Kolkata: Energy supplies are feeling varying degrees of stress in different countries, thanks to the war in West Asia. While gas and crude oil price and supplies have come under great stress in different parts of the world, reports suggest that the continued unavailability is beginning to threaten where it could hurt the most — food prices and at a later stage, availability. From Bangladesh to Philippines to Australia farmers are already struggling with cultivation from the farmlands to the waters.
The war began on Feb 28, but reports state that Australian grain farmers are already facing fuel delivery cutbacks. Worse, this comes just before the sowing season, when machines need to run on diesel. In Bangladesh, the scene is not very different since many rice farmers are unable to obtain diesel to power their irrigation pumps in the farmlands. The same fate is shared by fishermen in the Philippines who find it hard to procure diesel to operate their boats to cat6ch fish. All these point to the chilling reality that days are not far off when fuel crisis will gradually pave the way for elevated prices of food items and then a shortage of food products if the war drags on.
Not only fuel
Worse, farmers are not only paying more and getting less fuel. They are also paying more for fertilisers and crop nutrients, which have been attributed to the crunch in West Asia. The Gulf nations supply a lot of gas to different countries which are required to produce fertilisers. While the Strait of Hormuz remains out of bounds to shipping lines, a few countries have also stopped gas plants after they were hit by drones missiles.
“As soon as we get cracking, every tractor and piece of machinery will be running, busy — and guzzling diesel… By mid-spring, we’ll exhaust what we’ve got and have to bite the bullet and pay whatever the going rate is — if we can get hold of it,” media reports quoted Richard Heady, a farmer in UK’s Buckinghamshire as saying.
Powering farming machines
Two vital equipment used in farmlands are dependent on petro-fuel, ie, diesel. From tractors to harvestors to seeders to power tillers to irrigation pumps, diesel is the main fuel to run all these critical equipment. Without these modern farmlands, sowing and cultivation can hardly be imagined.
Whether one is cultivating grains or oil seeds or running animal farms or catching fish, there is hardly a way to bypass the use of products and/or fertilisers. There are more challenges. The sowing has to be done in specific seasons and not beyond stipulated timelines. If that happens, crops are not going to be of the desired quality and quantity. Therefore, farmers cannot put off procurement of diesel and must have them according to sowing, tilling or harvesting seasons.
From sowing to harvesting
If the fuel is not available at the sowing season, seeding cannot be done and output will suffer. If fuel is not available at harvesting time, even mature crops would go to waste. Reports have said that anticipating crisis, the Bangladesh government has rationed diesel to only 2 litres per person per day. Harvesting is supposed to start in this region of the subcontinent in April, which will need diesel.
In Australia, too, farmers are not getting the fuel they need. Prices are diesel is also going up there. If supplies don’t become normal in a month, the planting season will start and it will usher in a lot of challenges, said reports. Fuel prices are also rising in European countries such as Germany and Romania.