Ignore the 'Climate Doom™', Record Cereal Harvest Expected this Year

It's been a good year for fruit, vegetables, cereals worldwide, but the heavily subsidised 'farming™' concerns of 'the West' are in for tough times

As autumn is arriving, it is time for another update to my occasional series on 2024 in agricultural production. I’ve penned two earlier instalments this spring, both of which relate that the, of course, ‘anthropogenically induced climate catastrophe™’—i.e., a cold winter, followed by a ‘mild’ February’, and a strange, warm spring—would be, well a disaster.

Turns out, as early as April and May, vegetable and fruit farmers in Austria weren’t exactly unhappy, if stories of ‘exceptional’ asparagus harvests and a very early strawberry harvest are any guide:

Let them Eat Asparagus

Strawberry Fields Forever

Today, with the growing season nearing its end, we’ll check out how the remainder of the year went for Central European farmers.

As always, translation and emphases mine, as are the bottom lines.

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Heat Ensures Early Harvest Start

Via [Austrian state broadcaster] ORF, 15 Aug. 2024 [source]

Hot days and warm nights—this has led to earlier ripening across the agricultural sector, and now the harvest is about to begin. Pumpkin, grape, and apple growers are particularly affected by the early ripening. However, the heat is also causing additional costs in agriculture [no good thing goes unpunished].

According to the Austrian Federal Chamber of Agriculture, around 30,000 hectares of oil pumpkins were cultivated across Austria in 2023, with a total harvest of just under 16,000 tonnes. In Styria, around 1,200 farmers grew oil pumpkins on 9,900 hectares this year, according to Reinhold Zötsch, Managing Director of the Styrian Pumpkin Seed Oil Association.

Seeds well developed

After last year’s problems with the seeds and flooding, pumpkin farmers are expecting a rich harvest this year. This year, the harvest is starting unusually early, said Franz Labugger, chairman of the pumpkin seed oil farmers:

I have already heard from colleagues that they will start this week and then the pace will increase. And I would have said that the majority of the harvest will have been brought in by the end of August, beginning of September.

The seeds are already well developed this year thanks to the abundant sunshine [so, this is, kinda good, one would think, but since it cannot be ‘good’ alone, this is where the spin takes over].

Higher Costs Due to Early Harvest

In the wine cellars of southern Styria, the wine tanks and wine presses are already being prepared for the harvest [talk about first-world problems]. According to winegrower Harald Lieleg from Kollerhof near Leutschach, this year’s harvest will start earlier than anywhere else in Burgenland:

I walked through the vineyards yesterday. You could already taste some of the berries, they are already soft. If it gets hot over the next few weeks and there is enough moisture, we will definitely start picking around 10 September.

However, an early harvest also entails additional costs:

The effort involved in processing the grapes when they are very cold is considerably higher. This means that the mash has to be cooled mechanically. You don’t have to do that at a later harvest time.

[this sounds a bit off, but its grammatically correct to translate it this way: depending on the kind (of wine), grapes are typically processed when they are relatively cool; if the temperatures are warmer, the grapes, containing a lot of water, are also warmer—it’s natural, so to speak, which is why, I think, there’s just a statement without any specifics, such as temperature ranges, problems, etc.]

Apple Harvest Also Starts Earlier

The apple harvest is also starting unusually early, said Manfred Kohlfürst from the fruit growers’ association:

We started already early on with the summer fruit, with the berries, and it is now becoming apparent that we are also starting earlier with the apple harvest. We are ten to 14 days earlier than last year this year too.

Due to the late frosts, the quantity is expected to be lower this year. Fruit growers are therefore now hoping for cool nights so that the Styrian apples develop a strong, red colour.

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Food Prices are About to Rise (Significantly)

This isn’t as clear an issue as it might seem. Fruits and vegetables are one thing, corn, wheat, and other foodstuffs haven’t been brought in (yet). In the end, I suppose some sectors will benefit from warmer temperatures while others won’t, esp. if everything in terms of ‘adverse weather events’ is lumped together in the category ‘climate catastrophe™’.

There’s always been swings in the weather, which always impacted agriculture. Hailstorms, strong rainfall, flooding, or freak cold snaps are nothing out of the ordinary. I’m not saying this is ‘good’ or ‘bad’, rather I’m pointing at the breath-taking reporting about apples now, berries tomorrow, and climate-induced doom come Monday.

I suppose humans aren’t very well made to withstand that kind of information overload, esp. as ‘current events’ make for bad advice when it comes to long-term, evidence-based decision-making. Hence, we’ll wait a few more months to see how the yields across the board ended up.

This is supported by further reporting, also by ORF, from late July 2024 (source):

A Good Year for Veggies—Too Wet for Cereals

In line with the trend throughout Europe, the grain harvest in Upper Austria this year has been less than satisfactory. Fruit and vegetable growers, on the other hand, had very good yields. Hail and frost were not so bad, but the number of damage reports due to heavy rain has risen sharply.

Although a record wheat harvest of 798 million tonnes is expected worldwide this year, things went less well in Austria—as in the rest of Europe, according to Chamber of Agriculture President Franz Waldenberger.

Grain Production Down by 11%

In Upper Austria, grain production this year is 11% below the long-term average: ‘we have a very difficult situation’, said Waldenbeger. With the exception of winter barley, all cereal crops are in decline because harvest volumes are low and prices are poor [this combo is but a reflection of crappy policies, i.e., subsidies in first-world countries that prop up prices there while ‘record harvests worldwide’ are depressing prices elsewhere]. It is hoped that the fact that grain can now be marketed with the AMA quality seal will improve the situation. This should bring better prices and more added value for farmers and thus increase the incentive to grow grain again. ‘We can look back on a wet grain year’, says Plant Production Director Helmut Feitzlmayr, adding that the weather also favoured fungal diseases.

According to the Chamber, damage reports have generally doubled this year (as of 16 July) compared to last year, which is largely due to the wet spring and heavy rainfall [remember the ‘summer from hell’ we were told to expect? The problem, as officials now admit, is the opposite: a wet spring]. As far as frost and hail damage is concerned, we have got off lightly so far.

More Sugar Beet and Oil Pumpkins Again

Feitzlmayr said that fruit growing had gone very well, with apricots, cherries, and strawberries spared from frost this year. There was also a ‘fantastic vegetable harvest’, which started very soon due to the high temperatures in spring. The quantity and quality of asparagus, for example, was excellent this year. The area under oil pumpkin cultivation, which had declined in the previous year, increased again this year—by 15% to 1,500 hectares. The sugar beet cultivation area also increased significantly—by 17% to 9,500 hectares—which Feitzlmayr attributes to the high contribution margins, meaning it is lucrative. [‘high contribution margins’, orig. hohe Deckungsbeiträge, simply means more subsidies per cultivated area, i.e., the gov’t pays more for planting sugar beets]

Bottom Lines

We’ll soon run into problems in the food sector: over-subsidised for decades, most ‘Western’ farms are either beholden to Big Agriculture (which also receives the lion’s share of subsidies) or, if you’re a small, independent farmer, are increasingly unable to compete due to stark differences in scale.

I see this everyday all around my neighbours: prices for everything rose significantly in the past two years, hence everyone now has more heads of livestock—because the gov’t pays per kilogram of meat produced (if there was a market, prices would go down—much like globally with expected cereal yields and low prices.

So, societies addicted to heavily subsidised ‘farming’—like in ‘the West’—will face considerable problems in the years ahead: further ‘progress’ (higher yields) will decrease prices per unit, which, so far, have been made up by ramping up subsidies.

Now, with all Western governments heavily indebted, one can expect troubled waters ahead in any event, for once any kind of economic downturn occurs—which is inevitable, for the last one was 2007/08—people will (have to) cut back on spending. This will place further downward pressures on farmers while, at the same time, it provides massive incentives for those who import (process) cheap, imported foodstuffs, incl. ‘unconventional’ forms, such as insects (ergh).

There’s no way most heavily subsidised small farmers will be able to withstand the coming storm. All that’s required for most small farmers to close down operations is one, perhaps two years of subsidies growing less than expenditures/sales.

If I were to put on my tinfoil hat, I’d say that this is all engineered by the globalists who desire to crush the possibility of (partial) independence from Big (Agri)Business and Big Finance.

If I’m inclined to deny ulterior motives, however, I can clearly see the endgame of what passes for ‘capitalism™’ these days (which is anything but): rising productivity leads to more output, which depresses prices per unit.

I’m unsure that there’s any one solution—(still) higher prices for food will lead to massive domestic woes, if not food riots, which, of course, the powers that be typically try to ‘solve’ (paper over) by temporarily (at first) instituted (and later continued indefinitely) subsidies ‘for those in need’.

This is problematic on at least two counts, namely the reinforcement of an (un)culture of dependency—and fiscal woes because the price tag for these programs will only increase over time. In the next economic downturn, this will turn the recipients of ‘food stamps’ or the like less inclined to protest or revolt; in fact, they will likely ‘vote’ for those politicians promising more ‘free stuff’.

Dependency begets a slavish mentality, which is awesome for those who pull the strings; for everyone else, it’s supremely bad.

Still, what about farming? Well, there’s but one way to break the stranglehold of Big (Agri)Business, Big Money, and Big Gov’t—we need more people taking the step into (at first part-time) farming, and once self-sufficiency is reached, agitating for their interests: lower taxes, less regulation, and open competition.

There is no way the administrative situation state, big business, big labour, and big gov’t will ever ‘permit’ this, you may object. It’s also clear that supra-national institutions, such as the EU, the WTO, or the UN, won’t like this (which tells you it’s a good idea to begin with).

But if you’re asking for permissions, you misunderstood the natural law of having been created a free man or woman, with inalienable rights, and the power you gain by taking control over your own, and your family’s, life and destiny.

The choice is yours to make, the road is yours to take.