Ben Riensche, who runs the Blue Diamond Farming Company, predicted on Fox News’ “Tucker Carlson Tonight” that the Russian sanctions, the Green New Deal, and other factors will cause a massive spike in food prices later this year, spurring more economic hardship for Americans.
“Soaring fertilizer prices are likely to spike food prices,” Riensche told host Tucker Carlson. “If you’re upset that gas is up a dollar or two a gallon, wait until your grocery bill is up $1000 a month. And it may not manifest itself in terms of price, it could be quantity as well. Empty shelf syndrome may just be starting.”
“I’m sorry, I just wanted to make sure I heard you correctly. Up $1000 a month?” an incredulous Carlson asked.
“Sure,” Riensche replied. “The price of growing my crops, or the major crops, corn, soybeans, wheat, rice, cotton are up 30 to 40 percent. They are on my farm. And most of it is fertilizer. Nitrogen prices are up three times from the last crop we put in. Phosphorous and potassium have doubled.”
“The planting season in the northern hemisphere is just weeks away. There is no miracle technology that can cut that in a half or a third,” he said. “It’s a pretty fixed formula. For me to grow an acre of corn on my farm, I need 200 pounds of nitrogen, 200 pounds of phosphorus, and 100 pounds of potash [fertilizer potassium].
Riensche told Carlson that it remains to be seen how this plays out, and speculated that some farmers may opt to “switch to other crops that produce less.”
He said the main culprit is the price of natural gas. “It’s the key stock of most fertilizer inputs,” he explained. “But then we’ve got supply chain rules that came from the pandemic, a few hurricanes that knocked down some supply sources.”
But the key driver of the problem is the price of gas, he asserted. “This could kind of be described as the food crisis of the Green New Deal,” Riensche declared.
Policies that have made us more dependent on foreign energy, energy plants that have been decommissioned from other power sources, and transitioned to natural gas, and that’s competing against fertilizer input stocks, Wall Street taking an activist investor role with strategic plant closures, but the kingpin in this—the worst part for a farmer—is this action that’s been taken by the International Trade Commission (ITC)—tariffs that they put in place that are creating monopolies.Riensche said farmers now can’t buy from friendly parties that have a third of the supplies.”
In in February 2021, the Biden administration recommended that the International Trade Commission (ITC) implement tariffs of over 19 percent on imported fertilizers from Morocco after the Mosaic Company, which manufactures fertilizers used in the U.S. and abroad, filed a petition with the U.S. Department of Commerce seeking the levies.
A month later, the ITC voted to impose the tariff, and adding similar levies on...
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News flash, the vast majority of Americans cannot afford ANY large increase in monthly fixed expenses. PERIOD. We are blessed and have worked very hard to avoid such a situation.
ReplyDeleteIt looks like we'll soon be a nation of slim, trim and slender folk!
ReplyDeleteActually fast food and junk food consumption will rise.
DeleteOh, fuck off. This guy is just "talking his book". How many of you eat corn or soy beans on a daily basis
ReplyDelete? they are just animal feed, and unhealthy animals at that! There is plenty of food from your local farmers. As for the city people, they deserve what they get.