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I don't see how that's sustained by the article. This is just another face of the energy crunch. Oil and gas are somewhat rarer more expensive, and so everything made from them is more expensive and the economy needs to seek to a new price equilibrium. In this case, that mostly means "reduced travel and air freight" and "reduced gas heating usage".

But as a side effect farmers need to scramble to match their own market. So some of this will end up meaning "more expensive fertilizer-heavy crops". But at the economic level farming is less able to tolerate volatility (you can't JustInTime a soybean, literally farmers reap what was sown months ago), so there's need for some assistance at the regulatory level. Which is what this article is about.

Basically, no. No famines. Just pricing and regulatory changes.



There is a famine in Madagascar now, although not related to fertiliser. The system is fragile


That's entirely the fault of their inept and corrupt administration there.


United Nations says it's "first climate change famine".

Why are you blaming administration? I am not sure how corrupt they are, but how do you deal with drought in a country that has GDP per capital of $520? Like you can't afford to do much with that.

https://news.un.org/en/story/2021/10/1103712


> I am not sure how corrupt they are, but how do you deal with drought in a country that has GDP per capital of $520?

That's partially a function of the corruption and silly practices. Eg they are spending tax dollars (that they don't really have) to subsidies fuel.


Well, and also a big drought. Economies (and weather) are indeed unstable in general. But per the upthread hypothesis there's no particular instability in the food supply caused by fertilizer/energy/covid disruption that seems notable. We've been here before and we'll be here again.




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