/Balt/Ukrainian strikes on Primorsk did a lot of damage. The Russians replied with devastating strikes on Ukraine, but they cannot do anything about Poland and the Balts. The Ukrainians are also targeting CPC (Kazakh) oil, which Chevron needs to blend down Orinoco crude.
Think the Bolivarian elites were hoarding at the expense of common Venezuelans. That came to a screeching halt, so there is some immediate relief for the masses. Food riots won't occur until there are actual food shortages. Maybe six months after fertilizer stocks dry up?
Mexican oil is not the supply booster most people think. It is a result of an agreement in the 1970's that the Mexicans would supply us with crude oil if we would provide them an equal value of refined products. The basics of that agreement continue in force to the present day. You will note that Mexico is our Number 1 export customer for petroleum cracks and products.
"As gardeners we need to examine some of our biases. Will it hurt anything if we tinkle in the orchard when nobody is looking? Maybe we don't dump the chicken litter into a pile but look around and find some plants that look a little bit puny and give them a shovel-full at their drip-line."
ReplyDeleteJoe, just a FYI chicken manure fresh from the chicken house is a HOT Fertilizer and has disease potential problems. Burning your plants and making your family sick isn't optimal.
SNIP Fresh manure from a backyard chicken coop or a farm has a strong smell and may contain harmful pathogens such as E. coli or Salmonella. Unlike dried manure, it cannot be used as such; it must be composted or aged before it is applied, or else the high ammonia content will burn the plants.
You CAN make Fresh Chicken manure tea to dilute the HOT nature and make your plants very happy.
https://gardenerbible.com/how-to-make-chicken-manure-tea-fertilizer/
BUT as Fresh Unaged manures still have potential disease pathogens I'd not use it with in 2 weeks of eating veggies raw as that's the minimum, I've found to reduce E-coli and Salmonella to reasonably safe levels.
Use of human urine is actually an awesome way to boost your garden plants. Just mix it 1 part to 10 parts water and water those plants. Almost no smell and generally urine isn't a disease issue. I'd not urine-water salad plants within a week of eating them but that's just me.
Fuel-based lockdowns are coming as well. All part of the grand plan. Get to co-op for a bag of triple-19 today. It lasts a couple years in the shed. 6-12-12 is a good one, too.
ReplyDeleteWay back in the late 80's - 90's, my Brother raised homing pigeons and had a loft in our parent's back yard. The manure had to be regularly removed (garden hoe) and pushed through the wire fabric covering the loft perimeter. We noticed plant life was kept away from the edge. I guess pigeon manure has same properties Michael 9:58 mention above.
ReplyDelete