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"And So It Begins – 1000s Of Cattle Are Literally
Dropping Dead From Starvation In Northern Mexico"
by Epic Economist
"A lot of people never imagined the world could ever reach this point. Many preferred to assume that this crisis would rapidly end and, eventually, things would come back to 'normal' and everyone's lives would be just fine somehow. But here we are in the second half of 2021, and conditions have never seemed worse. Global crises are getting aggravated at an alarming pace, and extreme weather conditions are leading to the destruction of millions of acres of agricultural land, where the food we consume all over the planet is produced, while thousands of people are also falling victim to the extraordinarily high temperatures. In Northern Mexico, a region known for its cattle farming and meat production, thousands of cows are facing starvation and death due to a ravaging drought. The region produces hundreds of thousands of pounds of meat that we consume here in America. And the mass loss of livestock is leaving many in the agriculture industry extremely worried that not only shortages are ahead but, in fact, we might see a permanent collapse in meat production.
In an article released by the Los Angeles Times, Mexican farmers and ranchers expose the devastating situation they're now facing. In the arid hills of southern Sonora, local farmer Marco Antonio Gutierrez wakes up early to count the carcasses of rotting cows. On that day, Gutierrez found nine skulls of cows that were felled by heat and hunger. “There’s nothing for them to eat,” he lamented. Sadly, those nine cows were added to the other 61 Gutierrez have lost just this year. But Gutierrez's loss only represents a fraction of the overall tragedy. Just in Sonora, the number of cattle has dropped by nearly 50 percent this year. The article describes that "two years of extreme drought have turned large stretches of northern Mexico into a boneyard. Between starvation and ranchers forced to prematurely sell or slaughter their livestock, officials say the number of cattle in Sonora has dropped from 1.1 million to about 635,000".
Thousands of Sonora farmers and ranchers are facing crushing financial losses and many of them don't see a future in the industry anymore. The outlook doesn't seem very encouraging. According to a study featured by NBC, "a long-term drought that has hit two-thirds of Mexico looks set to worsen in coming weeks, with forecasts warning of high temperatures, crop damage and water supply shortages on the horizon, including in the populous capital. Experts are sounding the alarm that parched crops could under-produce as temperatures hit 40 degrees Celsius - 104F - on Wednesday in some parts of northern Mexico, including key farming areas".
Mexico's drought parallels that of the western United States and Canada, where mass crop failures are being reported and water conservation mandates have been imposed. Most part of the U.S. West is dealing with a drought so severe experts said this phenomenon is an event only seen every 1,000 years. At this very moment, every corner of California is experiencing an extreme state of drought, and that will have major implications for our food supply chain because the state produces roughly one-third of our vegetables and about two-thirds of our fruits and nuts.
In California, along with some parts of Canada, apocalyptic wildfires are sweeping through the region and eating up anything vegetative they can find, including crops. Many other western and midwestern states are also being hard hit by the dry weather conditions, and this situation is rapidly evolving into an alarming agricultural crisis. The most worrying factor of all this is that the region is responsible for the production of a series of food staples that go to our stores.
In all of our history, we have never seen anything quite like this. And it isn’t just North America that is on the verge of a disastrous collapse in food production and in danger of seeing a widespread hunger crisis. All over the planet, extraordinary weather patterns are destroying crops and wreaking havoc with food production, and global food supply chains are just getting more and more vulnerable to disruptions. This looks like a slow-motion train wreck of epic proportions that is being played right in front of our helpless eyes. By now you probably know that none of this is going to end well, so the best chance we have to survive the coming collapse of everything is to start getting ready right now."
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