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Re:Missing wheat from the war is less than 1% of global whea... by Dylan16807 on Thursday March 31, 2022 @05:21PM (#30872345)
> If you ship your grain N times farther, you need N times as many ships to make the same number of trips.

Which would be really bad if it was a global increase, but when it's a tiny sliver of the market you only need a sliver of spare capacity.

Re:Missing wheat from the war is less than 1% of global whea... by ineedasername on Thursday March 31, 2022 @06:45PM (#30873063)
>you only need a sliver of spare capacity

If there was spare capacity, but there doesn't seem to be much at all. 1 in 10 inter-country wheat shipments will be Ukrainian, and it's about 1 in 7 for corn, probably other crops as well. Repurposing that shipping capacity isn't easy either, from a logistics standpoint. It can take up to a month just for a ship to cross the Pacific, before any other route complexities. It doesn't help that there's over 100 such cargo ships tied up in Ukrainian ports either, a decent proportion of which will be the subset of cargo ships fitted out for bulk grain transport.

The last few years have already shown us how delicate the global logistics & supply chains are. It doesn't take much to stretch them near to the breaking point, and we're already close to that point.

Re:Missing wheat from the war is less than 1% of global whea... by jacobolus on Thursday March 31, 2022 @11:41PM (#30874944)
Most world grain is shipped short distances within countries (by rail, truck, canal, ..) and consumed locally. Only a small proportion is shipped internationally, and usually the shortest possible routes are picked (because that is cheaper).

Entirely taking out Ukrainian grain shipments is not a small sliver of the total amount of long-distance grain shipping, but instead requires a significant increase in the total deadweight-ton-miles. We are talking about taking 10%+ of international wheat/corn/barley trade and making it travel 3–6x further than it otherwise would, in an industry that usually runs on thin capacity margins. (Disclaimer: I am not an expert and have not done a detailed calculation.)

That is a potential logistical nightmare. Hopefully smart people with the power to make large temporary changes are working on ameliorating the pain and keeping everyone fed.