Australia: Australians are in the midst of a potato shortage

While we shouldn’t see any deaths from it as there’s more food variety than in 1845, we should still be worried about how we’ll cope without the staple.

The potato industry is baked at the moment due to floods cleaning out crops across the country and wet ground has made it near impossible to plant more potatoes, meaning we will have to pay a small fortune for the starchy vegetable until at least February.

It’s not good news coming into barbecue season, with potato salads and potato bakes likely to be off the menu and hipsters may also need to give up their weekend potato rosti.

The Australian Bureau of Statistics said in 2004 Australians were chomping through 63kg of mash, chips and other potato pleasures every year.

Brushed potatoes, the tasty ones covered in dirt, are what’s in low supply and Fairfax Media reports Aussie Farmers Direct has told customers it will only deliver red skin potatoes at the moment.

Potatoes are currently sold for about $3.50 a kilo at major supermarkets but that price is expected to hike as supply becomes limited.

Victorian potato grower Des Jennings said he would need a crystal ball to predict when potatoes would be replenished but thought it would be early next year.

Usually at this time of year, Mr Jennings has planted two thirds of his potato crop, but he said he isn’t even close to planting half because of how heavy rain has affected the soil.

Mr Jennings picked his potato crop four months ago and sold it for about $400 a tonne.

But now potatoes are going for up to $2000 a tonne, showing just how desperate people are becoming to get their hands on the vegetable.

“The growers who have potatoes are laughing,” Mr Jennings said.

“They are getting prices they haven’t seen before.

“But obviously a lot of farmers don’t have potatoes, which is why we have a shortage.”

Mr Jennings said demand had been constant for many years, and weather was the main blame for the shortage.

Mr Jennings grows his potatoes in Thorpdale, in Victoria’s Gippsland region, and he said most of the supermarkets already had their shelves cleared of brushed potatoes.

Lauren Rosewarne, from Melbourne University’s School of Social and Political Sciences, said a potato shortage was something to potentially worry about considering people before had died as a result.

She said however, stepping away from the hash browns and moving to other starchy vegetables could be a healthy decision.

“We’re not hearing of shortages in things like quinoa, and that’s the new superfood we are supposed to be eating at the moment,” she said.

“Sweet potato, that’s considered to be a nutritional powerhouse with a lot of similar properties to potatoes. But it has lower GI and not going to spike blood sugar and counts as a vegetable — potato actually doesn’t.”

Andrew Taylor has been eating nothing but potatoes for almost a year and he said while they will get more expensive, he’s willing to fork out the money.

He’s lost a substantial amount of weight eating potatoes and believes the nutrition in the vegetable made it worth not giving up.

However those who thought potatoes were becoming too expensive, could switch to beans and rice.

“I don’t know how expensive they will get, even if they double in price I’ll still eat them,” he said.

A potato shortage is not the only thing we should be worried about, with wine and chocolate also on the chopping block.

Business radio program Marketplace told chocoholics it was time to panic because a global chocolate shortage was upon us.

In June, it was revealed about half of cocoa beans coming from the Ivory Coast in Africa were not meeting quality standards.

Reuters reports the cocoa beans produced were small and had high acid levels, which means they weren’t good enough to give chocolate the texture we all love so much. .

According to CNN, there is a global wine shortage because of extreme weather.

It is predicted wine production will fall five per cent this year, making it the worst year since the start of the century.

“With global warming, we’re witnessing an increase in exceptional events that are more frequent, longer lasting and of greater scale,” International Organisation of Vine and Wine head Jean-Marie Aurand told Reuters.

While wine production is pretty good in Australia at the moment, it’s expected to save wine producers in South Africa and France who have been hit the hardest.

The United States and Spain will also help solve some of the problems.

We got through the avocado shortage earlier this year, so we’ll survive this too, but when will we be given a break?