Satellites give clues about the coming global harvest

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-62149522

by rntn • 4 years ago

150 108 4 years ago

trhway3• 4 years ago

To me it seems that we're coming at the peak heat of 88 year cycle (and that is on top of the global warming base trend) and thus droughts and a lot of similarities to the 1930's. (as a cherry on top the surprising coincidence of political situation - a fascist regime wanting to expand its living space into the same vast agricultural areas of Ukraine, as well as an actively industrializing empire in the Far East having great hunger for the resources and territories of its neighbors).

Swizec5• 4 years ago

surprising coincidence of political situation

Empty stomachs breed political unrest. A human constant.

Even in middle school history class we were taught that the 1930's rise of fascism wouldn't be possible without the economic downturn that preceded it. And that the French Revolution never would've happened without huge inequalities.

Now this may have been socialist propaganda (middle school was ~6 years after Yugoslavia), but a lot of it rings true.

irthomasthomas• 4 years ago

Most famines of the post industrial era have been man-made. Sure, droughts are natural, but allowing people to starve is a choice.

trhway3• 4 years ago

Even in middle school history class we were taught that the 1930's rise of fascism wouldn't be possible without the economic downturn that preceded it.

The rise of the today's Russian fascism has followed exactly the same path as in Germany back then - a lost war (Afghanistan and Cold War) resulting in the crash of empire followed by a decade of economic hardship resulting in the rise of a "strong man" regime with all the same trappings of revanchism, "master nation" ideology, total suppression of basic liberties and democratic institutions, etc. (even the triggers used by the regime to grab the total governmental power are very similar - Reichstag fire in Germany and the FSB bombing of apartment buildings in 1999.) And so far we've had annexation of Crimea being extremely similar to the annexation of Sudetenlend back then, and the current stage - Ukraine invasion - is the start of the actual implementation of Lebensraum (Polish invasion back then) - last time it led directly to WWII, and i don't see how we can cheat the historic logic this time.

nemo44x• 4 years ago

Empty stomachs breed political unrest. A human constant.

Every society is 3 meals away from chaos. - Lenin

watwut8• 4 years ago

The economic downturn definitely helped fascism in its last steps to power. But, it was far from the only factor in play. Great depression started in 1929, at that time Hitler had already putch attempt behind him and had considerable radial party. There was a lot of unrest already.

And similar goes with french revolution. The old regime was getting weak every day and unsustainable.

99_003• 4 years ago

When rhetoric and propaganda meet reality.

causality0• 4 years ago

What? Every comment I've heard in the last six months has been sounding the alarm for famine.

melony• 4 years ago

If you want accurate pricing, keep an eye on the futures markets. Using satellites to predict harvests has been used by Wall Street since forever.

99_003• 4 years ago

Russian economy on brink of collapse.

Russian army is losing.

Ghost of Kieve.

Putin is unhinged.

NATO more United than ever

That's the propaganda and rehtoric.

Ukraine was yet another massive failure from the ruling elite.

Their attempted fix, extreme sanctions has made things worse... for us and many millions of people in the world.

Reality is catching up to the propaganda. I have no idea why generation after generation keeps calling for it and going on these disastrous adventures.

SenpaiHurricane• 4 years ago

https://tarla.io/eng/index.html

jeromenerf• 4 years ago

Hey, I did that satellite productions a bit less than 20 years ago. The article doesn’t talk about this though.

GIS was all the rage, we collected satellite images over Europe, weather and market data and where able to model the date and volume of crop to enter the market. Fact being that we can get an indication of a given crop maturity status from its reflectance, thus how far from ripe it is, see https://gisgeography.com/ndvi-normalized-difference-vegetati... I guess when can train better models nowadays.

In the end, these estimations allowed for… drum roll… speculation.

rootsudo• 4 years ago

That must be fun data intelligence for markets, I wonder how insurance and futures work w/ GIS data.

I just remember chatting way back with an insurance agent that insures crop growth and yields and how much is in a silo and I thought it was all interesting.

Farmers and orgs, probably more the later buy policies that are payable in fiat cash for underproduction or loss. The loss makes sense, but I didn't think it was that big of a market.

killjoywashere2• 4 years ago

I took a pitch from a company early in the pandemic that was pitching last-mile supply chain/distribution planning/visibility by identifying clinics with refrigeration capacity from overhead imagery. The stats were ok, certainly not random.

jl6• 4 years ago

It would be good to see the same analysis for other crops that might be needed to substitute for wheat this year.

post_break2• 4 years ago

I bet John Deere knows all this as well since their tractors can provided that data right back to them. Scary to think your tractor letting them know when to time food stocks, fertilizer, etc or just sell the data to third parties.

thriftwy• 4 years ago

I don't think Belarus or Rostselmash tractors produce too much data for John Deere (you will never know, though).

bluGill2• 4 years ago

As a John Deere employee I'll confirm we have this data. We also have strict rules about getting access to it, because we are well aware that value comes directly out of our customers potential profit and their profit is what determines how much they buy from us next year.

There is someone with access to that data (dB administrators). They are registered with the SEC as someone not allowed to trade go ensure there is no temptation to look at it.

I don't speak for the company above.

post_break2• 4 years ago

Do you think this is good or bad? Frankly the fact that the data is available seems ridiculous to me. Nothing stopping an administrator from pulling a Pelosi and having their significant other to feed the data elsewhere.

ClumsyPilot2• 4 years ago

If things continue the way they are going, 2030's could be as eventfull as 1930's

delecti5• 4 years ago

There's a decent chance of the 2020s being as eventful as the 1930s. The 2030s could be even worse.

abletonlive• 4 years ago

Is there any way that you can quantify that? Please remember you're on hackernews, not reddit.

jamesash• 4 years ago

Backward rather than forward-looking, so slightly off topic, but for a high-level understanding of US crop production, nothing beats the US Crop Production 2021 summary. [Here - https://downloads.usda.library.cornell.edu/usda-esmis/files/...]

Skip the first 92 pages and go straight to 93-96 which give a total rundown of all US crop acreage and production, from corn and soybeans down to maple syrup and peppermint oil. Continue with page 97 which has a complete month-by-month rundown on US weather with comments on impact on specific crops.

Comprehensive.

akamoonknight2• 4 years ago

Definitely some interesting info. Has this been produced for previous years? I'm intrigued how the sentiment in the weather highlights might have changed over time.

tablespoon• 4 years ago

Definitely some interesting info. Has this been produced for previous years? I'm intrigued how the sentiment in the weather highlights might have changed over time.

I would imagine so. Something like this was a key part of the plot to the 80s comedy movie Trading Places.

greggsy2• 4 years ago

Are there any periodic reports like this that tie together crop production and fertiliser use?

Kon-Peki• 4 years ago

Yes, USDA NASS. Sign up for the regions/reports you are interested in and they’ll email you them the moment they are published. Crop production reports are weekly during the growing season.

killjoywashere2• 4 years ago

This is a good comment.

palisade• 4 years ago

My dad explained to me that in the 1960s and 1970s, USDA assessors would just drive down the road and look at a field and scribble a random number into their notebook. The data might not be very accurate. The reason he said they never cared to write an accurate number is that after they gave the numbers to the USDA, the USDA would just write the number they wanted to hear down instead. It had something to do with keeping the price they needed to keep exports flowing. For farmers of course, it hits them right in the pocket book because it prevents the prices reaching where they should be. On the other hand, subsidies help alleviate that a bit.

I'm not sure if this is true still today. But, I doubt they're counting every successful crop correctly. And, there's a lot that can happen before they are actually harvested; floods, insects, blight, drought, etc. For example, there'd be a huge drought and the USDA would announce a bumper crop and he'd laugh. And, that was recent.

Either way, past data is probably pretty suspect. And, today's data might have the same problem. Which means if you're basing prediction models on this you might expect to be disappointed when things don't pan out. This is especially dangerous if we enter an era where food becomes more scarce. It is an accounting issue if you think about it.

thechao• 4 years ago

I know USGS does IR (and other spectra) analysis, and the data correlate at the state-level with expected production. That imagery has been around for decades.

HWR_14• 4 years ago

USDA crop predictions in the 1960s seemed to be less than 10% off 4 months in advance and less than 5% off two months in advance.

It possible that the made up numbers were discarded because they were bad predictors because they were made up.

dave842• 4 years ago

I’ve been reading way too much Scifi lately and interpreted this headline differently than intended.

baxtr• 4 years ago

What did you read? Any recommendations? Yearning for quality sci-fi…

Swenrekcah• 4 years ago

Not who you replied to but I’m currently listening to Ministry for the future by Kim Stanley Robinson.

Other books by him I’ve enjoyed are 2312, set in the solar system in the year 2312, and then of course the Mars trilogy.

christofosho• 4 years ago

I've the temptation to jump in and recommend the "Ancillary Justice" series, and if you can handle a bit of pseudo-horror, the "Hyperion" series is fantastic too.

formerkrogemp• 4 years ago

Those who walk away from omelas. The left hand of darkness. Foundation series. Blodchild and other stories. Enders game. Dune. God emporer of dune. Dune chapterhouse. Dune messiah. The traitor baru cormorant. World war z. Ursula K le guin. Octavia Butler. Isaac Asimov. Philip K Dick. Frank Herbert. Etc.

dave842• 4 years ago

A recent highlight for me was the Bobiverse series.

throw0101a• 4 years ago

Newer:

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Children_of_Time_(novel)

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seveneves

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ted_Chiang

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andy_Weir

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liu_Cixin

Older:

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vorkosigan_Saga

Newer, leans fantasy (Siege and Engineer trilogies):

* https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/240708.K_J_Parker

myshpa6• 4 years ago

If we want rain & stable climate, we need to plant more trees / forests (see bionic pump, natural farming, forest gardens, atmospheric rivers, ...). As mr. Fukuoka says, rain comes not from earth/sky, but from the plants.

We could do that if we'd only replace cow's milk with nut milk and significantly reduce our (egregious) meat consumption. Then we could reforest upto 75% of our fields and it would sure help repair the water cycle / climate instability (among other good things).

If we don't do it, things will get so bad, even west will weep. Good news - it's something even we as individuals can influence. Simply choose plant based food when you can, and help reduce our agricultural impact.

Btw, our fields are not nature - we have too many of them, they are in fact green deserts, it's all deforested land, they don't influence the weather / water cycle in a good way, they destroy biodiversity, they poison everything, even most people have pesticides in their bodies. Our current agricultural / dietary practices are killing the earth.

Sorry, need sleep, so no sources, but somebody has to say it - study it yourself.

Edit: wow, 2 downvotes in less than 1 minute. Let it rain, burger chompers ;)

orionion• 4 years ago

??? They did plant a nut milk forest...

A billion pounds of California almonds stranded at US ports

https://www.freshplaza.com/article/9442683/a-billion-pounds-...

myshpa6• 4 years ago

That article is about problems with transporting almonds with ships (oceanic carriers ... make twice as many annual round trips by sending empty containers back to Asia to pick up more goods for export instead of ... almonds)? That's for another discussion ... one where I would talk about Alascan-Siberian bridge and trains, but ... let it wait for another time.

And sorry, but california farms are not forests. A monoculture from horizon to horizon is bad practice not only for the grains, but for the trees also.

For example, if done right they wouldn't need to water / deplete ground water reservoirs and hoard bees from around the country every year.

https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/what-is-permaculture-f...

https://agendagotsch.com/en/what-is-syntropic-farming/

https://agendagotsch.com/en/multi-story-tree-lines/

triyambakam• 4 years ago

I eat beans for every meal. Fruit and dal for breakfast; dal, veggies and more fruit for lunch; dal and more veggies for dinner (with something like plantain, breadfruit etc.) and snack on nuts and seeds throughout the day. I love the simplicity.

cercatrova2• 4 years ago

Try convincing a majority of the population to give up meat and milk, I guarantee you people won't want to.

prawn• 4 years ago

Political will and lobbying would be the chief obstacles on the milk side. Flavour/texture and tradition strong factors on the grazing livestock side.

With a national, concerted effort I think you could slowly make headway on milk at least. Subsidies, convert flavoured milks first, UHT if possible. In theory that is. In reality, not going to happen in a hurry.

I wonder if pricing will eventually influence the meat side. Patties and sausages become non-meat first, steaks increasingly become a luxury. As it is, I'm not confident budget sausages are quality so it wouldn't take much to take them down.

teslabox• 4 years ago

We could do that if we'd only replace cow's milk with nut milk

Agree that meat is very inefficient. But…

Dairy animals concentrate the calories on land that can’t be mechanically farmed, converting them into human-usable nutrition.

Even dairy animals on a conventional dairy farm upcycle calories - just searched and learned dairy farmers can boost a cow’s low-quality straw diet with cottonseed meal (high protein). Humans don’t eat cottonseed meal.

I’ve known people with a single dairy cow, or a few dairy goats. I don’t think “nut milk” works without a nut milk factory.

myshpa6• 4 years ago

I don’t think “nut milk” works without a nut milk factory.

You are mistaken.

Take 20-100g of any nuts (or oat flakes, or cooked rice/potatoes, what have you), 1-2 dates (or a pinch of sugar), 1 litre of water, and put it in the blender. Filter it through a sieve.

You've got milk, no factory needed !

beefman• 4 years ago

Sacrifice in March, corn have plenty starch.

summerisle• 4 years ago

too much wheat tbh. grow more pulses - anything in Vigna would be neat, and there's a bunch of other really cool stuff too. also, do some reforesting to control heat at ground level and reduce evapotranspiration from lower plantings.

hedora• 4 years ago

So... Russia is burning the Ukrainian crop, and is hoping they can hold the whole planet hostage with their harvest.

I'm hoping there's a way to get their wheat while simultaneously screwing them over back to the dark ages.

This makes me almost as angry as the West investing in more oil and gas in response to being held hostage by fossil fuel producers.

I read that less than 1% of the 18-29 year-old crowd "strongly approves" of DC's half-assed responses to these crises.

I hope they have the sense to vote in their own interest this fall. Sadly, the same polls say that, like most generations were before them, they're still young and stupid, and are planning to stay home from the polls. Some things never change.

heywoodlh• 4 years ago

I read that less than 1% of the 18-29 year-old crowd "strongly approves" of DC's half-assed responses to these crises.

Sincere question: has there ever been any examples in US history of 18-29 year olds strongly approving of any handling of something controversial?

Even if I did approve of how any administration handled anything I am sure that at best I would fall in the "approve" category. "Strongly approve" seems to imply (to me) that I believe an administration did the best they could in handling a situation.

InCityDreams• 4 years ago

Sadly, the same polls say that, like most generations were before them, they're still young and stupid, and are planning to stay home from the polls. Some things never change.

Yeah, like politicians and, to a point, people that say what you said. I've never voted and never will. Not, i believe, through youth or stupidity, but because I've yet to have someone convince me why i should vote.

I'm a Carlinist ..here to watch the shitshow, not to take part in it. And yes, i do accept all that comes with whoever got voted in. Quite frankly, i havent for the life of me seen a damn bit of difference between the lot of them...anx tgeir moaning, complaining, self-righteous supporters.

foverzar• 4 years ago

Yeah, all because of Russia. I wonder how no one had found some "Russian trail" in Sri Lanka.

Don't worry, your supremacist dreams won't come to pass. You can't take on Russia and the rest of the world is already too pissed with your chauvinism.

Good luck reaping what you sow.

Satellites give clues about the coming global harvest

Related Stories