Hacker Newsnew | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submitlogin

>for good people

yep, as long as you're "good" according to Russia&Assad. Russia is weaponizing the food the way it has weaponized natural gas and oil. In some sense that is a weapon of mass destruction posed to be used in the next few years with casualties going into millions or even tens of millions ballpark if one to look at various predictions of the food price rises and shortages in the next few years.



Assad (even with extended family) cannot eat 500kt of grain. It means general population of the country would be fed.

Looks like win-win to me

<skipping crap about food as a weapon>


>It means general population of the country would be fed.

Nothing indicates that. If anything, what we know about Russia and Assad allows to reasonably suspect that it is only pro-Assad regions will be fed while others will be subjected to the rising prices and shortages.

>Looks like win-win to me

That win for Russia, Assad and pro-Assad population comes at the cost of increased prices and shortages for the Middle East and Africa at least (the regions which directly imported from Ukraine), as well as rising prices across the world - all that being the direct result of the Russian war hitting availability of tens of million tons of Ukraine produced food. I.e. there were 2 alternatives - 1) tens of millions tons of Ukraine produced food would normally be available to the whole world vs. 2) Russia delivers only 500K tons to its Syrian allies. As we see Russia used military force to enforce the alternative 2).

><skipping crap about food as a weapon>

Food isn't the weapon. Using military force to intentionally create food unavailability is the weapon.

It seems like you intentionally missing the point that Russia is using its military force in Ukraine to :

1. limit the availability of the Ukraine produced food on the international market

2. put as much as possible of what is produced by Ukraine under Russian control

and thus to allow Russia to create food unavailability at will at the place and time of its choosing.

Btw, interesting parallel with Nazi Germany - it wanted to grab those fertile lands for itself and to clean them of Slavic people, and Russia similarly wants those lands for itself and to clean them of Ukrainians (and Russia has been actually succeeding at that more than Germany back then as Russia has already forced more than 12 million Ukrainians out of those lands).


It's a non-issue. The US alone can produce enough to supply the world, but we pay farmers to let fields fallow to keep prices up. Africa is full of fertile land and could be feeding the world, if we weren't actively destabilizing countries. Canada produces millions of tons, and looks like they are also growing extra.

https://www.indexmundi.com/agriculture/?country=ca&commodity...

https://theintercept.com/2022/03/09/intercepted-podcast-afri...




Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: