Taps Coogan – December 13th, 2021

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As we’ve been noting since last year, the price of staple foods keeps rocketing higher. As the following chart from the Daily Shot via Win Smart highlights, there is still no peak in sight.

In addition to the usual reasons prices are rising across the board, food prices are linked to fertilizer prices, and as we’ve noted before, fertilizer prices are spiking.

Why are fertilizer prices spiking? Because natural gas prices have spiked and natural gas is used to make the ammonia feedstock that in turn makes about 85% of global fertilizer.

Why have natural gas prices spiked? Among many reasons, they have spiked because of misguided ‘green’ energy policies that have disincentivized production and transportation of the fuel despite brisk global demand growth owing to the popularity of coal-to-gas switching to lower greenhouse emissions and improve local air quality.

Well intentioned but poorly thought through policies have consequences, which in this case looks increasingly likely to include rising rates of famine for the world’s poorest.

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