Drought following the virus: even Moscow River become shallow with no waiting

Frightening photos of what the Moscow River looks like during the spring flood, published by political analyst Sergei Medvedev:

“These are not the dried up irrigation ditches at the Aral Sea, this is the Moskva River above Zvenigorod. The level dropped to 1-1.5m, the bottom opened everywhere. The river is quietly dying. In Europe, rivers were also unusually shallow, at first there was no snow in the winter, and in the spring and a half months there was no precipitation in many regions. Waiting for a lean year ... "

True, one of his readers, Alexander Zhukov, explained that “at the water level in the Moskva River it is regulated by discharge from the Istra, Mozhaisk, Ruzsky and Ozerninsky reservoirs. This river itself does not become shallow; it is regulated by dams below Moscow and reservoirs above Moscow. This is the work of a person who needs to plan something. Maybe there is little water in reservoirs because of snowless water and it is saved. But in the Ruza reservoir, for example, the water level in winter and early spring was standard. .. "

However, this explanation does not get any easier. The fact is that at the beginning of April the experts of the Gruzopotok channel announced that the world grain market is in short supply and rush demand. For the second half of March, futures for wheat on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange rose 15%. And this is a global trend: May French wheat finished trading with rapid growth.

Two factors are key. Weather. Traders are worried by signs of progressive drought in several regions of Europe and the Black Sea, in the United States frost threatens to cover the agricultural areas of the Great American Plain. And, of course, the coronavirus pandemic, with which it is completely incomprehensible how and when it all ends.

As a result, importing countries seek to replenish their granaries as much as possible, insuring themselves against possible risks, and stock quotes go up.

In Russia, the purchase price immediately rose by 1 thousand to 13.3 thousand rubles per ton, overtaking oil quotes. The price of our wheat on the foreign market rose by $ 5, to $ 222 per ton. Grain transshipment in the I quarter at the Novorossiysk terminal of Delo Group (the third in the country) grew by 57%, and the volume in March by 90%.

In order to somehow balance the market and prevent a rapid increase in domestic prices and deficits, the Ministry of Agriculture is already quoting exports.

Harvest is expected at the level of 120-130 million tons, including wheat - 80-85 million tons. And the export potential in the season 2020/21 is estimated at 48 million tons. Wheat exports are expected in the following volumes:

1. Russia - 38.4 million tons.
2. The European Union - 27.8 million tons.
3. USA - 26 million tons.

If the situation with coronavirus drags on for several more months, in conditions of global self-isolation we will get a significant excess of demand over supply and an excellent opportunity for Russia to recover its losses from oil exports by record earnings on food supplies. Column country! "

That is, just for our country, it seems that everything does not look so bad as in the photograph of Medvedev. However, a few days ago panic was added by a publication on the Air Force website “Flood, drought and famine follow coronavirus.” Forecasts for 2020 are getting darker. ” It specifically states :

"The pandemic has not come alone. Following the coronavirus, the year 2020 promises fires, floods, crop failure and the biblical invasion of locusts. Natural disasters threaten hunger for poor countries and serious problems in Europe and the USA, meteorologists and international organizations warn. In any other situation, the world is not without labor, but I could handle a climate accident, but now all the resources have been thrown into the fight against Covid-19.

(...)

According to the world's largest climate database, the American National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI), in March 2020, the planet warmed up record-high: only once in all the observations since 1880 did the temperature deviate more from the average. And this despite the worldwide quarantine, because of which the transport and industry got up. And the warmer the ocean, the more powerful the hurricanes that form in it. Of the large economies, they cause the most damage to the United States, the richest country in the world that has suffered the most from the coronavirus. The semi-annual hurricane season there begins in June.

Moreover, over the overheated seas it pours more actively than over cool land, which deprives the continents of rain and causes drought. Rising temperatures in the western Indian Ocean are fraught with dry summers and wildfires in Australia, and warming waters in the North Atlantic threaten to dry and burn the forests of the Amazon. According to the latest UN data, almost 1 billion people in the world are chronically malnourished - every eighth inhabitant of the planet. And due to the crisis caused by the coronavirus, their number will grow by another 130 million in 2020 alone. Beasley warns: 265 million people will starve.

Drought, virus and hunger at the same time are too much for a mediocre disaster film. But the 2020 script was written by the unbridled losers of Hollywood, and they did not hesitate to add tragedy there in the form of an invasion of hordes of locusts. Gluttonous creatures hatched in biblical proportions in Yemen thanks to the warm and rainy winter. By the time the world became preoccupied with coronavirus, locusts were devouring greens in 23 countries in the Middle East, Africa and Asia. The World Bank called the invasion the worst in a generation - and this is even before its second, even larger, wave was fully manifested. Clouds of locusts ripen in Kenya, Ethiopia and Iran. She will have something to profit from - in Africa, crops are just emerging. This year's crop is in great question..."