An excellent and incredibly long essay on the fragilities of the US food system by Madge Waggy. About a 30 minute read, 45 minutes if you stop and think while reading it.
Rather than repeat the whole catalogue (of potential failure points), four things are worth holding in mind, because they are where the pressures actually meet:
- The system has very little stored reserve, so a delay anywhere turns into a shortage somewhere else.
- The most critical nodes, from packing plants to ports, are few enough that one failure travels nationally.
- The natural base, meaning water and soil, is degrading slowly and unevenly, with the damage concentrated in the regions that produce the most.
- The public has little reserve and adapts quickly, which delays any political pressure to fix the problem.
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What would make the biggest difference is probably the least glamorous thing, which is treating resilience as something worth paying for in advance rather than regretting in hindsight. That means valuing the buffer, the spare plant, the local mill, the cover crop, and the extra warehouse, even when they look inefficient in a good year. It means measuring the system not by how cheaply it runs in calm weather but by how gracefully it fails in bad weather.The hardest part is that resilience has no constituency. It has no ribbon-cutting, no dramatic rescue, no visible hero.
Disclosure: Some of the "stock phrasing" suggests that AI might have assisted in the writing of this essay.
Resilience also doesn't have a discernable ROI in the near term, which makes it difficult to get investor $$ for it. Accountants hate paying for redundancy as they'd rather pay someone to fix it than have a backup.
ReplyDeleteAlso taxes on less utilized plants AND reserve stock is a problem.
ReplyDeleteLook at how many end of year sales to reduce taxes.
Michael the anonymous
The premise of this article is false. The U.S. government maintains several different food stockpiles through Department of Agriculture (USDA and Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) programs. The USDA's 'Strategic Grain Reserve' fluctuates, but is today in the vicinity of 24 million short tons of cereal grains and oil seeds. There are also inventories of cheese and meats managed by USDA and FEMA. These inventories are not disclosed due to security concerns.
ReplyDeleteThe USDA National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS) issues a 'Grain Stocks' report at the end of every month detailing private inventories of cereal grains and oil seeds held in the United States by all parties, and the monthly draws.
After the mismanagement of FEMA efforts due to political bias
Deletehttps://www.dhs.gov/news/2026/08/27/dhs-report-exposes-biden-era-fema-denied-aid-trump-supporters
I am not comfortable that my family's disaster food supply is to come from a Gov.com that has already shown bias for mere political viewpoints.
Not to mention the rather poor results of most gov.com disaster responses.
"Who you know is what you get. " If you're not part of " the group" you ain't getting anything. ---ken
DeleteIf not FEMA, whom would you trust? FEMA's stockpiles are relatively small and stored in 8 different locations around the country.
DeleteUsda inventories are public information.
Delete"Efficiency" and JIT inventory procedures work fine when everything else works fine. Not so much when they don't.
ReplyDeleteMore and more people seem to be slowly waking up to the idea of planting a victory garden. Sometimes it's strictly monetary (HOW MUCH for a head of Romaine?), sometimes it's health-oriented to avoid chemicals and pesticides, sometimes it's because they read lots of articles like this and a nagging voice in the back of their head they can't quite put their fingers on unconsciously makes them want to go out and build a raised-bed garden box and fill it with dirt this weekend.
ReplyDeleteI had that itch, until I moved to 15 acres in the country. Scratch it, scratch that itch, you won't regret it, I promise.
That’s why preppers prep. Never know what the next few months or years will bring. Plus I like knowing where some of my food comes from - the home garden- and how it was handled.
ReplyDeleteWe had an ice storm here in ‘08. Power was out for 2 weeks. Gas station couldn’t pump gas for a few days. Local small stores were sometimes cash only sales. Many roads were initially blocked due to downed trees.
Some people had it rough. No food supply, electric heat, no generator. Many had to go to a friends house, or shelter space.
Might be worse now, everyone’s dependent on their credit cards or EBT, and an increase in population to strain the system.
Southern NH
Looks like the only reserves of grain in the US are privately held. Which means the government would have to confiscate it to redistribute it. Not a good plan to rely on it.
ReplyDeletehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Emerson_Humanitarian_Trust
BEHT was a financial instrument, not an actual grain stockpile. Droolin' Joe emptied its accounts in 2022 and it has never been replenished.
DeleteThe USDA's 'Strategic Grain Reserve' contains approximately 24 million short tons of actual cereal grains and oil seeds which are government owned, but stored in private facilities. The SGR is structured similar to the DLA Strategic and Critical Materials Stockpile.
I'd like to see if China and other nations get to buy that "privately held" grain and oil seeds.
DeleteLike Trump's "Need oil, we have plenty" as he emptied our oil reserves to Europe and Asia.
Sellers prefer the high bid, you know.
The SGR stockpiles are managed on a FIFO basis to assure freshness of perishable commodities. The private facilities are actually ordered to sell aging stock and replenish it with fresh stock. They get snap audited regularly (depending upon the volume stored) to assure that they have their share of the SGR at all times.
DeleteSPR oil reserves are sold at auction to the highest bidders. If foreigners buy SPR oil, so be it. Their alternative would be to buy current U.S. production, which would have exactly the same effect on market pricing. The only limitation on foreign purchases of oil, NGLs, and LNG presently is shipping capacity.
Cushing oil inventories currently stand at 26.6 million barrels, reflecting an increase of 22% during the month of September alone. This hardly constitutes "emptied our oil reserves to Europe and Asia."
Our problem - and the world's problem - is refining capacity. You want to support Ukraine's refinery attacks, you get $ 6.75 diesel. The Gulf countries don't affect the diesel market anywhere as much as the Russians do. The Russians buy diesel on the world market when their refinery capacity gets knocked out, the Gulf countries do not. So the attacks on Russian refineries have a two fold effect on the diesel market. Zelenskiy and his British puppetmasters know this and are playing you.
My good friend runs some cattle and hogs for meat sale to local people . Four cows were supposed to be done yesterday with part of it to us. I stopped over there today and the cows were still in the pasture. He told me that he was told to wait until the 2nd week of November to bring them down to the butcher because one of their big providers brought in 100 hogs and they were full until then. Meat is getting dumped because of the grain/feed problem. It's bad. Stock up. It's getting worse. ---ken
ReplyDeleteThe depletion of agricultural soil is hidden by the massive use of petroleum fertilizer and other chemicals. But eventually the ground will cease production of crops. Without replenishment by floods, volcanos and other means soil loses it's ability to grow plants. We have been overworking the soil for decades and we can now see the results of that in many regions.
ReplyDeleteI think that the 33% loss in oil based fertilizer from Epstein's Fury war is also a MAJOR Factor for several years.
DeleteTakes time to repair the infrastructure damaged and destroyed.
So much winning, coming soon to your grocery store.
Russia typically exports twice the volume of fertilizer that all the Gulf countries do. 25% more than the U.S. and Canada combined. They used to export most of their fertilizer through Novorossiysky Morskoĭ Port (NSP) at the northeast end of the Black Sea. No more.
DeleteOnce again, Zelenskiy and his British puppetmasters know this and are playing you.
Sir, when the rubber hits the road all that "international knowledge" you share with us doesn't make the working man's commuting fuel cheaper, nor does his grocery bill stop growing FAR Higher than his "raises" (IF he's getting any).
DeleteRussia isn't harming their own country, nor is China.
Fertilizer requires inputs like Sulfur and Urea both the middle east was a major supplier.
Seems the rising prices isn't affecting your household, sir.