Thanks Israel.
this post was submitted on 31 Mar 2026
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Global Famine 2026! So Much Winning!!!!
2020: Pestilence 2025: War 2026: Famine
What was that last one again?
The Hogfather
... is this a deep cut? Only time will tell
Good thing plants can grow without fertilizer… it’s not the end of the world
We can’t grow them fast enough to feed everyone without fertiliser. Unless capitalism and supply chain issues were resolved in the meantime this means starvation for many.
If it’s that big of a problem, alot of areas can increase land usage to help.
Are you deranged? Genuinely, are you stupid?
I’m sorry but how is this level of response is warranted? Do you realize in a lot of areas of the world, farming landmass can be increased by significant amounts. How is this not even in the discussion if lack of fertilizer is not an option? What are we supposed to do, nothing and just die off as a civilization? Humanity has existed for an extremely long period of time without them. Modern chemical fertilizers are an extremely recent invention in the time scale of humanity. Maybe you are the one who is genuinely stupid for not even considering other options to try to survive.
How quickly do you think that will happen? Who do you think owns that land? Who is going to work that land suddenly? Where are the tools to do it? Where is the water for those plants, as in many areas you need extensive irrigation networks for that? Industrialized farming is the method that we have been feeding billions, and if you suddenly turn off one of the inputs, MANY MANY POOR PEOPLE WILL DIE. You can't just DOUBLE THE ARABLE LAND COVERAGE in a few months.
I expect that many people will try to do what you suggest and it will be woefully inadequate and there will remain a devastating famine.
And your response was "eh it'll be fine."
To my knowledge, fertilizer largely increases yields rather than significantly speeding up the harvest cycle.
Based on this information you should understand that it is critical to the food supply. Yields are kind of important.
Based on this information you should understand that it is critical to the food supply. Yields are kind of important.
Based on this information, you should then understand that your original objection is incorrect, as what I objected to, and what you said, was
We can’t grow them fast enough to feed everyone without fertiliser.
Fertilizer increases yields, but we are in a system that struggles with overproduction and poor distribution, not underproduction. It is a issue regarding the long-term financial health of farming firms (ie including and especially smallholders who are at risk of being bought out by large landowners), just not the one being asserted.
That’s all cool but have you wondered how would such a change get implemented overnight? You guys are all dreaming of solarpunk while the reality is much more immediate.
That’s all cool but have you wondered how would such a change get implemented overnight? You guys are all dreaming of solarpunk while the reality is much more immediate.
... what change did I propose to be implemented overnight? The core of my point is that reduced yields for a single year from expensive fertilizer is damaging to the financial health of firms, but not an actual famine-causing incident.
I reiterate, since you apparently didn't read closely:
Fertilizer increases yields, but we are in a system that struggles with overproduction and poor distribution, not underproduction.
Food production and distribution system remains the same as it was, the ownership didn’t change, and so we will bear consequences of not having enough fertiliser that will be amplified by inefficient system. It doesn’t matter that it can be solved by more forward thinking because there are no functioning adults in power that would actually implement it.
But then we might have to employ sustainable practices like composting and crop rotation, and that will cut into our profits by several whole percentage points 😭
Neither of those things will do jack shit if we have a famine this year. There will be nothing to rotate next year and if it wasn’t already happening then we’re fucked for this year.
A famine is not the concern here - or at least not a serious one. Increased government spending in subsidies, or increased debt burden on farming firms, is.
There will be nothing to rotate next year
That's not how famines work.
Please do explain how famines aren’t the result of decreased food output.
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As explained in the first two sentences, the fundamental issue being created here is of increased cost of fertilizer which will require subsidizing by government or farms taking on more debt - something acknowledged in the article itself.
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Even pre-modern famines do not typically result in seed grain being eaten up.
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Famines are not simply 'decreased food output', but require a massive drop in food output without any ability to meaningfully make substitutions from other sources. including storage. Assuming no substitution and all fertilizer instantly disappears from the market, totally unused in agriculture for the next year, you're only looking at yield drops of ~20% - in a society that wastes hundreds-of-millions-to-billions of tons of crops, spits a similar amount into uses like biofuel and raising animals for slaughter, and spends billions of dollars paying farmers not to use land in order to artificially keep crop prices high.
We live in a highly integrated global market wherein the only famines that have happened in the past 50 years have been predicated on widespread societal breakdown in the countries more than poor yields. For that matter, they also are pretty universally accompanied by a lack of serious action on the part of the global community to alleviate the issues in the global market, since the issue is localized rather than general, and governments are fucking great at ignoring anything that doesn't affect them directly. Short of mismanagement of a grotesque and absurd level on an internationally coordinated scale, the chance of this evoking famine conditions are pretty low.
As explained in the first two sentences, the fundamental issue being created here is of increased cost of fertilizer which will require subsidizing by government or farms taking on more debt - something acknowledged in the article itself.
You’ve misread. This sentence you are referring to “The fertilizer shortage is putting the livelihood of farmers in developing countries — already troubled by rising temperatures and erratic weather systems — further at risk, and could lead to people everywhere paying more for food” is talking about the costs from a lowering of supply, not from things just “getting more expensive”. Later in the article:
"In the worst case, this means lower yields and crop failures next season. In the best case, higher input costs will be included in food prices next year."
Crop failures and lower yields are both very very bad to be happening globally.
Even pre-modern famines do not typically result in seed grain being eaten up.
Nobody said anything about seed grain being used up, what are you talking about?
We live in a highly integrated global market wherein the only famines that have happened in the past 50 years have been predicated on widespread societal breakdown in the countries more than poor yields. For that matter, they also are pretty universally accompanied by a lack of serious action on the part of the global community to alleviate the issues in the global market, since the issue is localized rather than general, and governments are fucking great at ignoring anything that doesn't affect them directly. Short of mismanagement of a grotesque and absurd level on an internationally coordinated scale, the chance of this evoking famine conditions are pretty low.
So…. Exactly what is happening right now then?
Why are you bringing these things up anyway? I was commenting on your comment that stated we should be doing crop rotation. Crop rotation doesn’t work unless you’ve been doing it for years, if we have crop failures and shortages, we will be unable to start crop rotation. It’s a solution that won’t work at all unless we started a decade ago. If there are global crop failures then we wont have nutrients in the soil to even make rotation a possibility.
You’ve misread. This sentence you are referring to “The fertilizer shortage is putting the livelihood of farmers in developing countries — already troubled by rising temperatures and erratic weather systems — further at risk, and could lead to people everywhere paying more for food” is talking about the costs from a lowering of supply, not from things just “getting more expensive”.
No, the issue I'm referring to is the broader issue addressed by most of the fucking article, the increased expense of fertilizer, the direct issue which is being discussed and does not have a serious possibility of leading to widespread famine.
So…. Exactly what is happening right now then?
"Global market prices going up is widespread society breakdown on the regional level."
Yes. You got it in one. Brilliant.
Nobody said anything about seed grain being used up, what are you talking about?
Then why the fuck do you think that crop rotation would be impossi-
If there are global crop failures then we wont have nutrients in the soil to even make rotation a possibility.
Oh, Jesus fucking Christ.
huh, I wonder how the fertilizer is typically applied - in my limited knowledge, an application of fertilizer would normally be applied to plants that are growing and need the boost; fertilizer applied to young seedlings can burn them and be harmful, and fertilizer applied to soil without any plants will just wash away with the rain and provide no benefit.
That said, I could imagine some farming systems would lay down solid forms of fertilizer like manure before planting crops, but I'm not sure that would apply to the kinds of fertilizer shortages being talked about.
OK, so the headline is just wrong - the farmers are clear about when peak demand for fertilizer is - in June, not March:
Baldev Singh, a 55-year-old rice farmer in Punjab, India, says smallholders — the bulk of the country's farmers — may not survive if the government cannot subsidize fertilizers when demand peaks in June.
Some countries are already facing critical shortages, according to Raj Patel, a food systems economist at the University of Texas. For example, Ethiopia gets over 90% of its nitrogen fertilizer from the Gulf through Djibouti, a supply route that was strained even before the war began in February.
"The planting season is now," Patel said. "The fertilizer isn't there."
"Our crops out in the field need nitrogen now — the sooner the better — so they can get off to a good start, helping them establish themselves and build up reserves for the harvest later this summer," said Dirk Peters, an agricultural engineer who runs a farm outside Berlin.
Fertilizers are generally applied just before or at planting, so crops miss key early growth stages and yields can fall when deliveries are delayed, even if supplies improve later.
It looks like the article is clear that fertilizer is applied before and at planting - which ... seems questionable in terms of nitrogen fertilizers, but I'm sure they know far better than me (maybe they have a mechanism to slow-release the nitrogen into the soil or something).
Either way, it's clear there will be a reduction in how much food output there is.
Fertilizer can be applied directly at planting, and may be followed by subsequent applications. The dose makes the poison.
If a farmer is staring down a fertilizer bill that exceeds the profits of last year, it could mean they won’t be planting or may plant a less demanding crop. When it’s applied is relevant in terms of acquiring it, but the price trend before planting impacts what the farmer plants.