Holtzendorff treated the 1916 harvest as a fleeting strategic opportunity. The memorandum predicted that North American and Canadian grain exports would cease in February and that Argentina could supply only limited replacements. Britain would then have to draw more grain from India and especially Australia, greatly increasing voyage length. Holtzendorff calculated that grain shipments alone would require roughly 720,000 additional tons of shipping. Longer distances and turnaround times could turn the food shortage into a transport-capacity crisis.
Chapter · 17:44-19:12
Poor harvests made every grain voyage longer
The memorandum argued that poor harvests would shift British grain imports from North America toward India and Australia, tying up more ships on longer routes.