True, its a lot easier to riot in France when your diet consists entirely of cigarettes and brandy.

Even more so when German cuisine is based entirely on kebab and regret.

LOL. Now to be fair, Bratwurst and Sauerkraut is amazing. Not ALL of the German diet is bad.

TLDR EU has had a pretty bad famine after world war 2 and has special treatment for farmers which contemporary politicians are trying to revoke.

Long form, several issues happening at the same time, in no particular order as follows:

1) EU farmers were always protected via subsidies and what not so they can produce a minimum amount of food to ensure domestic food supply so no one starves. Modern kids have never went hungry in their life so they don’t value it as much therefore moronic greenleft parties in power think they don’t need food to survive.

2) EU is notoriously bueracratic which imposes a lot of standards, rules, regulations how to do stuff and grow your food on local farmers, while at the same time EU is signing FTA agreements with Mercosur, New Zealand and allowing Ukranian Agri goods to free flow into EU where farmers don’t need to comply with any of those rule and have a significantly different cost base (diesel, labour, fertilizers, land costs etc).

3) modern environmentalists don’t like cows and growing crops because fertilizers leave nitrogen in the earth which is considered bad and cows fart methane which is considered a greenhouse gas.

4) there is also a problem of landownership. Farmers own a lot of land typically in the middle of nowhere for their pastures and ranches and fields. As gentrification happens govt wants to use these lands to builds infrastructure, housing and roads but doesn’t want to pay market rates to buy that land out at a premium, so they try to incentivize farmers to give up that land on a discount through forced retirement / buyout programs.

5) shortsighted EU decision to engage in a proxy war with Russia has raised prices of diesel and fertilizers significantly which causes farmers inputs to go up, while their sale prices are capped due to eg above mentioned FTAs with countries that can keep buying Russian Diesel and Fertilizers and availability of Ukranian imports.

6) to counterbalance enormous hurdles EU typically subsidized farmers to ensure security of supply - those subsidies are either being reduced or revoked which can potentially drive farmers out of business as they can’t compete with foreign foods imported via FTA.

Maybe I’m missing something, my fellow eurobros can chip in.

The irony here is, in the natural course of things, once the Ukraine//Russia conflict boils down, what'll happen is that Russia will step into the gap, and not only be providing the depleted farming population the majority of their fertilizer, natural gas, and oil (diesil), but due to food shortages, they will also start providing EU cities wheat, at far cheaper prices than local farmers can compete with. Now, that's assuming no WWIII ofc.

Here's the thing: The boneheaded move to freeze Russia and steal the assets not only it's government, but it's citizenry by the central banking system has Russia completely uninterested in transacting via the Euro or the USD. Normally in this scenario, you'd see the US ramp up farming to cover the need. We love money. Unfortunately, US farming has been under constant attack for the last several years as well, and regulations and restrictions are becoming more and more prohibitive for mass production of food.

If the EU doesn't reverse it's agricultural policies, there's a good chance russian and chinese currency will be required simiply to feed your cities. It's not a good look. All this "Russia Russia Russia!" bullshit combined with the disasterous "climate policy" is leading directly to the collapse of the euro, and the weakening of the dollar to the point that it could potentially lose it's place as the world's rerserve currency.

Turns out having the biggest stick is only effective if you can keep people fed. Starving people will fight the people who cause them to starve, and embrace those who will feed them.

I think the Chinese will be way more concerned about feeding over a billion people itself.

Also Russia is not even in the top 10 food exporters globally. For grain, sure. But that will disproportionately affect the Turkeys, Egypt's, Middle east or African countries.

Top food exporters in Value
1 United States 72,682,349.79
2 Germany 34,628,800.73
3 United Kingdom 29,540,218.71
4 China 25,152,286.27
5 France 24,114,557.76
6 Netherlands 23,271,570.93
7 Japan 21,870,881.77
8 Canada 21,803,448.88
9 Belgium 15,742,034.88
10 Italy 13,890,507.81

Crazy that UK is third.

This post was edited by Prox1m1ty on Feb 4 2024 01:42pm

Of course Russia isn't a top food exporter when they've spent the last 3 years cut off, and the last 7 years heavily sanctioned.

Further, the primary things Russia exports are grains, as you mentioned, in raw form. The US and Europe export a massive amount of processed foods. Be they canned, frozen, etc. Like, some 20% of everything eaten in the US is from Mexico, yet you don't see them on that list either, because we're buying the raw goods, not the much more expensive processed goods.

The difference between processing the raw product and selling the processed product and just selling the raw product is massive in terms of value. Kind of how the US spent the years under Trump buying up cheap Russian oil. They got next to nothing for their crude, especially with our own production driving the price down. But we took their crude, refined it, and made BANK reselling the thousands of refined products crude leads to all over the planet.

All valid.

The irony, regarding the oil bit... Trump told the EU powers to start building refineries for both natural gas and oil. He warned them that they would suffer if they failed to do so. They laughed at him.

Imagine a Europe with cheap gas, cheap electricity, and an abundance of everything needed to keep things functioning perfectly. And imagine that after refining all Russia's crude and natural gas, you sell back 10% worth of the refined product for a full refund on your cash. 90% profit, all it takes is some refineries. Sounds cool, huh? The US did that, actively, from 2017-2020.

Now imagine a Europe with cheap food in such quantities that you can afford to simply give it away to your own citizens, if you really wanted to (of course you won't) because you're buying all the raw product from Russia, then processing it, preserving it, and selling it in ready to eat forms that a person on the go can easily wolf down. Best part? You sell Russia back 10% of the processed food product for the same amount you bought all the raw product for. 90% profit! That's what the US has been doing with Mexico for 70+ years.

Europe's inability to work together has caused 95% of the worlds problems for the last, oh... 4000 years or so. And this is why I want to see NATO dissolved and all sanctions lifted from Russia. Let's stop playing the protectionism game on behalf of Europe and force them to compete. That's when everyone wins.

Nailed it. Russia and BRIC will be the dominant currencies.

As an American, I sincerely hope not.

Nothing's set in stone, and nothing is beyond redemption. Reversing disastrous trade policies, "climate" policies, and discontinuing support of war for power's sake could be accomplished overnight.

Insert the MSM of the entire West and Public Education systems hammering the populace of North America, Europe, NZ and Australia CONSTANTLY about the evils of production and processing and the evils of BRICS, and here we are.