Even if those differences average out nationally, there is still a sense that things are wiggly. Farmers make decisions like choosing to plant more in order to make up for a dry year or less in order to mitigate the effects of Russia withholding exports. Climate change is causing unpredictable weather patterns which are affecting farmers' routines as well as harming crops already in the field.
The next rain event is more likely to be in the form of heavy rainfall that will end up running off because the soil has hardened. The success of crops in the US this year was dependent on when farmers were able to plant their fields. When it was dry, those that were planted earlier had deep roots. She says that if fields were muddy from rain and farmers couldn't get into them, they planted later.
Farmers worry about the weather. The challenge for crop experts at the moment is to determine if the disruptions add up to a predictable trend. There isn't much surplus grain stock thanks to scattered droughts last year and the supply shock of Ukraine's bread basket being temporarily locked out of the global food system.
A senior research fellow at the International Food Policy Research Institute says that stocks can be used to keep prices reasonable if there is a shortage. People were hoping that stock levels would be rebuilt so we could have large crops. All the shoes haven't fallen yet because of the weather disruptions.
Riots in Haiti, South America, and South Asia in 2008 and 2009, as well as the Arab Spring in 2010, were caused by high grain prices more than a decade ago. Things are not that bad yet. It is easy to underestimate how flexible production can be. At least a half a dozen times in my career, we have seen at least a half a dozen instances of the current dry spell.
Future shortages are expected to be distributed differently. Some parts of the world have already experienced long periods of dry weather. The people who are most affected by that disruption don't have the income or power that would help them. The Horn of Africa experiences rainy seasons from October to December and again from March to May, which is important for feeding both humans and animals. Four of the last five rainy seasons failed. It was the driest on record. The area has lost a third of its animals. According to the Famine Early Warning Systems Network, 20 million people are hungry.
Governments in other countries used to send food aid. The response isn't arriving at the usual volume or speed because of the supply shocks The first shipment of wheat from Ukraine arrived on August 30. Christine Stewart is the director of the Institute for Global Nutrition at the University of California, Davis. The backup system is under a lot of stress because of all the crises.
It may be a glimpse of the future in the Horn of Africa. Surpluses can be traded to places where crops are short. For now it works. As weather becomes less predictable, production may become less reliable and the movement of food to the most vulnerable may be stopped.
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