The Four Horses of the Apocalypse – Painting by American artist Sharlene Lindskog-Osorio
As reported by Russian agricultural minister, Yelena Skrynnik, twenty three Russian districts have declared a State of Emergency in what is now described as the worst drought in 130 years. Severe high temperatures have hit the regions surrounding the Black Sea. These regions include Ukraine, Kazakhstan and Russia, the top producer and exporter in the region.
According to the agricultural minister, the Russian government will begin selling 3 MMT of the state-owned grain stockpile because the meat and dairy industry are struggling to find feed in the drought affected regions while at the same time the prices are soaring in mid-summer.
Egypt’s General Authority for Supply Commodities (GASC) is also sending tender orders to buy wheat from Russia by August 21 for 60,000 tonnes of optional-origin wheat. Yet, the world’s top importer is also seeking to buy cargoes of U.S. North Pacific soft white wheat, U.S. hard red wheat, U.S. soft red winter wheat, and/or Canadian soft wheat plus French milling wheat, Australian standard white wheat, Australian hard wheat, German milling wheat, Argentine bread wheat, Russian milling wheat, Kazakhstan milling wheat, Romanian wheat and/or UK milling wheat.
As the Russian economy continues to forecast declining grain crops of less than 75 MMT, the barley yields are decreasing 27-38% as Ukrainian barley is suffering because of heavy rains in the Crimean region are down casting their estimates by 10% in one week. Romania also took a 10% decline in production estimate over the last week from 6.7 to 6.0 MMT while foreboding forecasts that grain losses could be as high as 50%.
Revelation 6:5-6 – “When He opened the third seal, I heard the third living creature say, ‘Come and see.’ So I looked, and behold, a black horse, and he who sat on it had a pair of scales in his hand. And I heard a voice in the midst of the four living creatures saying, ‘A quart of wheat for a denarius, and three quarts of barley for a denarius; and do not harm the oil and the wine.’”
The spectrum that the continuing droughts and floods will only increase as erratic weather will bring grain yields of all types to plummet as famines around the world prophetically escalate. Are we to anticipate the revealing by the end of the year that the Third Seal of the Apocalypse will transform itself into the Fourth Seal of the Apocalypse by Passover 2011?
Revelation 6:7-8 – “When He opened the fourth seal, I heard the voice of the fourth living creature saying, ‘Come and see’. So I looked, and behold, a pale horse. And the name of him who sat on it was Death, and Hades followed with him. And the power was given to them over a fourth of the earth, to kill with sword, with hunger, with death, and by the beasts of the earth.”