{"id":940,"date":"2019-04-24T17:25:54","date_gmt":"2019-04-24T21:25:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/josmfs.net\/?p=940"},"modified":"2022-02-28T09:32:24","modified_gmt":"2022-02-28T14:32:24","slug":"turkey-red","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/josmfs.net\/wordpress\/2019\/04\/24\/turkey-red\/","title":{"rendered":"Turkey Red"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"The Columbus story<\/a> shows the intervention of chance in history at its most capricious. The following tale has its own logic, but the confluence of serendipitous events makes it marvelous and uplifting, especially in our current dark times. It was first brought to my attention by my father back in the early 1960s at the height of America\u2019s role as wheat breadbasket of the world. America, and especially Kansas, was supplying essential wheat to the recently independent country of India and to the Soviet Union, whose long struggle with collective farming (and other factors), especially in the Ukraine, had led to its dependency on imports.<\/p>\n

I will not try to narrate the story O\u2019Henry-like with a surprise ending, but announce the amazing coincidence from the start\u2014America was supplying the USSR its own wheat<\/em>! The Kansas wheat was derived from a special hardy winter variety called Turkey Red that had originated in the Ukraine and was brought to America by Mennonites. So the story is how this all came about. See Turkey Red<\/a>.<\/p>\n

(Update 2\/24\/2022)\u00a0 Russian Invasion of Ukraine<\/strong><\/p>\n

More ironic coincidences.\u00a0 Who would have thought a story about wheat from a distant land over one hundred years ago would become timely in the 21st<\/sup> century.\u00a0 But terms like Catherine the Great\u2019s \u201cNew Russia\u201d are being uttered by a modern despot Vladimir Putin and port cities like Mariupol are again in the news.\u00a0 All attention has been on focused on the effect of Putin\u2019s folly on oil and gas, but I have been wondering about its consequences for the wheat.\u00a0 And sure enough, such concerns are finally in the news.<\/p>\n

See the Russian Invasion<\/a>.<\/p>\n

(Update 2\/28\/2022)\u00a0 Russia May Weaponize Food Supply Chain<\/strong><\/p>\n

Politico has a more expansive article on the implications of the grain production in Ukraine by Ian Ralby et al., \u201cWhy the U.S. Needs to Act Fast to Prevent Russia from Weaponizing Food Supply Chains<\/a>\u201d.\u00a0 For example, the article asserts, \u201cAmid the chaos of this conflict and the threat to Ukrainian lives and independence, one critical implication has been grossly underexamined: how Russia could rely on China\u2019s support to weaponize global food supply chains.\u201d\u00a0 Though Russia\u2019s gas and oil production has garnered the most attention, \u201cRussia\u2019s control of Ukrainian grain shipments will likely have far greater consequences.\u00a0 After just one day of the invasion, Russia effectively controlled nearly a third of the world\u2019s wheat exports, three quarters of the world\u2019s sunflower oil exports, and substantial amounts of barley, soy and other grain supply chains.\u201d\u00a0 The article examines in detail the implications of this control.<\/p>\n

See Russia and Food Supply Chain<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Columbus story shows the intervention of chance in history at its most capricious. The following tale has its own logic, but the confluence of serendipitous events makes it marvelous and uplifting, especially in our current dark times. It was first brought to my attention by my father back in the early 1960s at the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[116],"tags":[135],"class_list":["post-940","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-causality-chance-and-connections","tag-historical-irony"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/josmfs.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/940","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/josmfs.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/josmfs.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/josmfs.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/josmfs.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=940"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/josmfs.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/940\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2604,"href":"https:\/\/josmfs.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/940\/revisions\/2604"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/josmfs.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=940"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/josmfs.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=940"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/josmfs.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=940"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}