A couple of weeks ago, I became concerned about the enormous pressures I saw building in the food system – the journey food takes from the time a farmer plants a seed or a rancher raises an animal to when it arrives on our plates. Some pressures are due to the Middle East oil crisis and others are from extreme weather events. I usually try to ignore the world’s problems, but an unsettled feeling I couldn’t ignore urged me to start investigating.
My education and work experience give me the ability to look at multiple systems and assemble big pictures that, in the past, have proved to be fairly accurate. I fact-checked the statements I’ve made here since accuracy is important to me.
The first things that caught my attention were wheat and cattle. Total U.S. wheat production for 2026/27 is forecast to reach its lowest level since 1970/71. As of Jan. 1, 2026, the U.S. beef-cow herd — female cattle that have calved and are kept for production — stood at the lowest level since 1961, and the total number of cattle is the lowest since 1951.
The USDA’s 2026 forecast for sorghum yield dropped about 20% in only one month — between July and August. Sorghum is widely used in animal feed and is one of the more heat- and drought-tolerant grain crops, which makes its struggle with severe drought on the Great Plains noteworthy.
Farmers and ranchers are finding it more difficult to grow and raise food due to extreme weather. We can certainly understand that here, where we’ve witnessed firsthand the fires that burned so much rangeland.
Then there is fertilizer.
The now-closed Strait of Hormuz is an important shipping route for enormous quantities of urea, sulfur, and nitrogen — all components of synthetic fertilizer. About half the world’s food is grown using these. Shortages raise farmers’ costs, and they might use less, potentially reducing future crop yields. The effects of this reduction will likely be seen in the fall 2027 harvest.
Oil is another piece of the puzzle. In response to the supply disruption, the United States has drawn its Strategic Petroleum Reserve down to levels approaching those last seen in the early 1980s. Other member countries in the International Energy Agency have also released oil from their strategic reserves in a coordinated effort to cushion the shock. Eventually, those inventories will need to be rebuilt, creating additional demand for crude oil.
The global food supply isn’t in crisis yet, but it has become more vulnerable because fertilizer production, farm machinery operation, food processing, refrigeration, and transportation all depend heavily on plentiful, affordable energy. The longer these disruptions continue, the greater the pressures become.
On May 20, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, the world’s most credible food-security institution, issued a report titled “Strait of Hormuz Conflict Threatens Global Food Prices.” The FAO warned that the disruption could develop into a much broader agri-food shock and potentially produce a severe global food-price crisis within the next six to 12 months. Reading this validated what I had sensed for quite a while.
Oil provides much of the plumbing for modern economies, and when something disrupts its flow, the effects spread far and wide. Grocery stores can look completely normal while pressures build upstream in fertilizer, shipping, transportation, inventories, and farm costs. The first signs probably won’t be empty shelves. Higher prices, shrinkflation, and gradually tighter supplies are more likely to lead the way. The food landscape could look considerably different a year from now.
I’ve been thinking about how people might use creative solutions to manage a period of high food inflation or shortages, and to see opportunities rather than trouble. Over the coming weeks, I will write columns about different ways to find, buy, share, store, and use food so that you can still eat well even when your food dollars don’t go very far.
All the gloom and doom of extreme weather, oil, and fertilizer aside, I’m excited about the transformation I see underway in the way we grow, raise, and distribute food. Sometimes change doesn’t happen until we are forced into it; inertia is part of human nature. I’ll write more about the bright side as we go along.
We live in a complicated world. Food has the remarkable ability to comfort, nourish, sustain, and create community. It always has, and it always will — even if the road ahead gets a little bumpy.