00:01:28.440Since the beginning of the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February of 2022,
00:01:31.780Ukrainian exports of grain have been severely disrupted for over four months.
00:01:36.260Russian military vessels blocked Ukrainian ports in the Black Sea.
00:01:40.020Between July 22 and July 23, there was an agreement between the United Nations, Turkey, and Russia to allow exports via a safe maritime humanitarian corridor in the Black Sea.
00:01:50.240Over a thousand ships full of grain and other foodstuffs left Ukraine from three Ukrainian ports during the implementation of the initiative.
00:01:58.780On July 17th of 2023, Russia announced its decision to end the Black Sea grain initiative.
00:02:04.600So meaning, they were not letting them out, then you can, then all of a sudden they're like, nope, you can't do this, we're putting a stop to this.
00:02:10.640And this affects everybody because they're one of the biggest exporters of that product, as you see here shortly.
00:02:16.300Russia and Ukraine together accounted for one-third of the world's global wheat trade, 17% of global maize trade, and almost 75% of global sunflower oil trade.
00:02:25.540And prior to Russia's invasion, Ukraine provided 11% of the world's wheat and 17% of corn.
00:02:30.240So, since the invasion, the average price of shipping agriculture products increased from $30 to $200 a ton.
00:02:37.520That's 7x in two years, less than two years.
00:02:42.420February 24, 2023, U.S. Department of Agriculture estimates that exports of wheat in the past six months have been approximately 37% lower than the prior year.
00:02:50.880Now, this is important because exporting matters to us.
00:03:58.580So do you remember earlier when we talked about the black seed grain initiative between Russia and Ukraine, where it's like, hey, we got to get kind of the exporting going again?
00:04:04.880If you look at this chart here, this shows you what was going on during Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
00:04:10.740Look at the left and you'll see green is grains and oil seeds and you'll see blue is wheat.
00:04:15.560Look what happened to the prices, how quickly it went up from $2.20 all the way up to $3.60 or from $2.60 all the way up to $3.40.
00:10:01.820This is an America we're talking about.
00:10:04.100So, the second factor for food insecurity is drought.
00:10:06.620South America is experiencing a severe drought for the third consecutive year, the worst in a century, primarily due to the La Nina phenomenon that has persisted since 2020.
00:10:15.600The countries most affected are those produced.
00:10:17.800A significant amount of food for the world.
00:10:21.320In 2021, these four countries accounted for approximately 13% of the global food and fiber exports.
00:10:27.860And they lead the commercialization of soybean, soybean meal, and pellet soybean oil, frozen, cellulose, cane sugar, poultry, and coffee, and account for a significant share of the global supply of wheat, fish fillets, pork, chilled beef, wine, fruits, and fruit juice.
00:10:41.620Next factor, which we love, but it's a problem.
00:10:48.880A just-in-time inventory system is a management strategy that has a company receive goods as close as possible to when they are actually needed.
00:10:56.240This inventory system minimizes inventory and increases efficiency.
00:10:59.340This allows manufacturers to not be left with unwanted inventory if an order is canceled or not fulfilled.
00:11:04.440For just-in-time manufacturing to succeed, companies must have steady production, glitch-free planned machinery, and reliable suppliers.
00:11:11.560Obviously, it's got a lot more pros than cons.
00:11:13.060But when we have an inventory issue or ships are getting stuck at Panama Canal because they have problems or it's going to take long time, this is problematic for that, and that's the season today.