Image 01 Image 03

U.S. Facing Butter Shortage Ahead of Holiday Season

U.S. Facing Butter Shortage Ahead of Holiday Season

A UN official also warns of an impending global rice shortage.

One of my favorite food combinations is rice and butter. In fact, when I was pregnant with my son, that was my go-to craving for two solid months.

Twenty years later, we are facing the possibility of shortages of both staples.

To begin with, this country might have a butter shortage right before the holiday season.

According to data from the United States Department of Agriculture, the amount of butter sitting in US storage facilities in August fell 10% month-over-month. However, it was down 22% compared to the same time a year ago.

For example, there was over 282 million pounds of butter in warehouses last month, down from over 362 million pounds in August 2021, according to data compiled by the USDA.

The Agriculture Marketing Service’s recent Dairy Market News report shows supplies are tight around the nation. In the report, officials say demand is outpacing supplies in the West, where producers are running reduced production schedules.

The reason is a shortage of both supplies and workers.

Tanner Ehmke, lead economist for dairy and specialty crops at CoBank, projected earlier this summer that “historically high butter prices are all but certain to continue for the remainder of 2022” as shortages continue.

In a recent June report, Ehmke said supply problem are the result of U.S. dairy farmers and butter processors struggling to increase production due to rising costs of feed, energy, heifers and even labor.

“Some churns are slowing production due to tight U.S. milk supplies and short staffing at plants,” Ehmke said.

According to the data from the USDA, monthly milk production has dropped in several of the past few months, including as recently as June. From January through June, U.S. milk production was down by almost 1% for the year, according to the USDA.

And while the lack of sugar cookies during Christmas may be sad, the looming global rice shortage could be tragic. A United Nations official projects global rice shortages next year…due to the rise in fertilizer costs and the continuing war between Russia and Ukraine.

Rising fertilizer costs in the global market will negatively affect the availability of rice and other staple foods in 2023 if the crisis between Russia and Ukraine continues next year, said Maximo, a chief economist at the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). Torero Cullen predicted.

In an interview with the Finance and Development Journal – Quarterly Bulletin by the International Monetary Fund (IMF), Mr Cullen says the lack of wheat and fertilizer supplies has already pushed up prices and more of the food import bills for the most vulnerable countries. has increased. US$25 billion this year; 1.7 billion people are at risk of starvation in the future.

“If the war continues in 2022 and 2023, we could potentially have a food availability problem as well as a food availability problem, as Ukraine and Russia will further reduce their exports, including fertilizer. which we have to avoid,” he cautioned.

And while rice is not a major staple in this country, it is an essential food item in others.

With more than half of the people in the world relying primarily on rice for their diets, according to the USDA, it’s obvious that a lot of the grain needs to be grown to feed the world’s population. In 2021-22, the world’s people consumed 509.87 million metric tons of rice, which was an increase of about 72.69 million tons compared to the 2008-09 crop, reports Statista.

While images of plateaued rice paddies in Asia may first come to mind when thinking about how the grain is grown, in fact, the United States produces about 20 billon pounds of the grain every year, according to Think Rice. Of the rice grown in the United States, about half of it remains here, while the rest is exported to around 120 countries.

Could this warning be why “experts” now say white rice is as bad for you as candy?

Eating lots of white rice is just as bad for your heart in the long run as consuming lots of candy, a study suggests.

Researchers in Iran looked at the risk of heart disease among people whose diets were high in refined grains compared to whole grains.

They found those who ate refined grains – processed to give them a finer texture and longer shelf life – were more likely to develop coronary artery disease in middle-age.

Lead study author Dr Mohammad Amin Khajavi Gaskarei said the damage done by a diet high in these grains was similar to eating lots of junk food.

A scientific hypothesis that I have, which I fear is about to be tested: Starving people are generally not worried about the condition of their coronary arteries.

DONATE

Donations tax deductible
to the full extent allowed by law.

Tags:

Comments

Oh, now it’s a shortage of butter … Thanks Pedo Joe. Let’s Go Brandon.

    Ironclaw in reply to Ironclaw. | October 6, 2022 at 7:27 pm

    I also just noticed the screenshot from CBS news show that doesn’t contain even the smallest container of butter. It’s all margarine or other substitutes that mostly consist of whipped vegetable oil and flavoring.

      henrybowman in reply to Ironclaw. | October 6, 2022 at 7:59 pm

      I Can’t Believe It’s Not Journalism!™

      Concise in reply to Ironclaw. | October 6, 2022 at 10:55 pm

      Can’t wait for the bug based butter

      Victor Immature in reply to Ironclaw. | October 7, 2022 at 4:53 am

      The Land o’ Lakes one in the middle 2nd from bottom with the blue container is butter w olive oil added and it’s been hit or miss trying to find it lately so this is not exactly news to me. The red L.oL is with canola oil (ie canadian oil)

        LOL is LOL. They dumped the nice Indian girl on the packaging to be “woke.”

        Sorry, but I am still getting over the “sex assigned at birth” on the form I used to get a flu shot. I drew a line through it, naturally. I think there is a pun there somewhere….

      randian in reply to Ironclaw. | October 7, 2022 at 8:50 am

      It’s all margarine or other substitutes that mostly consist of whipped vegetable oil and flavoring.

      The anti-meat vegan activists at the WEF that want to kill all our cows are hardly going to let you eat animal-sourced food like butter and milk, are they?

    henrybowman in reply to Ironclaw. | October 6, 2022 at 7:59 pm

    He’s working to create a shortage of guns, too, as we speak.

Much more to come as the rising input costs for agriculture that began during planting are realized at harvest. Then add fuel costs to harvest, take it to the processor and every other step to get it on the table.

    WTPuck in reply to CommoChief. | October 7, 2022 at 10:07 am

    My local butcher is raising prices again. I know they wait until they absolutely have to, because their customers are generally neighborhood people, or those who come back because they grew up here and know the quality of their goods. It irritates me that they (and we) suffer because morons who a) have no idea what’s involved in running any kind of business and/or b) are evil, malevolent jackasses.

A shortage is supposed to lead to a price hike. It’s a feature, not a bug. The higher price makes sure you can get all the butter you want. People want less at the higher price, and there’s always butter on the shelves. Not too much, not too little, but just the right amount.

The wokesters never dreamed there’d be karmic backlash for their cancellation of Uncle Ben and Princess Land-o-Lakes.
Stock up on maple syrup NOW.

    jpwcpa in reply to henrybowman. | October 7, 2022 at 4:18 pm

    Aunt Jemima has already had a name change (and logo change) due to wokeness. It’s now known as the brand Pearl Milling Company.. Will Mrs. Butterworth be next?

And now rice is no better than candy sez a group of fake scientists wearing freshly-pressed white lab coats. Fortunately, there’s no shortage of high fructose corn syrup, which means we’ll be facing a 2022 bumper crop of Candy Corn. CANDY CORN!

We need to outlaw polished white rice. It’s poison!

All processed foods are evil, unless those ultra-processed foods happen to be fake meat products like plant-based sausages and burgers and fake dairy products like fake cream cheese and fake cheddar cheese and fake cow milk. Super woke ultra-processed foods are GOOD.

    henrybowman in reply to Tiki. | October 6, 2022 at 9:58 pm

    It’s moderately well known in the diabetic community that white rice delivers its carb load in a faster and more unhealthy fashion than brown rice. I would fully expect that “if it tastes good, it’s bad for you” should be a law with somebody’s name on it, but I’ve been unable to locate the culprit.

      randian in reply to henrybowman. | October 7, 2022 at 8:54 am

      If you’re diabetic, rice really is as bad as candy. Brown vs white doesn’t really matter much to a diabetic, either is a practically instant glucose spike.

      I’m not diabetic. It’s not my place to dictate food choices for diabetics or vegans or my neighbors or strangers on the internet. I enjoy eating white rice with steamed Brussel sprouts and creamery butter. Some toasted bread on the side. I’m not afraid to eat carbohydrates – simple or complex. I don’t spike or droop or lose consciousness after eating white rice. I’m lucky that way.

      The one thing that does give indigestion? humorless nutritional pedants and their misplaced and unsolicited polished white rice-advice.

    BierceAmbrose in reply to Tiki. | October 8, 2022 at 1:46 am

    Oh, for bog’s sake. Those lab coat monkeys noticed that high-surface area digestible starch pellets digest rapidly into glucose? You don’t say.

    These knee-jerk single-variable pronouncements are worse. “Oats are good — fiber!” Yeah, well exposed surface drives the speed of starch digestion. Instant oats act like candy. Quick oats still bad. Rolled oats can be Ok. You wanna oat yourself to steady carbs, eat steel cut oats AKA groats. Dont’ over-cook, and combine with some fat.

    As for rice: there’s increasing evidence that a pretty simple “add fat and chill for a while” protocol transforms the starches into slow-digesting forms. Somewhat less evidence that this works similarly for other starch grains.

I am very concerned about the higher prices I have to pay for gas, LP (to heat my home), for beef, for electricity, for medicines, for health care, for health insurance, for home owner’s insurance, for property taxes., Excuse me, but I am not concerned about the higher price of butter.

    Dimsdale in reply to JR. | October 7, 2022 at 9:25 am

    Agreed. The high price of heating oil and other heating fuels will hit right about election time. Gasoline spiking too.

    Maybe that is why they are pushing early voting.

    LGBFJB

At first glance, I thought the U. S. was facing a “butler shortage” heading into the holiday season. But I can see where a *butter* shortage would be more of a problem.

Rice with butter and a dash of salt and pepper is a balanced meal.

I’m actually supervisor of the margarine department at a food company.

I predicted exactly this over a year ago. When the covidiots were running the show the enforced shutdowns of restaurants put a huge number of them out of business permanently.

That drop in demand meant that the raw material suppliers of the oils and whatnot massively cut back their production.

Now that the demand has been coming back, the raw materials are simply not there.

We have plenty of orders but a lot of them are getting delayed because we simply cannot get the ingredients on time and in sufficient quantity to fill the orders.

And Ian is only making things worse.

    Chet in reply to Olinser. | October 7, 2022 at 8:01 am

    What does factory produced chemical infused margarine have to do with a butter shortage? ” Ingredients”? Cream, with or without salt, is the ONLY ingredient in butter.

      Olinser in reply to Chet. | October 7, 2022 at 12:44 pm

      I have long since accepted the fact that when normies say ‘butter’ they mean ‘everything that happens to be in the supermarket butter aisle’.

      This interpretation is confirmed by the fact that the main picture in this story features brands that contain 0% actual ‘butter’. The Blue bonnet, Land o’ lakes, country crock, Olivio and the smart balance brands have ZERO actual butter in them (some other Land o’ lakes stuff does have butter but not in that size or packaging).

      People refer to vegan crap like Smart Balance as ‘butter’ which is vegan ‘butter’, right alongside a brand like Lucerne, which is 51% pure butter.

Morning Sunshine | October 6, 2022 at 10:37 pm

not in my house. we have butter enough to last the winter.

Time to find butter and freeze it
Of course when we have blackouts, it will
All go
Bad

Future children would have needed a definition of “butter” when reading Huckleberry Finn but fortunately problem solved by the fact that they won’t know how to read and the book will have been banned.

White rice has been bad for decades in a high energy diet.

It has a very high glycemic index and glycemic load. Those countries where it’s a staple eat brown rice at a weekly rate of about what the average Westerner eats in 3 generous meals.

Unless you are very active and burn it off shortly after consuming, then you should definitely limit it.

    White European males eat more food than lets say.. a 4′ 11″ 100 pound Cambodian woman. I see those women all the time. They must eat like birds. They’d burst after eating more than a packet of Ramen.

    Comparing American food standards and measures to those in Indochina or SE Asia is silly.

    Northern Chinese eat noodles, southern eat polished white rice. Compare those two groups.

Putin is responsible. Isn’t he to blame for EVERYTHING?

Why is this post illustrated by photos of margarine, which is produced in a chemical plant? My wife is an excellent baker and chef (not a “cook”), and I often make homemade butter to enhance her creations. Infused with a variety of sea salts for use on hot bread and biscuits, or compounded with fresh herbs to enhance a savory dish, One will always have butter as long as there is fresh cream available.

    jpwcpa in reply to Chet. | October 7, 2022 at 4:28 pm

    So if there truly is a looming butter shortage, I would expect that shortages of heavy whipping cream, buttermilk, cream cheese and other dairy products can’t be far behind.

The lockdowns and “stimulus” have caused most of this in my opinion. The side effects will take years to correct, assuming government stops doing crap

2smartforlibs | October 7, 2022 at 10:33 am

Every time the left thinks it has an idea, we always take a step back.

Just here to say you can make butter with just heavy cream in a food processor or a blender. Add a pinch of salt and it’s salted butter. Freezes for 6 months to a year – it is delicious give it a try

BierceAmbrose | October 8, 2022 at 1:53 am

This was working; you insisted on taking over, and now it’s not.

From lumber to car parts to turkey for diners to dental-freaking-floss, it was easy, consistent, and available, and now it’s not.

When human life isn’t worth anything, disrupting it doesn’t matter. But, if human life matters, and most people think at least their own life matters, less stuff tends to tick them off ’cause their life got smaller.

Oddly enough, I just bought 16 pounds of butter at Costco last week.