Never mind hockey, maple syrup or Tim Hortons. Canadians seem to have found a new national obsession in recent weeks: Documenting the state of affairs at their local grocery stores, to try to gauge whether or not the country is in the midst of a food-supply crisis.
Conservative MPs fiercely opposed to the federal government’s new vaccine mandate for cross-border truckers have slammed what they call Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s “vaccine vendetta,” saying that the policy will disrupt the country’s supply chains.
The latest on the escalating trucker protest along the U.S.-Canada border is a convoy planned for January 28. That’s when “Convoi pour la liberté 2022” leaves French speaking Quebec from a point along the border, bound for Canada’s Capital of Ottawa. They’re joining fellow drivers who have been protesting since Monday, slowing border crossing stations to a standstill.
Mainstream network news outlets in the United States are doing their best to cover up the coverage of an ongoing trucker protest. It has already snarled the border into chaos as the “strike” threatens to spread south into America.
U.S. drivers are expected to join in starting January 20th. That matches up with Biden’s versions of the mandate restrictions but details are scarce.
Thank you fascist psychopath.
‘Expect more empty shelves’: Concerns grow over potential food shortages in Ontario#TruckersForFreedom https://t.co/X0Hw6CRDAT
— Maxime Bernier (@MaximeBernier) January 21, 2022
Truckers opposed to federal Covid-19 vaccine mandates are preparing to converge on Ottawa in a protest expected to draw a convoy of at least 1600 rigs, according to organizers.
Ajay Toor, who speaks for the West Coast Trucking Association, said black ice and large potholes are creating hazardous driving conditions which have resulted in several crashes over the past few weeks.
#BareShelvesBiden became a leading Twitter trend on Sunday evening as social media users across the country took aim at President Joe Biden and his administration for failing to address the ongoing supply chain crisis.
The mandates regarding trucking between the USA and Canada will be going into effect between the middle of January and early February. Combined with the shipping crisis, this could (ha!) cause shortages and prices to rise. Both the USA and Canada have also enacted dictates to punish domestic trucking, beginning within the next couple weeks. Seriously, stock up.
China has been stockpiling grain on behalf of its 1.4 billion people as it struggles with mismanagement of its agricultural industry and more farmers flee the country for life in the city increasing concern that famine could overtake the country.
Hunger makes people and nations dangerous.
The EU Commission has approved the European migratory locust as a food. The grasshopper is offered in powder form, dried or frozen as a food and can be added as a snack or other ingredient in food, the commission said today.
The world is facing the prospect of a dramatic shortfall in food production as rising energy prices cascade through global agriculture, the CEO of Norwegian fertilizer giant Yara International says.
“I want to say this loud and clear right now, that we risk a very low crop in the next harvest,” said Svein Tore Holsether, the CEO and president of the Oslo-based company. “I’m afraid we’re going to have a food crisis.”
In the weeks following the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, costs of most of the food items found on the shelves of US grocery stores rose based on anticipated shortages of such items that might result from transportation and logistical problems that followed the shutdown of many parts of the economy. There wasn’t so much a shortage of goods to go on the shelves as there was an anticipated interruption in the “just in time” delivery supply line that keeps such products moving from processes to wholesalers, wholesalers to distributors, and distributors to retailers. As those disruptions were solved — or didn’t happen as feared in many instances — consumer goods and staples reappeared on the store shelves without much difference from the pre-pandemic pricing.
But warning bells are starting to be heard about another impending shortage of consumer goods and food staples as wholesale prices of certain raw materials used in a wide variety of food preparations have risen sharply over the past several weeks. This steady upward price pressure is coming at a time when many fragile economies around the world are not in a position to handle a sharp rise in the cost of food for their populations.
