This has been expected since the Ukraine/Russia conflict began and those two nations stopped exporting fertilizer. What's surprising is that prices haven't already gone way, way up. At the store, this weekend the local grocery chain is running a sale on ribeye in the vacuum seal package. $6.99/lb for whole prime rib and they cut it into the steak size you want in the store. Pre-2020, that was considered a good price. This is in the central mid-west. Most grain products have not significantly increased in price. At least the price increases do not yet reflect an expected shortage. We are still consuming last year's harvest (and will be until mid-September/October) but why aren't the major companies making preparations for the expected production short-falls? There are two ways they could be responding: 1. Throttle supply and impose limits now so the food stretches until the next harvest season (fall 2023). 2. Pretend nothing is wrong and let the current stock be eaten up. This is what is happening right now. They may throttle supply after crops are harvested this year but then they'll have to make less available food stretch farther. More likely, I think they're going to keep the supply as high as possible and let people eat as much as possible until the food supply is completely gone. Why do I think this? Over the last two years the government/corporate/powers have consistently done whatever is most harmful to the public. If all the food is eaten up or the preppers fill their bunkers there will be nothing at all for many people to eat. Society is only about 9 missed meals away from total collapse. The people too poor or too poorly positioned or too senseless to position themselves to get through this are going to be the first to go wild. What should be happening right now? How should governments and corporations respond to this impending crisis? 1. Encourage people to plant gardens and build garden beds for the next season. 2. Encourage people to switch to a higher protein diet. Chickens can eat a lot more of that grain than we can (more of it is digestible to them) and they turn it into protein which our bodies prefer for digestion. Cows do the same. 3. Stop all production of bio-fuels and ethanol blended fuels. Take the grain and use it for livestock feed. 4. Reduce or even stop production of beer, whiskey, and other drinks that require grain. Use the grain as livestock feed. 5. Remove zoning restrictions on home livestock and gardening (step on HOAs) and encourage people to get chickens or whatever livestock suits their available property. 6. Encourage people to take advantage of food availability now to fill freezers and pantries with everything they eat. 7. Encourage restaurants and other places with cooler/freezer space to make preparations. 8. Construction of food storage facilities, commercial coolers/freezers, and fill them up to the max with whatever is available be it frozen chickens, cuts of beef, etc. Whatever can be stocked and stored. We should be filling food pantries right now. We should be filling them with canned and frozen foods (ideally nothing with artificial preservatives because that stuff is gross and unhealthy). What's likely to happen? Pretend nothing is wrong, have sales to increase consumption, and run out of food a couple months after the mid-term election, then societal collapse and starvation. What can we do about it? Build relationships with neighbors, establish our own localized food production, get to know our farmers, fill our freezers, get generators to keep the freezers running when the power goes out (and it will) and do whatever we can to hold on through this wave of stupid. The coming crisis will be a massive sorting mechanism. Some people, peoples will survive and others will not. The ones that survive will be engaging each other in actions of mutual support while the ones that do not survive will be engaging in acts of exploitation and violence.