Global Food Price Index hits 3-year high

The UN Food and Agriculture Organization’s Food Price Index climbed to a three-year high in July, extending its upward trajectory as conflicts across Eurasia (the Black Sea and the Hormuz chokepoint) disrupt critical trade routes and mounting El Niño risks threaten global harvests.

The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization’s FAO Food Price Index, which tracks monthly changes in the international prices of a basket of globally traded food commodities, averaged 131.09 last month, up .6% from the previous month, led by gains in grain, sugar, and vegetable oils.

Wheat surged 5.8% during the month to a two-year high, while corn climbed 3.6%. Vegetable oil prices reached their highest since June 2022, while meat and dairy prices declined, according to the FAO.

For households, the best hedge may be to strengthen their own local food supply chains, whether by planting a backyard garden, buying directly from nearby farms, or building relationships with local farmers and cattle ranchers.

https://www.zerohedge.com/commodities/global-food-prices-hit-three-year-high-war-chokepoint-chaos-and-el-nino-spark-perfect

Global Food Security at Risk as Ukrainian Grain Exports Drop 22% YoY

Due to Russia's blockade in the Black Sea, Ukrainian wheat/barley/maize exports are down 22% Year-over-Year.

Ukrainian attacks on Russian vessels in the Sea of Azov (a key route for ~25% of Russian grain exports) have caused them to throttle exports there, prompting wheat prices to jump 7% on the news.

Notably, production itself is still solid — the problem is getting the grains out, and that's not happening reliably right now.

As mentioned above, the best hedge against war-related food supply chain disruptions ... is still right there in your backyard garden. #GoGrow !

#FoodWars

source: https://www.world-grain.com/articles/23077-regional-review-war-taking-toll-on-black-sea-grain-shipments

Registering the Chickens: Animal Passports & Drones Hit 8+ Countries [VIDEO]

Countries across multiple continents are rapidly rolling out mandatory animal registration, digital IDs, passports, and aerial surveillance of farms and private land.

Though they cite different excuses, the net result is the same: all backyard flocks and livestock are being pulled into centralized databases that can be queried and enforced in real time.

This is happening in "lock step" as a push is made to map and control livestock and food production worldwide.

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bXMHV1etZkE
Substack: https://unshadowed.substack.com/p/registering-the-chickens-animal-passports

On the bright side, when the UK asked people to register their birds, people were so irked that they started going to the DEFRA (UK USDA) site and registering roast turkeys and chicken nuggets en masse, until the government's site crashed entirely.

This is a reminder — a somewhat silly, small-scale example, but one nonetheless — that we the people have much more power than they want us to believe.

No one ever complied their way out of tyranny. 🐓

(source)

USDA Confirms Farm Expenses Rising — Especially livestock

The war on farmers (and especially on animal ag) continues as total U.S. farm expenditures climbed another 1.9% to a record $490.3 billion ... with an average spend per farm hitting $263,955 (up 3.1%).

Farm expenses are rising — and many are going bankrupt or choosing to simply give up.

https://www.hoosieragtoday.com/2026/07/28/usda-farm-production-expenditures-report/

US diesel crack surpasses $100 a barrel for the first time on supply disruptions

... and the supply of refined fuels is already nearly exhausted. A hard landing is visible ahead, for farmers, for trucking, and ... well, for everything that requires food (people) and energy (the entire economy).

These are very likely the final days of relative normalcy during which to prepare. Get ready.

https://boereport.com/2026/08/17/us-diesel-crack-surpasses-100-a-barrel-for-the-first-time-on-supply-disruptions/

So Trump comes out and declares the strait is open again — completely made up, and who even believes him at this point? But "belief" is not the point. The headlines go out, and the high-frequency algorithmic trading pushes the oil prices back down. These markets have been completely manipulated by their statements:

1. Not just to make billions through insider trading
2. Not just to push people into confusion and learned helplessness
3. But to absolutely prevent any natural demand destruction

... meaning, usually if the world is running out of something, the price rises. That's the most basic supply/demand concept. It's been undermined by this cycle of nonsense announcements and manipulated markets — and this is GUARANTEEING that we are going into an absolutely worst-case "hard landing" scenario: the engineered energy crisis that will require fuel rationing and cause massive inflation across commodities, transportation, cost of living...everything.

The economy CANNOT survive what they have engineered here.

The upside is, a lot of people are about to feel a level of discomfort that will make them ask questions — and we'll be able to wake up a lot of folks...

Marjory Wildcraft and I caught up and had a candid conversations about world events, the engineered "poly-crisis," and why there is still hope even and especially as things get really hairy. Join us!

https://unshadowed.substack.com/p/marjory-wildcraft-unscripted-unshadowed

https://youtu.be/SIlWWjlQxqw

My friends, this Sunday (Aug 23) I'll join Nora Gedgaudas live for a free conversation/webinar:

Resilience in an Age of Disruption
Building Food Security, Self-Reliance & Local Resilience
9:00–11:00 AM PST
Why food, energy & supply systems are getting more fragile, and what practical steps families & communities can take right now to become less dependent on those failing centralized systems.

See you there! 🙏

https://theancestralnutritionfoundation.org/event/resilience-in-an-age-of-disruption-with-christian-westbrook/

High diesel prices are putting farmers in the red, threatening harvest season — ground reports needed

US average just hit $5.47/gal, up 8% in the last month. With diesel crack prices hitting record highs and inventories at record lows, it's likely to increase further. Farmers have already absorbed high fertilizer prices (if they were lucky enough to even find it!), so if diesel prices explode right now, many would be forced to leave crops in the field.

We saw this in Australia: in March, BP's distributors were told to limit deliveries, CAUSING shortages which forced farmers to abandon their crops.

The can-kicking (releases from SPR, nonstop “the Strait is open” jawboning) got us through the summer, but if that ends in the next 2-4 weeks, right as we enter into prime harvest season, the effect on combines, grain carts, drying, and transport would be disastrous.

The technocrats would then reach for their pre-written crisis playbooks: fuel/food rationing via Digital IDs.

► On-the-Ground Diesel Reports Needed NOW:
Seeing restrictions in your area (partial fills, “contract customers only,” tanker delays, bulk deliveries throttled)? Please send details: [email protected] . Photos, supplier emails, co-op notices, local news — anything helps shed light. 🙏

It is no surprise that WEF-partner Tyson is closing their beef plants, citing a cattle shortage. Their whole play was to buy up and consolidate the industry, even as they invested heavily in fake meat. Tyson bought a 5% stake in Beyond Meat in 2016, before selling it in 2019 as it launched its own plant-based line. They also backed cultured-meat startups and other alternative proteins.

Meanwhile, Impossible Foods founder/CEO Patrick Brown has been more explicit: he wants to “put the animal agriculture industry out of business” and has described the goal as “game over” for traditional livestock, aiming to replace animals altogether by 2035.

Cattle numbers are at multi-decade lows. Processors are closing plants.

They told us exactly what they planned to do.
And now they’re doing it.

#WarOnMeat

Feds warn [again] of ongoing cyberattacks on controllers (PLCs).

A joint (FBI/NSA/CISA/DOJ/DOE/EPA) advisory has again warned that cyberattacks are targeting the Siemens S7 PLCs used across "critical manufacturing, energy, water & wastewater, chemical, food & agriculture, and commercial facilities."

The advisory specifies "This is not a theoretical risk—it is an active threat" (which feels like LLM to me with the "not an X but Y" and em-dash, but hey ... let's set aside the issue of intelligence agencies using ChatGPT to craft their advisories :-p )

Actors are scanning the internet for exposed/insecure Siemens S7 devices and using AI-generated exploitation scripts to access and control them.

This tracks with the recent attacks on water systems in multiple states recently, and the threat escalation throughout the year, generally blamed on "Iranian hackers" such as Handala. It's been a drip-drip-drip in the mockingbird media which seems to be setting the stage for the WEF's Cyberpandemic.

#cyberattack

(source)

Australia To Shoot 70 Fire-fighting Donkeys

It sounds crazy, but Western Australia’s DPIRD agency is set to shoot 70 wild donkeys from a helicopter by the end of August unless they are stopped.

The agency claims that these animals are not "native" and therefore must be eliminated.

As usual, these "save the environment by rewilding" -style cover stories turn out to actually be highly destructive to life.

Ecologists argue the animals are filling niches left empty since Australia’s megafauna went extinct, and studies have shown that the clearing done by donkeys DOES reduce brushfire intensity and build natural fire breaks. But again, it's not about actually helping the environment. Over 500,000 donkeys have already been killed in the Kimberley alone.

More information, including links to Kachana Station and how to help, here:

https://judithdschwartz.substack.com/p/donkeys-on-death-row

90% of Russia's Grain Export capacity is offline

More than 90% of Russia’s grain export capacity in the Azov-Black Sea basin has been taken offline following Ukrainian attacks and navigation restrictions, disrupting the [usually-huge-exporter!!]’s main corridor during the busiest part of the season.

All three grain terminals at the Black Sea port of Novorossiysk suspended operations last week. Together, the terminals had handled around 25 million metric tons of Russian grain exports.

“Practically all Russian grain exports through the Azov-Black Sea basin are at a standstill,” said Andrei Sizov.

This is contributing to a perfect storm of conditions — working on a video report about the whole picture now...

https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2026/08/17/ukrainian-strikes-halt-most-russian-grain-exports-in-the-black-sea-a93517

Diesel Crisis Hits US Harvest as Global Grain Demand Explodes [VIDEO]

The world is hungry for grains and looking to the US...but diesel costs are already making the harvest economically unviable for many American farmers.

We saw this before in Australia, where crops were abandoned and left in the ground.

New data on inventories and demand just came out, and confirms we are rapidly entering a food crisis.

- If you’re seeing any diesel allocation limits, contract-only sales, or empty tanks in your area, send the details to [email protected]. -

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bnl-8TVEIFo
Substack: https://unshadowed.substack.com/p/diesel-crisis-hits-us-harvest-as
Bitchute: https://www.bitchute.com/video/mMBrgX7q9Cnx

France cuts expected corn crop to 50% to dry/hot season.

French farmers are estimated to have lost HALF the corn crop this year due to excessive heat — output is expected to fall to fall to less than 7 million tons, which would be the smallest harvest since 1976.

This drives more demand to the US harvest (which is why the diesel situation in the US is critical — full report here)

"Relentless heat and drought ‌could halve this year's French maize harvest and reduce European Union production to its smallest in decades."

Germany’s grain maize crop has also suffered, with farm cooperatives association DRV on Thursday forecasting a 14% year-on-year drop.

(reuters)

Going LIVE in 30min with @TessaFightsRobots over on substack.

Join us!

https://open.substack.com/live-stream/330352

Pairwise sees 'Dramatic Uptick' in CRISPR licensing as gene editing food goes mainstream.

"From specialty crops to insects, vegetables, ornamental horticulture, microbes used in ag biologicals, and livestock."

I've covered Pairwise (founded by ex-Monsanto exec, funded by Monsanto) and their gene-edited crops (which, no surprise, remove the seeds, so they can't be grown by the consumer!).

Now that the EU has approved unlabelled gene-edited foods in the food supply, and it's being pushed by the FAO as a solution to the developing "food crisis," Pairwise has said they're going to start gene-editing everything.

And why not? Long planned by the technocrats, the regulatory path to market is now wide open, and consumers don't even get to find out what they're eating.

This is a key part of the technocratic takeover of the food supply, and indeed, of life in this realm...

https://agfundernews.com/pairwise-sees-dramatic-uptick-in-crispr-licensing-as-gene-editing-moves-beyond-row-crops

Farmers are plowing under their salad greens — no one buying after the Cyclospora news cycle!.

Did the media push so hard on this "outbreak" to scare people from eating farm-grown food?

“Grower-shippers are having to plow down iceberg lettuce and other crops as supply currently exceeds market demand.” said Shaw, VP Ops for Markon Cooperative.

Coastline Family Farms said the company chopped up and plowed about 300,000 pounds of Romaine hearts grown in the Salinas Valley. (It was iceberg lettuce from Mexico that was blamed for the outbreak ...)

As soon as the WEF-funded vertical farming / AgTech companies get their gene-edited crops approved, the USDA will be out there saying "This is clean food — not deadly food grown in dirt. That stuff is gross, man."

#WarOnFarms

https://www.bluebookservices.com/lettuce-growers-plowing-under-unsold-lettuce-crops/

Grain Crisis: Russia & Ukraine Ports Shut, Farmers Leave Crops in Fields [VIDEO]

Grain shipments from both Russia and Ukraine have stopped as attacks continue on Black Sea ports and vessels.

Farmers now face a severe crisis: unable to sell the harvest, many lack the cash to finish harvesting, let alone plant the next winter crop. Grain is being left in the fields.

This is a catastrophic failure in the global food supply.

YouTube: https://youtu.be/DI5CzEyr57c
Bitchute: https://www.bitchute.com/video/7DCDHvLsJnRC
Substack: https://unshadowed.substack.com/p/grain-crisis-russia-and-ukraine-ports