Fabricated Famine?

Dateline: April 19, 2022. “Fire Destroys Azure Standard Headquarter Facility.”

This headline appeared in a Telegram feed of a conservative Whidbey Island group I follow. In this chat, I learned about Azure Standard, the “the nation’s premier independent distributor of organic and healthy food,” and the delivery drop near my home. Since November, I’ve placed monthly orders.

Fortunately, Azure had little trouble fulfilling my May order despite the complete loss of their HQ building.

Soon, I heard that Azure wasn’t the only food distributor that burned in the past year.

The Ice Age Farmer video “Food Supply Shutdown: Deer, Fish, Pigs Euthanized; Crops Not Planted catalogs several news headlines of food processing plants going up in flames. This video seemed a bit off-beat to me. However, a friend sent me an article from the Miami Standard that verified the same story of numerous damaged food handling businesses.

Israel365 News lists “25 Mysterious Fires at Food Processing Plants Across the US.” The legacy media says it’s a conspiracy theory to connect these events. Yet, these fires all occurring where food is packaged seems suspicious. They have been reported as accidents not arson. However, even Tucker Carlson and Twitter commentators have questioned them.

President Biden announced we would have food shortages because of the Ukrainian-Russian war. Yet, many of these fires happened before the war. But the conflict has increased the probability of global famine.

These two nations produce a third of the world’s wheat. Ukraine has full grain silos, but its closed ports make that food inaccessible. Many countries, particularly in the Middle East and Africa, that rely on this source to feed their people will experience dramatic food shortages and, sadly, starvation.

What about the United States? Food prices began to escalate before Russia invaded Ukraine. Federal spending over the past two years has triggered inflation. When Congress passed those massive “COVID relief” spending bills, I figured they would start a Jimmy Carter-type inflation that I witnessed as a child in the 1970s.

Yet, inflation and war (and mysterious fires) aren’t the only reasons for rising food costs. It’s food shortages.

America hasn’t experienced food shortages since the 1930s Dust Bowl. Modern farming techniques after WWII dramatically increased agricultural output. What changed? Several factors include weather, government policies, and climate activists.

Weather

Even though the calendar tells us it’s mid-May, my daughter and I still feel cold. Occasionally, the Pacific Northwest experiences cold springs when the highs stay in the upper 50s. Typically, the highs in May average 65 degrees. On the 16th, we surpassed the record for the wettest May.

The Midwest’s wet, cold spring this year has kept most farmers out of their fields. Late planting means a smaller harvest.

The winter wheat farmers, due to drought, had a poor harvest.

Other nations around the world are also experiencing crop failures due to weather. Up north, Canada’s fields, similar to those in the US, are either too dry or too wet. Flooding in China damaged wheat crops, and its current lockdowns prevent farmers from planting.

Drought from La Nina in South America has caused coffee and other crop failures. India has banned wheat exports, and France also is forecasting wheat crop failure.

In contrast, Russia expects a bumper crop. But they will only sell to their friends.

Government Policies

Biden killed the Keystone pipeline on day one of his administration and later hobbled the fossil fuel industry. As a result, he destroyed the energy independence that former President Donald Trump had made possible by removing governmental barriers.

In an attempt to “remedy” high gas prices, the Biden White House has increased the amount of corn to be used in biodiesel and ethanol fuel by 50 percent. There will be less corn to feed livestock and people when corn is used as fuel. Biden should have reopened the domestic oil fields instead.

With gas prices, the cost of diesel that farmers need to run their machinery has shot up. The price of chemical fertilizers, often made from natural gas, has tripled over two years. Fortunately, some American farmers had already bought their fertilizer in the fall. For some farmers, the spring prices make it too expensive to plant now.

The rising cost of fertilizer is also due to China’s restricting the exports of phosphate and urea fertilizers in 2021 and the sanctions against Russia, another major fertilizer supplier.

Not only can American farmers not afford fertilizer, but they also can’t get it shipped to their farms. The Biden administration has acted to block fertilizer shipments via rail. Due to the new railroad restrictions, some may never get their fertilizer shipments this year.

The US government has also targeted livestock. Millions of chickens have been destroyed after just a few birds showed signs of illness or simply had a positive PCR test. After two years of use for COVID, we know that the PCR tests often lead to false positives. Could this be true for the chickens as well?

The most disastrous federal government policy has led to the baby formula shortage. If a mother can’t nurse or find formula, her baby could die. Fortunately, some nursing mothers have stepped into the gap to help those moms.

The FDA shut down the biggest manufacturer (43 percent of the market share) of baby formula due to a discovery of bacteria in the plant. That was February. The factory remains closed. Even though baby formula is one of the most highly regulated products in the US, the FDA should have found a quick way to investigate the problem without keeping such a crucial product off the market for a long time.

House Republicans spoke out on this in February but heard crickets from the executive branch. Rep. Elise Stefanik, R-N.Y explained,

I’ve led on this issue since February and we, as House Republicans, continue to demand answers from the FDA…Unsurprisingly, when I reached out in February from my office to the FDA we received no substantive response. Joe Biden simply has no plan. In fact, when Joe Biden’s White House was asked about the shortage, they laughed. Shameful. Make no mistake, there is nothing laughable or funny about this crisis.

Rep. Elise Stefanik

Some parents have turned to European baby formula, which is illegal to import because it doesn’t meet FDA standards. “…despite the FDA’s efforts, Americans are consuming vast amounts of black market baby formula, and the children are doing just fine.”

To add insult to injury, the Biden administration sent baby formula to the border for illegal aliens instead of serving citizens first.

Climate vs. People

How the climate change issue relates to our food supply is a multi-faceted topic about which I only know little and will only touch on briefly.

Throughout time, weather and war have affected food supplies. Now, we have national leaders, globalists, and climate activists who value their climate agenda over the needs of the people.

The Stream writer Betsy McCaughey summed up how Biden’s policies hurt the American people:

President Joe Biden is prioritizing climate preservation over your ability to feed your family affordably.

His policies are driving up the costs of fertilizer, energy, and farm-to-store transportation — add to that overall inflation driven by excessive federal government spending. The result is sky-high food prices.

Betsy McCaughey of The Stream

Currently, only 12 percent of our energy comes from renewable sources. Americans still rely heavily on fossil fuels, and turning off the tap now isn’t going to make the transition go any faster. It only creates energy shortages.

Essentially, cutting off the reliable fossil fuel supply without having enough green energy to replace it is sending the American economy into a tailspin.

But policymakers are doing it anyway.

Biblical and Practical Responses

How should the church and individual Christians respond in light of natural and man-made actions that have produced a possible global famine?

I’m not sure if I have an answer, but here are some suggestions.

• Pray: the Intercessors for America have a two-page guide on praying for our food supply, sensible policy decisions, and people’s health.
• Stock your pantry. This is one of the reasons I started buying from Azure. For storage ideas, I found Food Storage Made Easy a helpful resource.
• Plant a garden. If you don’t have land, try growing vegetables in pots on your porch or balcony. See Square Foot Gardening and “Growth of ‘Victory Gardens’ Providing for People Fed Up With Shortages.” Search your area for community gardens.
• Buy from local farmers. The food may cost more, but by supporting them you will have a local food source that is less affected by the supply chain.
• Trade garden produce with neighbors, family, and friends. Maybe you grew more beans than you can eat. Trade them for some apples with a neighbor who has fruit trees.
• Help the less fortunate. Find those who struggle to afford food in your neighborhood and share what you have.

Most importantly, people and nations need to repent. The Old Testament prophets frequently spoke of God’s judgment including famine. I’ve been reading through Ezekiel, and this verse jumped off the page.

“Son of man, if a country sins against Me by committing unfaithfulness, and I stretch out My hand against it, destroy its supply of bread, send famine against it and cut off from it both man and beast, even though these three men, Noah, Daniel and Job were in its midst, by their own righteousness they could only deliver themselves,” declares the Lord God.

Ezekiel 14:13-14 NASB

Have the nations grown so evil that there is no hope of redemption as described in Ezekiel, or are we entering the End Times?

For nation will rise up against nation, and kingdom against kingdom; there will be earthquakes in various places; there will also be famines. These things are only the beginning of the birth pains.

Mark 13:8 NASB

Or could enough repentant people delay God’s wrath?

…and My people who are called by My name humble themselves and pray and seek My face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, will forgive their sin and will heal their land.

2 Chronicles 7:14 NASB