Restricted Republic host Lisa Haven: Food supply shortages are going to get worse

01/28/2022 / By Kevin Hughes

“Restricted Republic” host Lisa Haven warned the American people that food supply shortages are going to get worse.

She mentioned that Washington State is literally rationing food now and that DC Homeland Security and Emergency Management tweeted that people who are going to grocery stores should just buy what they need and leave some for others. (Related: Grocers are now stockpiling food supplies ahead of expected inflation, food supply shortages.)

“You may have noticed empty shelves in some stores due to national supply chain issues. But there is no need to buy more than you normally would,” the DC Homeland Security and Emergency Management tweeted.

Haven said what the tweet really means is: “Let’s ration what we have in the grocery store because we have real problems with the supply chain.”

She also took note of a tweet with #emptyshelves that blames the Biden administration for failing to address the problem that is happening in America.

“This is now the stuff that we are dealing with. And this actually goes on and on and on with states all across the country. This burden is widely being felt by Americans and the truth of the matter is things are not getting better. They are getting far worse,” said Haven.

She also cited a Wall Street Journal article about some of the problems that the country is facing, such as the United States food supply being under pressure from the transportation disruptions.

In the article, food industry executives and analysts warned that the situation could persist for weeks or months even as the current wave of Wuhan coronavirus (COVID-19) infections are easing. Haven also cited that the recent virus-related absences among workers have added to the continuing supply and transportation disruptions.

COVID lockdowns causing surge in grocery store buying

The “Restricted Republic” host noted that the COVID lockdowns have caused a surge in grocery store buying that cleared the shelves of products, such as meat, baking ingredients and paper goods. She added that the lack of workers has not only left a broader range of products in short supply, but it has also caused a real strain on the food supply and products.

Haven also said that American farmers are also now dealing with the increased prices of fertilizer. The Wall Street Journal recently reported that high fertilizer prices are weighing on farmers across the developing world and making it much costlier to cultivate and forcing many to cut back on production.

According to Haven, this could mean that grocery store bills could go up even more this year and its impact would be damaging. She also recalled that global food prices rose to decade highs last year and an uptick could lead to hunger in some parts of the world because of the pandemic.

Problems with food supply to cause global starvation

Haven proceeded to quote Josef Schmidhuber, the deputy director of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) Trade and Markets Division, who said that “lower fertilizer use will inevitably weigh on food production and quality affecting food availability, rural incomes and the livelihoods of the poor.”

“In other words, when you’re starting to say stuff like that means that there is going to be problems with the food supply and this is going to cause starvation across the globe,” Haven said.

She also quoted a statement from the World Bank, which said that more households will be cutting down on the quality and quantity of food that they consume as the pandemic enters year three.

Haven added that the World Bank said last month that high fertilizer prices were adding to the costs and that around 2.4 billion people lacked access to adequate food in 2020, which was up 320 million from the previous year. Inflation also rose to about 80 percent on emerging market economies last year with roughly a third seeing double digit food inflation.

“So this is a major problem all across the globe. And if we take this added farmer fertilizer crisis, then we should expect even higher prices at the grocery store. And this is a hidden tax by the way by the Democratic Party,” Haven said.

“That’s why I don’t believe that we have an administration right now who cares at all about trying to stop this inflation. And the people that it hurts most are the middle class and the lower class and we are the ones who are at risk right now.”