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Many will be, since you have to factor that it is not only the raw produce of food that needs to be calculated in the equation, but also all inputs needed in producing that food, e.g. fuel, fertilizers, equipment, energy.

Take Finland as an example (where I live.) In pure food output terms, we produce 80% of our consumption within the country, and import 20%. However, the means of production are very much dependent on importing - for example, energy from Russia. As a comparison, the import to export ratio for pure food output is only 50% in Sweden.

It is quite more complex than just looking at the output, and it wouldn't be uncommon to be caught with your pants down in a crisis situation. We had a minor scandal over here during COVID where the government National Emergency Supply Agency claimed to be 'all good' with the highly increased need for medical equipment - except turns out a lot of the protective equipments such as masks had been rotting in the various warehouses to the point they were unusable.



Many governments (including Finland) subsidize national farming for the express purpose of maintaining emergency food production capability regardless of markets. That is, governments pay people to keep farming.


Well aware. Fun fact: farming subsidies and military spending are pretty much 1:1 over here. (Around 2,7 billion €)


It's true, no country is fully self-sufficient in producing all the inputs for food.

The thing is, you're unlikely to be in a food, and fertilizer, and a heavy machinery, and an energy crisis all at the same time. Putin cuts off the gas? Just buy apples from Poland, etc, etc. Generally, the failure modes for trade in all of these are not correlated.

Some foodstuff that goes into animal feedstock, or into wasteful refinement processes (say, beer) can also be eaten directly.

Now, I'm not saying that the government should do nothing about food security... It should encourage domestic production.


Fair points.




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