Will There Be Food Shortages This Summer and Fall?

David Trammel's picture

It doesn't look good.

Major food processors are experiencing hot spots as their shoulder to shoulder plant operations breed the virus among its workers.

Closed plants mean farmers and ranchers can't sell their vegetables and animals. They are ending up destroying their good, or just giving them away.

Closed borders means that seasonal immigrant workers aren't there to harvest, nor to plant seeds.

Countries are stopping their exports to see how shortages will affect their own citizens, and not shipping to the rest of the World.

Food in fields isn't something that can be done when ever. If you don't plant when its time, then the harvest won't be there when its time.

All this points to some worries that for many, at least in the developing world there could be real shortage come this Fall. Maybe not here in the West, but then we import a huge amount of basic food stuffs. We won't starve but people in areas of war or political instability, could be in trouble.

The concern is causing a run on seeds and garden supplies. Several of my usual seed companies have run out of popular varieties, or in some cases temporarily halted new orders so they can catch up on pending sales.

A prudent Green Wizard would consider ways they could plant more, expand their options and perhaps put away a deeper pantry than they already have.

Food shortages used to be routine for everyone except the wealthiest. When everything was seasonal and local, you got what you got in late winter and early spring.

My dad (85) grew up in North Dakota and he remembers a winter where they ate nothing but beans and biscuits.

Keeping several weeks of food on hand at all times doesn't last forever, but it does give you a little breathing room.

Blueberry's picture

So if you grow a garden do you share? Back in January when we were planning the spring garden Mrs B decided we needed to plant more potatoes LOTS MORE! So this spring we planted 60 lbs (27KG) no way can we eat that many. Harvest will run from 360 pounds to 600 pounds (163KG-273KG) . So folks will be eating out of our garden most will dig there own and folks who can not will be given a bag of potatoes. So do you share? If not good luck on judgement day with that one.

mountainmoma's picture

That is part of the fun, if you have room. I live by myself, there is also no way I can eat all the potatoes I planted this year ! But I do not grow just for myself, I also store more in my pantry than just for myself. I have local family with no sun/yard to garden, and no room to store very much, so I store our joint bulk buys.

David Trammel's picture

I've always tended to grow a bit more than I need but then I'm doing a lot of experimenting and learning with this garden. When I move into my new place next year, I hope to do gardening with a bigger space and store it for a longer and more serious effort.

I got the heads up on this virus early and having lived frugally, had some money that i could put into over prepping. Came in very handy when everyone else realized there was a problem. I could support friends and family with items I had bought but were no longer available at stores. I figure my garden will be the same, a resource to help out those close if needed.

By the same token, I don't want to be so large I invite theft or people at my door expecting a hand out since I have so much.

ClareBroommaker's picture

Prudent over production. I think it is good to aim for a bit more than needed because 1) something so often goes wrong, and you never know which plants might be affected. Plus, if you want to save seed, 2) sometimes you need to let fruit mature on some plants, which tends to shut down further production on those plants. Over production as compared to one year's needs can 3) allow you to grow certain items only every two-three-four-years. That leaves you room to plant other things instead. 4) A bumper crop allows you to experiment with different ways of preserving it, and 5) gives you tradable or salable stock.

The governor of Pa announced the first wave of shutdowns on March 13th or so. They crept from government offices and libraries to the schools to where we are now.
It wasn't quick.
On Friday, 20 March, he announced the schools would be closed starting the following Monday.
Saturday, 21 March, I went to the local grocery store (as is usual for me) to get milk and fruit and panic-mode was in full blast.

Since that Saturday, I've kept to my regular routine of Wednesday (full shopping) and Saturday (milk).

Things have appeared and disappeared almost randomly, although other areas, like produce,look the same as they ever did.

What's strange is flour. All the flour, Bisquick, and pancake mixes vanished and, for the most part, they haven't returned. A bag here, a box there.
Sugar came back. Peanut butter returned. Even pasta (which was stripped to the bare walls) came back, vanishing again, and reappearing. Bread reappeared. So did regular cooking oil (not olive). White Vinegar is gone, but that seems to for cleaning as opposed to eating because all the fancy vinegar is still present in large quantities.

It's like flour turned into toilet paper. I always bought King Arthur flour in the past and now, unless it's self-rising, I buy what ever shows up because it's so hit-or-miss. I found one bag of flour in the last four weeks.

Is anyone else seeing shortages of flour?

I can't believe that everyone in the country started baking at once OR that they've been baking continuously since late March.

alice's picture

Hello Teresa, yes bread flour is particularly an interesting case here in England too though my sister in law in Scotland has no problems, they have a local flour mill there.

We have quite a few flour mills in the UK still many of which produce real high quality stuff and a lot of people seem to be going direct to the mills' web shops. I was lucky enough to get a slot from one of the mills so I have a beautiful sack of bread flour which will be enough for my baking for the family (have to avoid gluten myself but bake for the rest). It's funny I guess the stressful times have made me choose which way to go -- now I have my own flour bin -- my mum's and aunt's comments were that it sounded just like the farmhouse where they grew up in the 1940s/1950s. So I guess an opportunity to step down in complexity, buying a sack straight from the mill -- JMG's 'disintermediation'.

I think that disintermediation is happening a lot here. Manufacturers' goods are marked out of stock in the big chain stores but the manufacturers are now shipping direct to customers from their own web shop instead.

I can see all the spam comments and I am sure David will get round to deleting when he has a chance. I haven't been on here much myself since lockdown as it is pretty busy with the kids home, I don't have much free time. I am keeping up with my prayers and trying to use the opportunity to make a little shift in the right direction (local, zero waste, less fossil energy etc) when the old way of doing things doesn't work any more.

ClareBroommaker's picture

May I ask what you have worked out for a flour bin? What kind of bins did your mother an aunt have decades ago? The example I have from childhood is just a large tin with a fitted lid. It probably held only ten lbs. I think bugs could easily get into such a tin. It seems like plastic containers with airtight lids are best against bugs, but I would feel sorry to bring yet more plastic into the house. My son manages to keep his 50 lb bags of rice and flour in the original paper bags, but, living in Minnesota, I don't think he has the same insect pressure as I do further south.

mountainmoma's picture

For small amounts of flour, you can use a gallon glass jar. For bulk flour in the pantry, I use a 5 gallon food grade bucket with a gamma lid. I have seen ants get into almost anything, but the buckets with gamma seal lids even keep the ants our of sugar. They are plastic, but no being subjected to any stress ( not in the sun, or bent, etc....) these buckets will likely be handed down to my children. And, I have reason to think so ! When I was a young woman, before I thought about alternate anything, I bought storage containers for bulk things like flour and sugar from the actual Tupperware company. Their stuff was ( hopefully still is ? ) much better made than other manufacturers. My eldest is using those tupperware bins and lids that hold 5 or 10 pounds of dry goods at her house and they are over 30 years old, maybe 35 ? I have the full bags opened and put int he buckets, then I bring the smaller amounts into the kitchen shelves in quart and half gallon canning jars and lids, as needed, fill them up from the pantry buckets.

I've never been successful storing anything in a tin. Those rolled seams on the side and the bottom aren't as tight as they look.

Big glass mason jars work fabulously right up until the moment I drop them on the concrete floor.

What has worked best for us is well-scrubbed, repurposed 40 oz peanut-butter jars. My dear husband eats peanut-butter religiously and I eat a spoonful every morning in my oatmeal. We end up with a lot of jars. I haven't had bug problems with them, despite them not having a 'special' seal. A uniform size makes them easy to stack and store, they're clear so I can see the contents, and they aren't that big so it's easier to handle smaller quantities. Also, the jars come into the house all on their own with no extra effort or $$ on my part.

I did purchase years ago many large, sort of air-tight sealed clear plastic canisters from Blood, Bath, and Beyond. Despite being plastic, they are excellent and have held up extremely well. They don't break, crack, nor do they get insects. A 'large' size holds five pounds of flour perfectly with some room to spare.

I don't remember the brand name but they weren't cheap and they were made for food storage.

Plastic has its uses (drop a glass shampoo bottle in the shower and you'll see the joy of plastic); it just shouldn't be used as the default.

Metal tins don't work for me in Central PA and they really didn't work in South Carolina.

alice's picture

I have a 15 litre stainless steel bin, and I have put a brown paper bag inside. I guess it holds between 7 and 8 kg of flour. The lid push-fits firmly. I put my secateurs in the picture for scale. My main concerns here are making sure the flour stays dry (vs water on the floor) and mouse-proof. We're not troubled too much by insects here. Flour weevils I have heard of sometimes but usually from old flours are left around. But this works for our climate (52 degrees north, climate is 'maritime' as England's on a fairly small island warmed by a current in the north Atlantic).

The flour bin at the farm my mum and aunt grew up in was a wooden cabinet on legs in the dairy, a room with mesh rather than glass in the window, and slate shelves round for keeping cheeses etc. Later on, after my grandparents retired, the flour bin was an enamel container kept in the pantry cupboard, similar size to my new flour bin.

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lathechuck's picture

Now that my local organic market has self-serve peanut-butter grinders, I don't get many new jars, but a couple dozen old ones are stocked with rice, beans, dried veges, pasta, nuts, etc. However, I recently threw out a full jar of lentils, because it was infested with weevils. (In a pinch, I would have just picked them out, before or after cooking, but we're not that desperate. Yet.) I suppose a few eggs came in with the lentils, because none of the other jars were infested. When I bought the replacement lentils, I heat-sterilized them (140F for 20 mins) in the over before refilling the (washed) jars. I also heat-sterilized a bunch of other products that weren't infested. Yet.
The wide-mouth jars are perfect for filling at the bulk grain dispensers, too. (A "Noga" machinists deburring tool works well for trimming the sharp rim where the jar was foil-sealed at the factory.)

As a rule of thumb, I think I can get about 2 lb. of rice (or other protein/carb corbos) in a jar, which comes out to all the calories two people need for a day. The fat and oil in nuts will provide more calories, but may go rancid sooner. Count the jars (keeping track of how full they are) and you know how long you could hold out in a crisis without shopping again. That's a sobering exercise.

Blueberry's picture

Last time I was in a large town was March 6 had a doctors app. Picked up my Rx and a trip to the package store. Went to pick up some food items no problems at that time. Have not been back in town since, the dollar general is 1.6 miles(2.6K) from the house. Picking up milk and eggs every Thursday towards the end of March it was like mad max. Some fool had like 40 cans of vienna susage in his cart I would not feed that stuff to my dogs! Today April 30 the only items not in stock TP and rice the truck that would bring those items arrives every Friday. Back to flour during this time only one week no flour. When they closed the schools for the year the 2nd week of March bread was in short supply, for a few weeks. Not a problem since we bake our own. Living in a rural area we have a chicken plant in the county. In Columbia County a beef and pork plant and in the 2 counties 4 private processors that will do your pig or cow. Lots of places that will sell you a pig or cow and will take it to the processor of your choice.

mountainmoma's picture

Do your stores now have flour ? TP ? Other things in short supply ?

I have found that everything is more expensive, including the bulk staples ( rice, beans flour) that I buy, at least 10% more uptick in one month. For whatever reason, TP is still not fully there, there is some in the stores, so you can find some of some type to buy, but I used to buy it once a year by the case, a certain recycled, septic safe brand, and that brand in any quantity and that quantity of any brand is still just not available.

The new item that is hard to find is chick starter crumbles. You can now find chicks at the feed store, for a few months you would have to go stand in line for a few hours before the store opened the day the chicks were schedualed to arrive. Now you can find some in stock in the stores. But, all of that panic chick buying means that people need feed. The improvised feeds I use for adults are not high enough protein for chicks, and could be off in nutrient balance, so I usually also use chick feed for a few months. Worker at one of our local feed store last week told me it is because the feed mills are not running at even their normal capacity, and they would realy need to be running extra due to current demand. He says some of the employees do not want to go to work, they are scared of the virus and can collect good pay staying home, soo.... low on chick feed everywhere.

Local stores are often short on flour, I have been told, but our local Costco now has it in stock, and rice ( a neighbor of mine has a card and I met here there recently) There was a limit on buying rice. So, I have now restocked my pantry with those 2, since I shared out quite a bit to family. I also, not Costco, bought a large bag of dried organic black beans, some shared immediatelly with family, and the rest, I need to put some in a jar for my pantry, and then I will "medium" term storage pack the rest, 5 pounds in each of 2 mylar bags sealed with oxygen absorber, if things stay somewhat bad and family need it sooner, a small loss of my time and the bag cost, or we wont need it right away and wont open until next year, in which case it will be fresh then.

ClareBroommaker's picture

I've been able to get flour again. Yeast took longer, but now seems okay. Last we bought TP there was no choice in what to get, but we're not picky. Isopropyl alcohol is randomly available. Have not been able to get the spices I want for pickling, except at prices I'm not prepared to pay. On the other hand I have not gone to the import store where I usually buy spices and rice.

I think I had heard sugar was running short at one time, but I was able to buy enough for our jam making this year.

David Trammel's picture

I'm really beginning to worry that we're going to see a large spike of cases in the next month to 6 weeks. I need to see where I've allowed supplies to get short and refill now while we have some things at stores.

To answer your question. TP is there now the last few times I've shopped. Bought a brand name 12 pack yesterday. Meat is still in short supply. Most everything I see is there, though sometimes its just one or two layers of cans deep on the shelf.

I just got back from the supermarket. While many other paper goods are still in short supply, they've got an enormous supply of toilet paper. It's all Spanish brands. All the packaging is in Spanish.

Other than the packaging, it looks identical to American TP, but even so, it isn't selling like I would have expected. I'll buy some anyway because I'm still seeing a wide array of spot shortages. Bathroom cleaning supplies were nonexistent today.

lathechuck's picture

At my local organic market, they have bulk food bins from which we can dispense many kinds of beans, rices, and nuts. A lot of the beans were empty a few weeks ago (red kidney beans, especially), but they're back in stock. The oatmeal bins that we used to scoop out of are empty, for fear of viral contamination, so we have to buy store-bagged rolled oats now. They have black wild rice, and white arborio rice, but the plain old short, medium, or long-grain brown rice bins have been empty for a long time. However, brown rice in sealed 2 lb. bags is still on the shelf. Corn meal was in stock, but corn flour was an empty space. Wheat flour of some types and brands was in stock, others empty shelf space. No shortage of bread, though!

If I read your post correctly, it's okay at your local organic market to scoop up dried beans from the bulk bins but not to scoop up rolled oats because of fear of viral contamination.

????

Shouldn't all bulk bins have that issue? Or none of them do?

On the subject of rice, my supermarket has rice again but it's a Spanish name brand I've never seen before with most of the packaging in Spanish. Looks just like rice so if I needed rice, I'd buy some.