Consider this – you go to your local supermarket to buy, among other things, some orange juice. You find the right section where there are several brands to choose from, fresh in the chiller and long-life too – perhaps a hundred-litre packets all told. That’s just your local shop, imagine how many shops there are in your town or city each with a hundred litres of orange juice on sale at any particular time – and remember, this stock is turning over all the time – being bought and then replaced with stock from the store room. Multiply by the number of cities in your country and then by the number of orange juice-drinking countries in the world and you have imagined an ocean of orange juice! Where does it all come from – especially considering it takes eight oranges to make a litre of juice? Are there enough orange trees in the world to account for all this juice?
Of course, if you believe in Solipsism – then you will think that the world only exists because you imagine it into being and of course, you want to have plenty of orange juice wherever you go, so you imagine it into being present in all those thousands of shops worldwide. I am more of a realist and so I know that there must be enough orange trees to provide the juice – I just have no idea where!
Most people have no idea where all that orange juice comes from either and what about dried mint in all those expensive little jars – you may have holidayed in some sunny spot and seen oranges growing, but when did you ever see a mint farm? These things are Commodities – Soft Commodities in fact – which means they are commodities which are grown as opposed to Hard Commodities like metals which are mined. So this year, I am going to explore the world of Commodities!
Of course, to some people, Commodities as a term, means a form of investment and apparently, if you belong to the stocks and share-owning class, you should, apparently, diversify your share portfolio with commodities for greater stability – though this is well above my pay grade so don’t be expecting any tips! But the essential difference between gambling on stocks and shares and gambling on commodities is that they are subject to different forces of fluctuation – a company might invent a new product and its share value rocket or it might have a product superseded by a rival and plummet. Commodities also go up and down – soft commodities are susceptible to the weather, even shellac – the product of the Lac Fly has good and bad years whilst hard commodities are more predictable.
In case you think that commodities sound rather dry, I am going to include a poem – also with an A to Z progression about each commodity as the last nine months, I have taken to writing poetry in a big way – so a double whammy! A few commodities are missing in the Abercadarian and I will double up on one of the letters and poetry forms.
Whether you come for the poems or the commodities, trust me, there will be amazing facts about gold, amber, pork bellies and yes shellac…
This is my 5th A -Z Challenge and you can find the previous years via the Menu at the top of the page – starting in the fateful year of Covid 2020…
2020 – personal and societal responses to the Covid 19 crisis
2021 – I was trying to complete a sci-fi novel and it advanced me greatly and I finished it shortly afterwards
2022 – I wrote about foods which can be used as an ingredient
2023 – I wrote about phrases we know the meaning of but often, not the origin of – and a s a bonus Cant languages
Definitely will be stopping in, I am heavy on the herbal side of things and sometimes do wonder how supply and demand meet 🙂 Happy A to Z Challenge 2024
Thanks for dropping by – the first of 2024 – you were quick off the mark!
Fun post. Good luck with A-to-Z. See you April 1.
If I can make Commodities interesting then…
Thanks for Sparkling by…
Oh my goodness, this must be one of the most unique themes I’ve seen in all my years of AtoZ Challenge!! 🙂
Do you think so? I hope to find fun facts about what might seem dry and then there are the poems – I have six posts under my belt so far…
Love the new look of your site Sarah!
Looks to be an interesting April 🙂 Hope to learn a bit
If not about Commodities then poetry forms…
Thanks for stopping by Hallie
Oh wow, that’s a fascinating theme 🙂 Looking forward to it! And now I want to eat some oranges…
The Multicolored Diary
Well if I was a solipcist I would certainly grant you some Zalka…
Sounds like you’re having fun. Good luck!
Ronel visiting for Theme Reveal for A to Z Blogging Challenge 2024
You too! See you in April….
This is really unique and interesting. I’ve never really thought about it before but now I too am wondering where on earth all of those orange trees are haha
Debbie
Don’t tip over into Solipsim though – it’s a lonely place inventing the whole world – I imagine…
Hmmm…. could be interesting. I like the combination!
A-Z Challenge: Magical Botany
Thank you Anne, I so enjoyed your posts last year – hope to see you around in April…
I never would have thought about all that orange juice. It immediately made me think of the major orange growing state of Florida in our United States, where I lived for a couple of years back in the 1970’s. Anyway, your topic intrigues me.
Ah well Alana – having seen the endless orange plantations in Florida, maybe you are not so surprised – still it’s quite something to contemplate – thanks for visiting…
Interesting theme. Good luck with the challenge!
Thanks and see you around Molly…
Definitely sounds like a challenging topic, so I’m looking forward to seeing what you come up with!
Couldn’t see a place to comment on your theme reveal but thanks for visiting and good luck Torie…
Fantastic theme you’ve chosen for the A to Z challenge! Can’t wait to see what you have in store for the next letters of the alphabet.
https://whiskeyandwhispers.blogspot.com/2024/03/unveiling-my-atozchallenge-theme-genre.html
Thanks for visiting – just hopping over to yours…
Fantastic theme reveal! I can’t wait to explore your posts during the A to Z challenge in April. Wishing you all the best as you embark on this creative journey. Here’s a link to mine – https://hellfireandchaos.blogspot.com/2024/03/atozchallenge-theme-announcement.html
I’m looking forward to seeing what you do 🙂 It looks like a really interesting topic, and I’m always up for running more.
I’m doing the “AtoZ of me and my inspirations” and while I’m committed to doing a minimum of 26 posts, I’ll be doing extras and dragging my other blogs into it too. Mostly because I had an issue in October that means I’ve been building a blog out of the horrible thing that happened to help others.
Thanks for visiting Kai – see you on the trail…
Exciting theme reveal! I’m looking forward to following your A-to-Z journey throughout April. Best of luck with the challenge. I’ve restarted my blog and deleted all the old content since I’ve been away for about 10 years and am coming back with the A-to-Z Challenge, hopefully it’ll give me some blog theme motivation and some dedicated readers. My theme is here: https://illusionsofchaos.blogspot.com/2024/03/hello-again-atozchallenge-theme-reveal.html
Thanks for visiting – can’t wait to start posting although so far I only have half of them written…
Oh, this will be fun. I am really looking forward to it.
—
Tim Brannan | The Other Side A to Z of Dungeons & Dragons
https://theotherside.timsbrannan.com/
I remember yours from before – good luck and we’ll meet along the way…
Hi Andrew, great to see you back, and what an interesting theme you chose again this year!
I’ll be on the lokout for your orange tree and mint farm posts!
https://thethreegerbers.blogspot.com/2024/03/a-z-blogging-challenge-2024-theme-reveal.html
How to nice to see you again Tamara – in my first year of A to Z I felt both welcomed by you and taken under your wing 💜
That sounds like a huge project, and fun too. Looking forward to your posts. Please do take a look at my blog too: https://www.sundarivenkatraman.in/
Thanks for visiting Sundari and I have been over to yours too…