Articles about the fall in wheat exports face another Molochian problem. The ones that say that a massive decrease in grain exports will lead to famine are shared widely. Articles that include the context that most wheat is produced and consumed locally, so exports are a small proportion of global wheat production, are boring articles about boring price movements, so they aren’t shared widely.
World grain production is 760 million tons per year. Russia exports 35 million tons per year (4.6% of total wheat production), and Ukraine exports 24 million tons (3.2% of total production). Losing three quarters of those exports will be a supply shock of the size we see about once or twice a decade (though it’s usually due to a drought).
(btw I’m not accusing Eric Raymond of alarmism; I thought the grain decrease was a big deal too, until I happened across a Twitter thread explaining the details. Update: I found the thread – it’s by a crop scientist. I’m not sure why her figure for Russian wheat as a percentage of world production is lower than what I found.)
“You know what they say the modern version of Pascal’s Wager is? Sucking up to as many Transhumanists as possible, just in case one of them turns into God.”—Julie from Crystal Nights by Greg Egan