Food Shortages May Get Even Worse in 2023—Here's Why
If you were hoping the new year would mark a renewed era of abundance for the U.S. food system, we have some bad news. The various food shortages that defined the past 12 months—butter, baby formula, eggs—are not only expected to continue, but experts are also predicting that they could get even worse in 2023.
CNBC reports an economic recession is likely to hit in the early months of the new year as inflation, environmental catastrophes, and an ongoing fertilizer shortage continue to wreak havoc.
"I believe 2023 is going to be rough. Worse than this year," Tennessee dairy farmer and outspoken agricultural activist Stephanie Nash recently told Fox News. "We're going to have a supply chain shortage, we're going to have an increase in our food [prices] at the grocery store," she claimed.
Nash, a frequent critic of farming regulations, added that inflation is not expected to end "anytime soon," as "Americans are really going to be hurting in their wallet." Due to the increase in food costs, the supply chain is struggling to keep up with demand. According to the USDA, the global fertilizer crisis, prompted by Russia's invasion of Ukraine, has directly affected crop production for farmers. The government predicted that this situation will become "more dire" in 2023.
Unfortunately, increasing environmental disasters are also contributing to the food shortages in a major way. Fox Business explains that California's devastating drought has led to empty rice fields and a 10% loss of viable farmland. Simply put, lost agricultural revenues from lost crops means less money and land to produce the foods we place on our dinner tables. "Everything from the milk industry around to almonds has been affected," UC Davis Agricultural Economics Professor Daniel Sumner told Fox Business.
As if that wasn't enough doom and gloom for you, Mashed predicts that bread, vegetable oil, corn, butter, tomatoes, champagne, flour, beef, and more will be harder to find on grocery store shelves in 2023.
