This news from Russia Today:
Russia records worst harvest in years amid global food crisis
Last year’s grain harvest was the worst in three years, Russian officials have cautioned, as sharp rises in food prices squeeze households across much of Europe.
According to the national statistical agency, Rosstat, the amount of wheat harvested in Russia fell by 12%, or 10 million tons, to 75.9 million tons, while barley production fell 14%, to 18 million tons. Only the corn harvest improved, by 6%, up to 14.6 million tons.
The slim pickings were due to a combination of droughts, the death of winter crops, and a shortage of migrant labor for seasonal work. The US Department of Agriculture had predicted a Russian wheat harvest of 85 million tons at the start of the season but lowered its estimate after several important agricultural regions, including Orenburg and Tatarstan, were struck by bad weather.
Yes, bad weather but also poor planning and inflation. The disease that is striking the USA is striking other nations as well - stupidity, globalization, clueless leadership. Trofim Denisovich Lysenko died in 1976 but his legacy lives on in people like the Obama and Biden administrations, European leadership, Canadian leadership, Australian leadership. Politically well connected but clueless as to their job at hand. They stay in office because of their connections. They follow the party line. I am reminded of this great quote from Robert Anson Heinlein:
“Throughout history, poverty is the normal condition of man. Advances which permit this norm to be exceeded — here and there, now and then — are the work of an extremely small minority, frequently despised, often condemned, and almost always opposed by all right-thinking people. Whenever this tiny minority is kept from creating, or (as sometimes happens) is driven out of a society, the people then slip back into abject poverty.
This is known as "bad luck.”
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