Pestilence or: How I Learned to Worry Constantly and Live with COVID

[Candy Crush]

Holy shit they are still in lockdown?

China's lockdown will affect the entire planet. If this kind madness continues past summer then even the unessential will be bought at outrageous prices for the Christmas season.
Ships waiting to dock because of China’s insane COVID strategy.

[Zeekar]

Well, the UK strategy seems to be working. Let everyone at risk of serious illness die, the rest can go on working.

And yet, our excess deaths for 2022 so far are broadly in line with the 2015-2019 average.

Because everyone affected died in 2020/2021

[Hel OWeen]

Holy shit they are still in lockdown?

China's lockdown will affect the entire planet. If this kind madness continues past summer then even the unessential will be bought at outrageous prices for the Christmas season.
Ships waiting to dock because of China’s insane COVID strategy.

You seem to have mixed up cause and effect: it's not China's lockdown, that's the effect. It's the sillyness of JIT production, we'll-spare-us-the-warehouse-costs-let-the-suppliers-handle-that-for-us stupidity western management receives outragous wages for. Those affect the entire planet ... and obviously haven't learned anything in the past 3 years of the pandemic. Blame China, that'll do it.

[Lowa [NSN]]

Holy shit they are still in lockdown?

China's lockdown will affect the entire planet. If this kind madness continues past summer then even the unessential will be bought at outrageous prices for the Christmas season.
Ships waiting to dock because of China’s insane COVID strategy.

Whats teh color coding for that map. That could be a map of sea ants and their pray for all we know.

[El Capitano]

Well, the UK strategy seems to be working. Let everyone at risk of serious illness die, the rest can go on working.

And yet, our excess deaths for 2022 so far are broadly in line with the 2015-2019 average.

Because everyone affected died in 2020/2021

We certainly fucked up in 2020, but much of Europe seemed to play catch up in 2021. There's also the small matter that excess deaths for various countries seem to suggest they had more Covid deaths than the official numbers indicate.

[Zeekar]

Well, the UK strategy seems to be working. Let everyone at risk of serious illness die, the rest can go on working.

And yet, our excess deaths for 2022 so far are broadly in line with the 2015-2019 average.

Because everyone affected died in 2020/2021

We certainly fucked up in 2020, but much of Europe seemed to play catch up in 2021. There's also the small matter that excess deaths for various countries seem to suggest they had more Covid deaths than the official numbers indicate.

I have no idea why would this matter?
Numbers in 2022 would of course match earlier averages or be close enough. First Omicron is far far milder than previous strains so you have fewer people in hospitals and fewer people lacking the care they need. At risk groups either learned how to avoid it, got their shots or died by now (or gotten over it). None of this has any comment on efficiency or sensibility of UK anti covid strategy.

[El Capitano]

Numbers in 2022 would of course match earlier averages or be close enough. First Omicron is far far milder than previous strains so you have fewer people in hospitals and fewer people lacking the care they need. At risk groups either learned how to avoid it, got their shots or died by now (or gotten over it). None of this has any comment on efficiency or sensibility of UK anti covid strategy.

Are we talking current strategy or previous strategies? The criticism I initially responded to seemed to be talking about the UK's current strategy (i.e. no restrictions, heavily encourage vaccination). I took your criticism of everybody vulnerable already being dead as facetious, but that criticism certainly wasn't without merit in 2020. Since July 2021, when we opened up, the UK strategy doesn't seem to be any worse than anywhere else.

So, I guess I have to ask, what makes the UK's current strategy worse than anywhere else? If we're singling it out, there must be something wrong with it.

[Maximillian]

The food crisis may make us forget COVID. Out of the blue I was contacted by a supplier wanting my next barley crop. I have no plans to plant any more crops plus the rain has made conditions bad for grain atm. They then offered a future contract with an up-front non-refundable component to plant. WTF.

I did however sell the 1.5 tons I had kept as animal feed at nearly twice the price I sold the rest of the grain.

I'd hate to be in a nation reliant on cheap food imports in a year's time.

[Sacul]

The food crisis may make us forget COVID. Out of the blue I was contacted by a supplier wanting my next barley crop. I have no plans to plant any more crops plus the rain has made conditions bad for grain atm. They then offered a future contract with an up-front non-refundable component to plant. WTF.

I did however sell the 1.5 tons I had kept as animal feed at nearly twice the price I sold the rest of the grain.

I'd hate to be in a nation reliant on cheap food imports in a year's time.

So...what will the animals eat now? Or are all the animals food by years end?

Also what does "contract with an up-front non-refundable component to plant" mean in agri speak?

[Dorvil Barranis]

The food crisis may make us forget COVID. Out of the blue I was contacted by a supplier wanting my next barley crop. I have no plans to plant any more crops plus the rain has made conditions bad for grain atm. They then offered a future contract with an up-front non-refundable component to plant. WTF.

I did however sell the 1.5 tons I had kept as animal feed at nearly twice the price I sold the rest of the grain.

I'd hate to be in a nation reliant on cheap food imports in a year's time.

So...what will the animals eat now? Or are all the animals food by years end?

Also what does "contract with an up-front non-refundable component to plant" mean in agri speak?

Well, animal production is very grain intensive. Someone is probably not breeding as many. You think grain prices are gonna be rough, wait till we see what meat prices go to.

[Alistair]

The food crisis may make us forget COVID. Out of the blue I was contacted by a supplier wanting my next barley crop. I have no plans to plant any more crops plus the rain has made conditions bad for grain atm. They then offered a future contract with an up-front non-refundable component to plant. WTF.

I did however sell the 1.5 tons I had kept as animal feed at nearly twice the price I sold the rest of the grain.

I'd hate to be in a nation reliant on cheap food imports in a year's time.

So...what will the animals eat now? Or are all the animals food by years end?

Also what does "contract with an up-front non-refundable component to plant" mean in agri speak?

Well, animal production is very grain intensive. Someone is probably not breeding as many. You think grain prices are gonna be rough, wait till we see what meat prices go to.

Vegetarians with personal gardens and land to plant more rejoice?

[Zeekar]

Numbers in 2022 would of course match earlier averages or be close enough. First Omicron is far far milder than previous strains so you have fewer people in hospitals and fewer people lacking the care they need. At risk groups either learned how to avoid it, got their shots or died by now (or gotten over it). None of this has any comment on efficiency or sensibility of UK anti covid strategy.

Are we talking current strategy or previous strategies? The criticism I initially responded to seemed to be talking about the UK's current strategy (i.e. no restrictions, heavily encourage vaccination). I took your criticism of everybody vulnerable already being dead as facetious, but that criticism certainly wasn't without merit in 2020. Since July 2021, when we opened up, the UK strategy doesn't seem to be any worse than anywhere else.

So, I guess I have to ask, what makes the UK's current strategy worse than anywhere else? If we're singling it out, there must be something wrong with it.

Mine was more of a general statement since im expecting excess deaths to be around average in most of the western world. I wasn't pointing fingers at any uk strategy in general.

[tulip]

The food crisis may make us forget COVID. Out of the blue I was contacted by a supplier wanting my next barley crop. I have no plans to plant any more crops plus the rain has made conditions bad for grain atm. They then offered a future contract with an up-front non-refundable component to plant. WTF.

I did however sell the 1.5 tons I had kept as animal feed at nearly twice the price I sold the rest of the grain.

I'd hate to be in a nation reliant on cheap food imports in a year's time.

So...what will the animals eat now? Or are all the animals food by years end?

Also what does "contract with an up-front non-refundable component to plant" mean in agri speak?

It means they will pay you to plant the crop up front, with an agreed upon price for the final harvest.

He's expressing that it's highly unusual for someone to offer a non-refundable incentive to plant as if the crop spoils then he still has what is basically free money. It almost treats the farmer as a service supplier rather than a product supplier and that is not really how it normally goes. More importantly such an arrangement reduces the burden of risk the farmer is exposed to with regard to the outlay for seed, fertiliser etc.

TLDR: Getting paid to try, rather than getting paid only upon delivery.

[Lief Siddhe]

This dude (Peter Zeihan) gives a good rundown of how fucked the world is going to get foodwise cause of this war.

https://youtu.be/NsorIQbwVBc

He's generally got good videos on what to expect in the future.

Tl;dr: we're fucked

[Nordstern]

This dude (Peter Zeihan) gives a good rundown of how fucked the world is going to get foodwise cause of this war.

https://youtu.be/NsorIQbwVBc

He's generally got good videos on what to expect in the future.

Tl;dr: we're fucked

You're saying it's in the world's interest to enter this war and bring it to a swift end?

[Lief Siddhe]

I'm not. He's speaking from a USA point of view.

Unless there's a nuclear war, USA profits from all of this the most and loses the least.

[Maximillian]

The food crisis may make us forget COVID. Out of the blue I was contacted by a supplier wanting my next barley crop. I have no plans to plant any more crops plus the rain has made conditions bad for grain atm. They then offered a future contract with an up-front non-refundable component to plant. WTF.

I did however sell the 1.5 tons I had kept as animal feed at nearly twice the price I sold the rest of the grain.

I'd hate to be in a nation reliant on cheap food imports in a year's time.

So...what will the animals eat now? Or are all the animals food by years end?

Also what does "contract with an up-front non-refundable component to plant" mean in agri speak?

Well, animal production is very grain intensive. Someone is probably not breeding as many. You think grain prices are gonna be rough, wait till we see what meat prices go to.

Vegetarians with personal gardens and land to plant more rejoice?

My cattle are all grass fed and I have deliberately under-stocked to help regenerate the land. The grain was a emergency supply in case of drought. The plan was to make hay from the extra grass but it has rained for months so hay making and grain sowing are impossible till things dry out.

What is happening is grain suppliers with contracts to deliver in 6-12 months time are afraid that there wont be enough grain, so they are all trying to lock down sources now. In particular niche crops like brewers barley.

[Sacul]

The food crisis may make us forget COVID. Out of the blue I was contacted by a supplier wanting my next barley crop. I have no plans to plant any more crops plus the rain has made conditions bad for grain atm. They then offered a future contract with an up-front non-refundable component to plant. WTF.

I did however sell the 1.5 tons I had kept as animal feed at nearly twice the price I sold the rest of the grain.

I'd hate to be in a nation reliant on cheap food imports in a year's time.

So...what will the animals eat now? Or are all the animals food by years end?

Also what does "contract with an up-front non-refundable component to plant" mean in agri speak?

Well, animal production is very grain intensive. Someone is probably not breeding as many. You think grain prices are gonna be rough, wait till we see what meat prices go to.

Vegetarians with personal gardens and land to plant more rejoice?

My cattle are all grass fed and I have deliberately under-stocked to help regenerate the land. The grain was a emergency supply in case of drought. The plan was to make hay from the extra grass but it has rained for months so hay making and grain sowing are impossible till things dry out.

What is happening is grain suppliers with contracts to deliver in 6-12 months time are afraid that there wont be enough grain, so they are all trying to lock down sources now. In particular niche crops like brewers barley.

What tulip said and you above isn't that a good thing from your perspective? I am a city a boy and the most i ever got from agri was my uncle's vineyard in the Golan (with some random news articles of course).

From 'Clarksons farm' i also understood that farming in the west is a negative income source without subsidy's.

Out of curiosity tell me what you are doing now (next seasons) and why?

[Maximillian]

Thing to remember is that while I was born on a farm to North West NSW I grew up in Sydney and had a career as a scientist then as an accounting professional before selling up and becoming a farmer. I made my money first, so I do not face the pressures a normal farmer would face regarding debt (I have none) and securing an income across the boom-bust cycles (I have investments).

I bought the farm from a retiring couple in what turned out to be the last year of a five year drought. First year the farm had no stock but hay was at a premium so I made and sold hay. Then the bushfires came (I was in a unburnt area) so I took in a lot of livestock from burnt out farms (I still have a surviving cow saucy moo who was badly burnt but survived). After that I bought a number of Angus cows plus a bull. They were expensive as everyone was restocking after the drought but that allowed me to generate calves both for sale and for the meat trade (steers).

I grew a crop of barley once targeting the craft brewing market. As the land had never been cropped I got a bumper yield but the return didn't match cattle on the same land. Plus I am trying to avoid external inputs to maintain soil fertility.

So this year it is only cattle. The plan was to also cut grass to make hay but it has been too wet. I'll be selling around 75 head this year, although my new bull Carlos got into the cows early so I'll have spotty calving.

[Dorvil Barranis]

Thanks for the information. I expect there might be a bit more attention paid to your industry, which most people kinda take for granted.

Carlos the horney bull, messin' with our local farming authority!