Food Insecurity, Wheat Shortages and Increasing Prices – Oh My!

I try not to use SHTF blog to chase SHTF news like a lawyer chasing an ambulance, but sometimes news is so pervasive and pertinent that I can’t help but comment. Today’s post is such an instance. Survival and preparedness blogs have been busting at the seams reporting on wheat shortages and projected food price increases, drumming the drama up in hopes you’ll all run around screaming “The sky is falling!”

All I have to say about that is …. I love it! Of course, I don’t really like the thought of people in third world countries scrambling for every last morsel of food, but the doomer in me can’t help but get worked up over such headlines. The first news article to get everyone going was – Russia bans wheat exports due to shortages!

OMG!

Sounds the TEOTWAWKI alarm! Grab your guns! The zombies are coming!

That’s always my initial alarmist response – naturally, otherwise I wouldn’t be authoring SHTF blog. Then I get fed (no pun intended) more headlines like:

• World Bank urges nations to avoid food export bans,
• Japan Seeking U.S. Wheat After Russian Ban,
• Wheat Prices Hit 13-Month High, and
• Food Insecurity Rising in America

News like this to people like you and me only adds fuel to our inner TEOTWAWKI fire, so when I listened intently to yesterday’s Diane Reams show on NPR where they discussed World Wheat Supplies. I know hard right conservatives cringe at the thought of getting news from NPR, but I consider myself a moderate and I’ve always found NPR presents a balanced view. Consistent with that “balanced” view, the article both encouraged and buffered my world wheat hysteria.

The truth is, opinions differ widely on what is happening and will happen with wheat shortages and food prices. Russia is encountering a shortage, but if you’re beginning to think now is the time to enter your SHTF bunker for the next 12 months, consider news like this (brought to my attention by NPR) before you do:

• India has so much wheat that it’s rotting, because they can’t store it all,
• US Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack says there will not be a world wheat panic.,
• Wheat Falls for Third Day as Rally Deemed Excessive,
• Michigan Farmers Plant More Wheat (classic supply and demand), and now
• Russia May Reconsider Export Ban

So where does the truth lie? Is the world’s food supply reaching dangerously low levels or is it all a bunch of SHTF drama? My guess is the truth lies somewhere in the middle. But public fear has a significant impact, and inevitably, as one commentator on the NPR article stated, “news of a food shortage will raise one’s excitement level – understandably.” And, after one commentator buffered the bad news with optimism, the show moderator countered with, “Yeah, I’ll go buy my loaf of bread now.”

Are YOU still worried?

– Ranger Man

BTW: Of course you’re still worried. Food prices are only going up and there are just too many people in the world trying to reap too few resources. Food and water shortages are a-b-s-o-l-u-t-e-l-y inevitable. That’s why YOU need a bulk supply of wheat and a premium Country Living Hand Grain Mill for all your TEOTWAWKI food prep needs – and if you’re really rich, buy one for me, too …. please …. ?