Stock-Up Forecast

 

I had not planned another post for this week beyond the weekly Journal, but I was standing int he kitchen this morning and a thought popped into my mind again that has been recurring the past few days.  I thought perhaps I'd share these thoughts with you all, too.

First and foremost, Hurricane Helene did about as much damage as a hurricane could do to several states: Florida, Georgia, South Carolina and North Carolina were severely affected.  Other states also affected are Virginia, Tennessee, Kentucky, Ohio and Indiana.   I am not saying these last five states were less affected than the four I mentioned. Truly I have little idea of what occurred in them.   I'm only going by what I've seen online, and the focus has been mostly on the first four states in my area.  

  

With all the power outages my first concern was how people would survive...and then upon how elections would be held in those areas where they were predicting power returning as late as end of November...

But then I watched a stumbled upon vlog about outages in North Carolina and she mentioned a Longshoreman strike in the offing (that began yesterday, October 1).  She walked through a grocery store in North Carolina filming shelves and pointing out missing products and was instructing her audience in what they should stock up on NOW to avoid the outages that she felt were coming.

This woman resided/worked in an area about 40 minutes from one of the worst damaged sections in North Carolina.  I do not know the name of her area, but she made a point of saying repeatedly that she was about 40 minutes away from the damaged areas.  

The items she pointed to were things like bread, peanut butter, jelly, instant mashed potatoes, instant oatmeal, instant pancake mixes...She felt these were all items that were the result of panic buying due to the upcoming strike.  Now there were a few other things too but that was the basic things she pointed out.

I felt she was seriously wrong in her choices of what she was showing.  For one thing, every single item she pointed out that was severely depleted were ready to eat or easily prepared using nothing but water.  They did not require refrigeration.  In an area hit hard by a storm, it actually made sense that those items would be low on the store shelves.  They would most certainly be on my radar is my area had been hit and I didn't keep a deep pantry.  

But she did start me thinking, not of current outages (many no doubt due to the massive recalls on multiples of foodstuffs in the past three months), but of what we might expect to be short or missing now are seasonal crops that might have been harvested the week or month or two following the hurricane.  

And also, to consider what we really might miss if the Longshoreman strike isn't settled sooner rather than later.

Florida is known for citrus.  Other crops commonly produced in Florida this time of year: cabbage, carrots, cauliflower, broccoli, seafood, especially shellfish.  Of these items, reports are that there was little to no damage to the crops.  Only minor damage reported thus far to citrus and avocado from the storm.

The shellfish are generally harvested continuously in the Big Bend region of Florida which was the point of entry and had direct impact from Hurricane Helene.  However, predictions are that they will still be able to harvest once facilities are up and running again.  The shellfish should be safe enough in the water where they live. 

So, we should not see an increase in prices on any of the usual winter vegetables produced in the southeast.

In Georgia, harvests at this time of year are generally: pecans, peanuts, cotton, and soybeans.  Poultry is also big business and dairies.  In reading, I found that it was similar for South Carolina, North Carolina and Tennessee.  Add apples in for the Carolinas.  Georgia's apple growing area is located largely in North Georgia and has considerably smaller crop productions than the Carolinas.  

For apples, estimates are not in.  Possibilities include fruit blown from trees, excessive rain causing fruit to split and the obvious: broken and downed trees.

I expect we will find that these items will affect us, some immediately and others in the months to come.  Pecans can be blown from the trees (meaning they go far and wide away from the orchard).  Broken trees have a long- lasting effect.  It takes 25 years for a tree to mature to the point it reliably produces a good crop of pecans per one ag news report I read.  About 23% of the pecan crop is grown in the area that was hit hardest by the hurricane.  70% of mature trees and 40% of younger trees were blown down.    Per an ag report, it's unlikely any harvest will take place this year in the affected area.

I don't know who to credit this photo of downed pecan trees to.  It was on a Georgia Farm Ag report.

Cotton crops were about 65% in bloom.  Bolls of freshly opened cotton can be ripped from the plant and fully saturated.  Cotton must be dry in order to be harvested.  Rain will degrade the fibers. They had only just begun harvesting fields here in Georgia.  However, the majority of the hurricane damage did NOT occur in the higher cotton yield areas which were northwest of the path of the storm.  

Soybeans were ready for harvest.  The impact of the storm is that heavy equipment cannot go into saturated fields and if not harvested soybean rust would set in.  A further issue for peanuts and soybeans if that they must be dried and drying stations require electricity and without power...some peanuts may be dried in fields provided we do not get more rain.

Many farmers worked hard to harvest the crops they could prior to the storm making landfall but when faced with hundreds of acres of crops, one can only do so much in a short window of time.  Fortunately, the weather was really nice prior to Helene making landfall in Georgia.

I had completely failed to realize that poultry and dairy would be affected in Georgia.  However, when I saw the map of the point of impact in Georgia, I knew immediately how wrong I'd been.  Dairy is big northeast of us (there are some large dairies just 30 minutes south from us, but that area was not impacted).  Cattle was moved out to regions less likely to be affected but the issues were finding working dairies or getting old abandoned dairy barns up and working so they could proceed with milking operations.  

The poultry industry shut down processing plants and damage assessments for poultry houses have not yet been made.  It is believed that millions of birds may have perished but they are hopeful that this guess will prove to be exaggerated.  In Valdosta (hard hit here in Georgia) hundreds of poultry houses were hit and destroyed by the storm.  That's going to be impactful on chicken prices.  South Carolina and North Carolina poultry operations were severely affected.  However, many were NOT affected and while the processing plants are down, those chickens in the houses will 'just continue to get fat' as one spokesman said, since feeding plants were not affected.  

Poultry houses also produce eggs and manure...A reminder that an area that we think is solely affected is actually spread out over a variety of other areas that we may not realize are related.   Cotton produces both the fiber and also cotton oil among other byproducts.  Peanuts are more than nuts.  That's also oil and peanut butter.  So, keep this in mind when you see outages, or price hikes and you can't for the life of you figure out why?  What was the root crop/industry that was affected?

In North Carolina, Smithfield has a big pork processing plant.  That was unaffected by the storms an official reported.

And I did not mention paper and paper products.  The timber industry is another of those long term 'crops' that are harvested as mature trees.  I do not see any record of how many acres of pine timber were lost but that would affect us in the future.

Now I've spent hours reading ag reports and my eyes are starting to cross but I haven't yet addressed the Longshoreman strike.  I am focusing on grocery items, but I am not looking at other items (such as shoes, cars, clothing produced overseas), so be aware of this in reading my list that it is not comprehensive for food or other items, but I tried to focus on foods as much as the articles would allow me to assess what those might be.

Foods we might expect to see shortages of if the strike is long lasting: coffee, rice, bananas, imported chocolates and alcohols (whiskey, wine, etc.).  One article suggested there are quite a few perishable fruits imported including cherries.  I confess since I do not buy cherries out of the U.S. season, I didn't realize that cherries would be an affected.  However, I noted today as I made tuna salad for lunch that my cans of name brand tuna fish are produced in Taiwan...So that might be affected.  

Another source mentioned anything that come in from South America which means things like out of season (for our country) fruits such as grapes and canned foods.  I'm thinking of canned corned beef which is often packaged in Argentina.  I believe I noted on the Bonne Maman jars that they were packaged in South America also though the parent company is Belgium.

From what I could gather domestic chocolate used in candy production has already been purchased and received by manufacturers for Halloween and Christmas candies, so no need to worry there.

I would hazard a guess that orange juice (much concentrate comes from South America), pineapple (Hawaii may be American but it has to ship), and tropical fruits would be among the perishable foods we find it hard to get.  I'd add in canned pineapple...Again, it's shipped from outside the continent.

Quite honestly despite hours of research on this matter, there's simply not much information that is comprehensive.  Articles hint at things that might be in short supply, but they do not go down a set list of things.  So, our best bet: Watch our store shelves.  If you see dwindling supplies, check the country of origin on the products.  

When we used to serve dinner on the grounds there was a rule often spoken among the women who brought food: Bring enough for your family and to feed one or two others.  That was a formula that worked well and insured we had enough food to go around.  

Do the same in light of all this news.  Check supplies of what you normally keep on hand of the products that might be affected.  Buy those items in a quantity sufficient to give yourself a supply and perhaps a little to share.  Do not hoard!  If you have tuna enough for the year ahead on hand why buy more?  Leave it on the shelves for those who didn't plan ahead.  

One of the luxuries of our deeper pantries and freezers is that we were planning ahead.  There's no need for us to panic buy now.  

And be prepared to make substitutions as you can or to go without.  Perishable items are what I'm thinking of at present.  If you simply must have bananas, then look into purchasing dehydrated bananas or buying bananas while still in market and dehydrating them yourself.  

We got through the shortages in 2020 and all survived, so there's no need to panic.  Just stop and think.  

For myself, I'm thinking of two items I would like to stock a bit on: coffee and peanut butter.  I have let coffee supplies get down to about what we can use in a month or less.  I'd like to have at least a three-month supply.  I have three jars of peanut butter.  I think perhaps if I added three or four more jars that supply would be about right for us.

I hope that you found this post helpful in what you might anticipate in the near and extended future.  And please if you have information that would be helpful be sure to post in the comments so that we all can be informed and plan ahead.   

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