I came back stateside recently to news of one of the driest marches and aprils in recent history and one of the wettest mays so far in recent history. Which is really, really bad for a great plains state. Pretty much none of the fields that are normally grown for the spring harvest are grown, cattle are either in mud pits or grass that looks like it’s already august, and the small town I’m staying in has had water pressure issues county-wide for the last 6 months.

Anecdotally from a gardening family, pretty much nothing they’ve attempted to grow this year so far has worked out, while some non-productive drought-resistant plants they didn’t even know were on their land have flourished. And that’s with manual watering and trying to protect from the 50 degree F temperature swings some days.

This will probably dox the state if you’re clever, but half the state has reached drought conditions that are unprecedented since records started being kept, and half the state has had some of the harshest storms on record with the expectation that it’ll continue well into autumn.

That’s putting aside the ridiculous level of food inflation. I was in china the last couple of years – what do you mean a bag of flour is almost an hour on minimum wage? What do you mean cheap 70-30 ground beef is more than an hour on minimum wage? what the fuck do you mean a 5 lbs bag of rice is almost $7 now? What do you mean potatoes are spoiling within a week of bringing them home because the stock is so old? What do you mean bell peppers are a dollar or more each?

Food in China, even imported meat, is actually 150-300% cheaper than in the rural midwest compared to income. Every stage of the US food production and retail cycle is fully collapsing.