- Jim Boyer is a Ringsted-based farmer.
A few months ago, President Joe Biden warned that food shortages “will become a reality.” Maybe he’s been into something for the first time in a long time. Americans should be careful. Food bank shelves are already empty and food prices are out of control. Both of these are ominous signs.
Here’s the real question: If the Biden administration’s disastrous response to the still-unsolved milk powder shortage is any indication, does he have a plan to alleviate potential food shortages? Logically, helping American farmers would be the first step.? Not doing so is like hearing a thunderstorm coming and not closing the window.
Biden appears to have taken the second route. “We are in crisis right now,” National Black Farmers Association President John Boyd Jr. warned in May. in June, he called biden For “promised to meet me last year” to discuss inflation, with no follow up.
American farmers are seeing “increasing costs across the board” from fertilizers and pesticides to equipment repairs and seasonal labor. Diesel costs are through the roof amid Biden’s war on America’s energy. Glyphosate, the active ingredient in America’s most widely used herbicide, is up 250% year-over-year, in part because of “supply chain challenges” that Biden promised to fix. Another study, in his Ag Economic Barometer, conducted in April by Purdue University and his CME group, found that 30% of farmers used herbicides, 27% used farm machinery parts, 26% used fertilizers, and 26% used fertilizers. 17% had difficulty obtaining pesticides.
All of this can mean that there is less food when crops are harvested for the long term. As a result, American farmers are in financial trouble. A recent study from Texas A&M University found that farmers’ profits will fall by 60% in 2022.
While economic incentives to farming have been watered down, the problems are: I think I’m speaking for all the distraught mothers who couldn’t get their hands on formula.
Already, the supposed Biden “behavior” proves the point. Just last month, the Biden administration proposed essentially coming down to more expensive weed control.
Let’s hope the looming food shortage crisis that Biden says will “become real” doesn’t turn into Biden’s Milk Formula Shortage 2.0. Formula shortages show that when hunger becomes a matter of life and death, the Biden administration appears unable to exert the urgency necessary to act quickly and effectively to protect the American people. increase.
The potential food shortage is different in that it was likely caused by the Biden administration. 2020, After all, Biden said: “There is no food shortage problem. There is a leadership problem.”
Let’s not forget who is to blame if this crisis really hits America’s shores.
Jim Boyer is a Ringsted-based farmer.