It’s still June.
BUDAPEST, June 28 (Reuters) – Hungary’s 2022 grains crop prospects have been “substantially damaged” by extreme hot weather and a lack of rainfall, state news agency MTI reported Agriculture Minister Istvan Nagy as saying on Tuesday.
The heatwave has also prompted an earlier than usual start to the nation’s grains harvest, he said.
Hungary, one of East Europe’s top grain producers, ordered a ban on all grains exports in March because of price increases caused by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
The Hungarian grain crop totalled 13.7 million tonnes last year, down 12% from the previous year, partly because of dry weather conditions.
MTI cited Nagy as saying that farmers have so far reported heat damage on nearly 230,000 hectares, about a tenth of last year’s total grains acreage.
I didn’t hear the whole HSBC Stuart Kirk “who cares” speech until I watched Andrew Dessler’s response. I want to tie Stuart Kirk to a chair and explain to him that food stress causes riots and revolutions. “No society is more than nine meals away from a revolution.” Then leave him locked in a hot room with tepid water and no food for a day or two. If he complains about it, ask him who should care.
One of the critical lessons in engineering classes was understanding how small changes can affect a system in a big way, and it applies throughout reality.
These long term financial graphs, that investing companies flout, seem to hide a lot of calamities and miseries and don’t reflect inflation particularly well. Also some people in higher levels of the finance industry receive inflation (linked) pensions and do not need to care about recessions and periods of poor returns. so much as the lay.
More and more countries seem to be suffering from crop damage lately, ‘with food prices rising and rampant inflation, worrying times approaching, especially for those on a fixed income.
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Climate change is bringing harsher and more frequent drought to Zimbabwe, threatening the staple maize crop.
https://news.trust.org/item/20220629085818-dbs3o/
I strongly suspect this is partially caused by heat, but more adequately explained by the nationalist policies of Orban. He’s making sure Hungary doesn’t get a rise in food prices this year, and screw the rest of the world.