A matter of national security
Can you feed yourself?
I bet you’re saying right now, “What kind of question is that? I’m an adult, of course I can feed myself.”
Really? Okay.
Let’s say, for example, that your car died, or ran out of gas, or something. Could you feed yourself then?
Sure, you say. I have stuff in the fridge, a few things in the pantry. We’re set.
Cool. The average person has about a week’s worth of food in their house at any given time. So what if something happened that made the problem worse? Suppose we had another OPEC oil embargo, like in the 70’s? If you’re not old enough to remember it, the Wikipedia article isn’t bad.
Gas stations ran out of gasoline quickly, and the price almost doubled overnight. Could you pay $6.00 a gallon tomorrow? That’s if you found a station open that still had gas.
This is an important issue. Think about it. Where does your food come from? Most is trucked in, some from other countries. Trucks run on diesel.
If the price of oil goes up, the price of food goes up too. People panic and empty shelves just like they do in any disaster or coming storm. Once you found an open station and paid double the price, you might get to the store and find nothing there. Now what?
(If you think this premise is stupid, what about a flu pandemic where everyone is quarantined? Terrorists bomb our oil fields or pipelines? I’m sure you can think of more real scenarios than I can.)
I ask again: Can you feed yourself?
I submit that most Americans have lost the ability to feed themselves. We’ve bought into the idea of convenience. It’s easy to go to McDonald’s and buy a burger. It’s easy to run to the grocery store.
It’s almost as easy to really feed yourself, by learning to grow some or all of your own food.
People used to be able to do that. During WWII, fifty percent of homes had “Victory Gardens” where they grew their own food, allowing professional farmers to be able to send their produce directly for the war effort. People had chickens and ducks in their backyards for eggs and meat. If things had gotten worse instead of better, at least people would have been able to eat.
We’ve lost the ability and the knowledge of how to do that.
Restrictive homeowners’ association rules, city ordinances, laziness… it doesn’t matter the reason. The fact is, if something happened to our food supply, after a week or so, millions would begin to starve .
Doesn’t that sound like a national crisis?
It is not conservative to allow this situation to continue. Yet no one is doing anything about it. Growing your own food is seen these days as something counter-culture types do, not something for your average person. It’s actually a matter of national security.
Getting a gun and holing up in the mountains with a year’s supply of food isn’t going to help anyone. Learning to feed yourself and teaching your neighbors how to feed themselves is what’s going to help you.
So what do you do?
That, my friend, is a whole post in itself. Stay tuned.
July 14th, 2007 at 4:38 pm
my assumption is that the world is not going to fall apart, so mc donalds and subways will do just fine
July 14th, 2007 at 4:41 pm
[…] Read the rest of her excellent piece here. […]
July 14th, 2007 at 5:59 pm
Well, lofi, I hope so.
July 14th, 2007 at 6:00 pm
Actually, I’ve been thinking about this myself a lot lately. This year I started a garden, am getting bee hives and am thinking about getting some chickens so I have a source of protein at our home too. How did we get into a situation where most of our food is grown by big corporations and shipped across country to us? It doesn’t seem smart.
July 14th, 2007 at 7:52 pm
Thank you. You’ve just expressed something I’ve wanted to make clear to many people better than I would have. So many simply assume that our time of relative abundance will just roll on forever, and it’s hard to warn against that without sounding like a crank. You put it well, by posing questions and undermining the assumption of continuity. I hope your message will provoke people to act.
July 14th, 2007 at 8:14 pm
[…] [link][more] […]
July 14th, 2007 at 8:46 pm
The real question is, are Americans civilized enough to come together in unity, beyond skin color, beyond religion, beyond physical divisions, and help each other?
July 14th, 2007 at 8:46 pm
me, i’ll just eat you guys, while you’re sitting around on your google trying to find out how to make potatoes sit still long enough to lay an egg ..
July 14th, 2007 at 9:02 pm
Wasn’t this ripped from glen becks radio show?
July 14th, 2007 at 9:19 pm
Uh… don’t want to rain on your self-sufficiency parade or anything, but do you also intend to build a fortified castle around your Victory Garden? Because if you don’t and civilization collapses because we can’t get Big Macs anymore we’re heading straight for the homestead that has all the chickens, pigs, and home-made preserves.
Mmmm. Jellies and jams.
July 14th, 2007 at 10:02 pm
Fine, get ready, start your garden. Then right after you sow your seeds let’s begin a dialogue to take back our country from the corporations and the land owners, and establish a public trust to take over the management of our food supply, and our oil supply, and our energy industry.
In a food crisis, having a garden isn’t going to stop your neighbor, who doesn’t grow his own food, or the people from the cities from coming to your land and taking your food because they’re starving. We have to do more than just be prepared to fend for ourselves. We have to take control of our critical infrastructure and run it efficiently for the good of the people.
July 14th, 2007 at 10:10 pm
My question is: why do people like lofi compulsively try to reinforce status-quo.
I’m very very serious about this question. Whenever faced with a question like in this article (which btw poses an insightful question), on youtube, or any site with comments, a vast proportion of the replies are non-answers that contribute absolutely nothing to the topic aside from the (completely gratuitous and unjustified) reassurance that nothing will change. Like by saying that, they have annulled the question out of existence and hence it can not affect them anymore.
I truly wonder what compels these people…
July 14th, 2007 at 10:37 pm
Charles: you really think communism will improve the situation?
Jersey: you can ask nicely and get some seeds and instruction, or you can be mean about it and hope you’re the better shot.
July 14th, 2007 at 10:46 pm
In addition to gardening and stockpiling food, one must keep on-hand the tools to enable you to defend that which you’ve amassed. In other words, guns and ammo. And you must have been trained and practiced in how to use them.
As others have pointed out, preparing by storing food and gardening is futile if you are unable to defend yourself and your stuff.
July 14th, 2007 at 10:51 pm
my dad eats real man food
July 14th, 2007 at 11:12 pm
“lofi” is like the man who looks at the blue sky and concludes that it will never rain.
Oh well, you will be among many of those suffering when the food disappears.
July 14th, 2007 at 11:23 pm
We always have 2-3 months of stuff at our house and we are not Mormon. The fresh stuff would run out but we would be frugal; make it all stretch. Not having coffee would be a bummer but we would have plenty of water, booze and beer. If the electricity went out, that would be bad. I would be smoking all the salmon and halibut in the freezer…. that is if we had natural gas. My suggestion, always make sure you have 10-20 cases of water; heck it is cheap at Costco; and lots of stuff that can stretch; like spaghetti; cereal; etc. My guess is that it would be a few weeks we would have to survive; not months; if it was months, then all bets would be off. I would load up my Walther PP just like everyone else out here; and pray for the best. Hunker down.
July 14th, 2007 at 11:28 pm
Well if the earth does go, I’ve got a little grape vine!
July 15th, 2007 at 12:31 am
There are abundant sources of food even in suburbia, but I won’t tell any of you suburb zombies how to find it.
And if you set foot on mah land, if the traps don’t get you, my sawed-off will!
July 15th, 2007 at 1:47 am
All you have to do is look at NOLA. You could have stockpiled all the food, water, and guns you’ll ever need and think you’ll be ok. But when a sub/urban economy collapses, crime skyrockets. Even if you fend off the looters, the standard procedure is to send in the national guard or military contractors and escort everyone from their homes to a camp at gunpoint.
Stock up on bags of beans, rice, and a few drums for the water cooler. Build a solar still and solar oven. Keep your fuel level above half and get to know someone who lives where it rains and is more than 3 days walking distance from a densely populated area. Get a bicycle in case you have to travel or haul supplies.
July 15th, 2007 at 1:53 am
You may think you have three months, but you probably don’t. I purchased three months of freeze-dried food for three people and it took up almost all of a good sized closet. Remember, freeze-dried is the most efficient way to store food. MRE’s or canned goods would take up twice the space. I purchased my 72 hour kit and food storage from emergency essentials at http://beprepared.com
I have no financial interests in this company. They have just been a very reliable source and I think Democrats should live after Republican disaster to ballance out the Mormons.
July 15th, 2007 at 3:52 am
I know how to fish, trap, hunt, operate a small farm or garden and how to find and cook wild edible plants. Besides trapping and hunting, I know how to dress and cook many different animals - not like that’s too difficult, really. Then I can use their bones to make more tools to feed myself.
If I can get others to pay attention and learn, we could form a secure tribal group, thus exponentially increasing both our food supply and our security against marauders.
If you want to know how to take care of yourself and your family in the event of a world-shattering crisis, look into survival guides and classes in your area. Just to be sure, pick up a guide to wild edible and medicinal plants, preferably one with photos or high-quality drawings. At least then, you’ll have some resources on hand to begin gathering food in your area.
July 15th, 2007 at 4:46 am
The above post is the best yet. Farming is a commmunal tribal effort, something that people would have to learn how to do again (considering how everyone is a stranger now). Initially, it would have to be hunting and finding edible fauna (if it was not in winter) which would put a horrible burden on those species.
If you want to think what life would be like, look at the West Berlin airlift at the beginning of the cold war. And they had a continuous stream of supplies. So I think that it would be safe to assume that some areas would have anarchy over food and that thier would be initially large amounts of civil unrest. The government could even fail.
July 15th, 2007 at 6:48 am
“canil Says: July 14th, 2007 at 8:46 pm…me, i’ll just eat you guys, while you’re sitting around on your google trying to find out how to make potatoes sit still long enough to lay an egg ..” That’s great!
No hand wringing… Learn to garden. Make fire without matches. Learn to make beer (since your local water source might not be too good either after emptying stored supplies). Store seeds (have an active inventory turnover or they won’t grow) & learn how to germinate them, and what happens with hybrid “store bought” seeds after a few years. Learn to build primitive weapons and animal traps - ammo runs out or gets wet - a good English long-bow could drop an armored knight at 200 yards. Ensure your city changes ordinances to allow pets other than cats and dogs - or that’s what you’ll be eating.
July 15th, 2007 at 10:40 am
John:
No offense, but I doubt anyone on this site is able to handle an english long-bow with over 100lbs of draw-force. It doesn’t take a gigantic round or complex gun to kill small game. .22lr will work just fine, and you can easily stockpile enough for half a decade with little trouble. Learning to build traps isn’t a bad idea either.
At any rate, this is one of the reasons I’m learning how to keep a garden. I’d consider myself reasonably intelligent, and more than capable of the work, it’s just a matter of not knowing how. And as for passing the knowledge on? I’m doing the oh-so-web2.0 thing and keeping a blog of it (http://www.geekygardener.com/). I’m not specifically designing a garden around survival in a post-apocalyptic situation, but the concepts remain the same.
July 15th, 2007 at 8:31 pm
Wow, I never expected so many responses!
Ann: I dunno. It’s probably been driven by price efficiency and good old fashioned laziness. If we can pay a dollar for crap McBurger vs grow the food ourselves (healthier but more time consuming), well…
jon: Another good question. Sometimes I think the only ones who will survive will be the ones who can work together.
gregf: I don’t know who Glen Beck is, so no.
Jersey Exile: I wish I had all those pigs and such (mmm, bacon). It’s just a small garden. I live in a gated community with a HOA that frowns on livestock. As far as the fortifications, I doubt anyone’s going to be going to Oklahoma to tear through my three tomato plants.
Charles: Write your congressman.
My intention is not to redo some survivalist website. If everyone is feeding themselves (or a majority are) the whole survivalist mentality is moot. No one’s running around killing for food if they can grow/produce their own, right? They’re at home pulling weeds.
So spread the word and encourage your neighbors to start gardens/stock up too. Then you can save your ammo for deer hunting.
About the stored foods issue: make sure you have canned fruit/vegetables as well as meats/grains, if you’re not going to be growing your own. Otherwise you could be in for serious vitamin deficiencies. (think scurvy)
July 15th, 2007 at 9:45 pm
I don’t know if anyone is aware, but the Mormon church has been teaching its people to put away food and grow gardens for this reason for years.
http://www.providentliving.org/channel/0,11677,1706-1,00.html
July 15th, 2007 at 10:38 pm
Its like this book called “The Road” really makes you think about survival and the fall of modern day society and how fragile things really are..
July 15th, 2007 at 10:44 pm
Read some stuff by Marx/socialism (yea I know it’s taboo in our society, but it’s pretty interesting). He talks about our division from our labour and as we get more and more industrialized we keep moving away from being independent and towards being dependent on imports and mass manufacturing in areas far far away from us. Eventually we get to the point where we have no connection or no way of knowing where our food/products are coming from, and the people who grow the food don’t have any control over where it goes or how its used (eg: they don’t get to set the price or interact with the users of their product).
Once upon a time this was limited to mostly America/Western countries, but the sad realization is that other countries are getting to become like this ..but again in parts of Asia it hasn’t gotten so bad, people can still readily buy groceries and produce directly from the growers and usually deal with the actual farmer(s) who grew it. If you get a chance and are interested, read some of the things by Marx (karl marx) on Alienation and Industrialization (globalization in today’s terms).
July 15th, 2007 at 10:51 pm
You can go out and buy canned food that cannot expired. You can stuff ‘em up and make sure the supply you got will last you for more than a year. If something big goes down, you can always rely on your stock supply.
Well that’s what I will do beside reading up on how to survive in the wilderness, and so on. Stocking up supply will actually be best because the supply will always be there for you. Sometime you forget what you read and so the knowledge is lost. Can’t help you in such situation if you can’t remember how to survive right?
Have your own gardens, chicken, and so on will not be the true solutions. Why? What if something really bad happen that your chickens dies, your garden rots, and so on? You can always rely on your stock supply (e.g. canned foods).
Mmm… yummy… Spam, peanut butter, jelly, canned soup.
July 15th, 2007 at 10:58 pm
I’ve been keen on this topic for a while but don’t talk about it all that much for fear of being labelled a kook or a chicken little.
Simply growing vegetables isn’t all that easy for us in colder climates, since the growing season is only 6 months. There is research being done to extend this growing season, see the link.
http://www.hydro.mb.ca/your_business/farm/solar_energy_greenhouses.pdf
July 15th, 2007 at 10:59 pm
Okay, lets say that everyone can support themselves. What’s the cost? Well, its less efficient. MUCH less efficient. Economies of scale say that it is simply more efficient to farm one 5 acre plot than 5 one acre plots. That’s how it works. So we have more pollution, more gas spent, more waste, in order to get the same amount of food.
If you are truly worried about a disaster, stock up on canned food. Canned food could give you a month or two worth of food, cushioning you from any disaster problems. This is the most logical route.
Any other route is wasteful.
July 15th, 2007 at 11:03 pm
More gas spent on harvesting veggies from your backyard? I think not.
Pollution? Build or buy a compost bin and use that as fertilizer.
July 15th, 2007 at 11:10 pm
[…] Find out more here… […]
July 15th, 2007 at 11:15 pm
Personally I can feed myself. I know how to hunt and grow my own food, my grandfather who lives around the corner raises cattle, my neighbor grows blue berries and there are plenty of deer and waterfowl around to hunt. So even if the world goes to shit, which it will, I’ll be set.
July 15th, 2007 at 11:26 pm
The restaurants like McDonalds would still be able to order ingredients if in the catastrophe people are able to grow gardens, because that would mean there would still be capacity for large farms, right? In truth, in a calamity, the big corporations would be trying hard to get food to feed people because it’s good business for them. I don’t really like that idea that “corporations” are some alien entity that exists outside of society.
July 15th, 2007 at 11:26 pm
Food shortages would happen gradually - not suddenly. Also, they would probably be regional and not national. It would give all levels of government an opportunity to work with private industry to quickly adapt. Think of it as an emergency public works project.
I think it’s good to be prepared. But I think it’s irresponsible to wash your hands of political or social activism because you have a plan for your own family/community. We should demand to see action plans from all levels of government to avert such disasters. It’s time well spent (rather than watching TV or shopping at the mall).
July 15th, 2007 at 11:43 pm
Are you serious? This is the most ridiculous idea I have heard yet. Oil embargo equals starvation? Give me a break. For one, you aren’t right in saying most of the food is produced in other countries. Yes, most of what we eat is made in other countries, but we export far more food than we import. The breadbasket of the USA (you have heard of the entire midwest, right?) could easily support the entire country. Also, higher food costs aren’t really a big deal, given that we already have some of the lowest food costs in the world.
But let’s take a step back and assume that this absurd principle could work. No gas in the cars? Uh oh… I guess that means walking or biking are out of the question. I bet people would kill each other over gardens before thinking about, I don’t know, walking to the store.
Let’s take the other scenarios. Terrorists bombing all our pipelines is not only unreasonable (since the United States is in anti-terror mode), but given that this country runs on oil, it would probably take only a few days to fix, causing at most a small spike in prices. A flu pandemic is an unlikely but possible occurrence, though I think the flu might be slightly more concerning than plans for food. Come on. No quarantine causing starvation would be placed into effect — the starvation could kill far more than the flu.
Victory gardens were a wonderful way to make people feel involved in WWII, but they weren’t the difference between life and death for Americans. This situation isn’t any different.
July 15th, 2007 at 11:45 pm
Lots of folks around still have the knowledge, if not the practices. I know how to can food or salt preserve meats and fish for winter. Chickens aren’t hard to raise, nor goats. Building a henhouse is not a huge endeavor. For God’s sake practice sustainable harvesting of the wild things, no point raping the land. Use domesticated animals and crops. But should all these bounties be laid waste, and the land be laid bare, and famine visit the people, we could always eat each other. Soylent green is people. It’s people!
July 15th, 2007 at 11:51 pm
We used to have a garden, not any more.
July 15th, 2007 at 11:54 pm
Everyone here says that growing your own won’t work when the people from the cities come.
I live in the country and grow a little of my own. I would bet everything all the Good Ol Boys round here would have watches set up with gunned men to protect the gardens and live stock.
Every man has a gun, and if no man be in the house the woman does. Every yard a garden and at least a handful of chickens.
So go on and think you’ll just come and pillage our lots. Since you come from the city with all it’s limitations I bet you couldn’t get a gun, if you did couldn’t use it, and even then you’d never handle the ambushes…city people stick out and those years walking on pavement don’t train you to deal with the bush.
Just take care of yourselves and stop thinking your going to take from your fellow Americans.
July 15th, 2007 at 11:55 pm
Hmm
Thinking about this and reading the current comments. I live in a small backwoods/river town whilst we would probably be hungry. We wouldn’t exactly starve. Rivers have fish catfish to be specific farm wouldn’t work fro short term long term deff but vegetables take along time to grow. We are talking months here. Mother raised farm for years. So maybe small animal support right. Wrong hurricane and highway have taken out a large percentage of our small game. Deer there a possibility but still tricky especially with other hunters in the area. In fact going in the woods would just be plain dumb. Thinking survivalist wise kill whoever you can less people=more food for my family.
If this lasted months countless numbers would starve some would survive of course but… the devastation would be brootal.
July 15th, 2007 at 11:55 pm
I hate all the doomsday people. All day long I have to listen to the “We won’t have food” or “If this substation gets taken out we’ll live in the dark for a year”. It’s all BS. It assumes that there’s no human ingenuity. If we really needed to convert a gigawatt of electricity with no notice, someone would do it. It may not be the cleanest, longest lived, or best solution, but there are tons of ways to get it done. Food is the same way. Faced with starvation, people will adapt instead of die. There are tons of short-term and medium-term food stores. You can eat your dog. You can eat grasshoppers. While you’re eating them, you can grow barley and sprouts in about a week. You’re not going to be happy about it, but it can be done.
This type of alarmist article is meaningless because it doesn’t address the source of the problem? Why did the food shortage occur? Disease? Natural Disaster? In modern times, the most efficient solution is to fix the infrastructure we’ve spent a century creating. Under what UFO-theory of the world would we not be able to at least barter for food to be shipped from around the world?
This is a completely meaningless post.
July 15th, 2007 at 11:56 pm
This is such a stupid fear mongering article. The world isn’t going to fall apart over night. Just because x number of people flip out and raid the local grocer every time a storm passes does not mean you have to start a farming operation in your backyard.
Plus I could always use my rotties to help hunt the neighbors… mmmm neighbor burgers!
July 16th, 2007 at 12:15 am
I would have to say that our area is pretty normal of the midwest small town. I would estimate 75% of the population has a garden of some sort. 85% of the population hunts. The land surrounding the towns is farm land rich with plenty to harvest and lots of dairy farms. In the area is an egg packaging place with 10-15 barns filled with 500 or more chickens. Our power, water, sewage, etc. is all locally owned and operated.
If something like this were to happen, I think our area would be able to continue on without too much of a problem. If need be, I know the basic mechanics of a generator and I am positive I would be able to assemble a power-generating windmill. There are quite a few libraries in a 15 mile radius from my house that would provide sufficient information to fabricate what would be needed. There are welders and auto body shops in the area that should be able to use their skills to become decent blacksmiths.
As far as basic survival skills, we are a camping family. I don’t mean we hop in our RV and hang out at a lake. I mean we pack tents, know local plants/animals that are edible, know how to set traps, start fires without matches, understand proper water preparation for drinking, and know how to dress, prepare, and cook many kinds of meats.
Our area tends to work as a community of large families. Everyone knows everyone and we look out for each other. There are more than enough guns and ammunition in our homes, we wouldn’t need to make a trip to buy more for at least a year or more. And it is a guarantee that any kid older than 4 will know how to shoot the smalles gun in the house.
It may be a civilized world, but some areas of the US will have no problem surviving in a national emergency. One thing that would be a saving grace…the Amish (and other communities like them). Think about it, we would be forced to live their lifestyle. We would be one of them. And they are some of the most generous people. I am sure they would help those who need to learn how to produce their own food.
I think cities would be hard-pressed to provide food for everyone. But, thank God we don’t have to worry about this now.
July 16th, 2007 at 12:19 am
There is a TV show called “Jericho” that plays out similar scenarios. it’s interesting to watch because you can kind of see what might happen and/or know what to expect if something big like that were to ever happen. The TV show was canceled but after a huge petition and literally tons of peanuts being sent to CBS HQ (you have to see the show to understand this), they are bringing it back!
July 16th, 2007 at 12:33 am
What if a virus gets genetically engineered and reproduces most efficiently in small gardens, infecting those people who try to grow their own food with a highly deadly form of influenza? Then everyone who plants a garden based on this stupid article would have to be either quarantined or executed, or they would die from the disease itself, so that they wouldn’t spread their hideous infirmity to the rest of us normal healthy non-gardeners.
It’s too great a risk for me to take. Even without any genetic modification there are a multitude of viruses that reproduce most readily in soil, by rooting about in the earth you expose yourself and your loved ones to potential infection.
July 16th, 2007 at 1:07 am
The ignorance in this post astounds me.
First let me say: excellent article. Hopefully you will get those of the less ignorant of the population thinking.
Now to those of you wallowing in ignorance. I’m not even using ‘ignorant’ as an insult here. I’m using it in it’s dictionary sense. Meaning lack of knowledge. There are any NUMBER of catastrophes that could happen that would cause famine. As the article mentions our whole food deployment concept is based around fuel. Companies that distribute food are CAPITALIST. When it starts costing them more money than they make from the sale to ship food to areas that don’t produce enough food on their own they will simply stop shipping it. So an oil crisis is NOT that far fetched.
And for another one of you jerks that said we can ride our bikes to get food. Don’t you find it odd that in the same post you said all our food could come from the Midwest. Are you proposing that for people from the southwest (which is not a very high food production area) are going to ride to the midwest on their bikes? Perhaps 20 or 30 of them could go together and haul back a tractor trailer bed full of food. Sounds like a great idea.
And finally. How can you people possibly rail against such a basic concept as self preservation. Knowing how to feed yourself REGARDLESS of the cause of a food shortage is plain common sense. Why would you NOT want to have this knowledge. How could it possibly hurt you? What benefit is there whatsoever for railing someone who simply brings what should be common sense into the public eye. It’s people like you who make me wish there would be some sort of catastrophic event that severely hindered if not destroyed America’s food supply infrastructure. I would simply sit back and watch Darwinism rule the day…and laugh. And for those of you willing to admit your ignorance that came looking for food…AND knowledge how how to feed yourself, I would gladly help
July 16th, 2007 at 1:16 am
It doesn’t matter if we have our own garden / animals or not… If this crisis were to happen, the 99% of people starving would raid anyone who had such things and in the end we would all be in the same boat again.
July 16th, 2007 at 1:45 am
I agree that in a catastrophe as big as the ones envisioned lack of food would be a huge concern but it would be nullified due to the turmoil and lawlessness.
I have several stores of food, maybe a few weeks at the most but no water because I like to know I have food in storage, because I have thought about going without due to an unforeseen event that would curtail groceries but I FEAR that anyone starving would beat my door down and plunder anything that I have once they noticed that I didn’t look any worse for wear.
Since chaos rules during such a calamity I would probably end up as helpless as everyone else if not dead. SO unless it is a small disaster having food stores is not that helpful. If it’s a huge disaster such as a meteor strike that blocks sunlight for months then all bets are off.
July 16th, 2007 at 2:20 am
This is why we need to fund genetic experiments that will allow us to nourish ourselves via photosynthesis. I mean, we’re screwed regardless, and a lot of fetuses and ferns will have to be sacrificed..yes…but that shouldn’t dissuade us from creating a race of atomic super men.
Yeah, and if the $h!t really did hit the fan…screw the garden, forget the house, leave the TV behind. Get some camping gear, a gun, some ammo, a knife, maybe a bow and some arrows, a survival guide, maybe a botany guide for the region. Then, wander into the biggest emptiest forest you can find. Maybe bring a few people, friends and family or whatever. Then let all the idiots shoot it out in the cities and suburbs over the last box of twinkies. Then, to pass the time, maybe you can train a monkey butler or something.
July 16th, 2007 at 2:31 am
Ramen. $0.11/meal in bulk.
July 16th, 2007 at 2:45 am
Yes, I can feed yourself. I grab gun a go for food to farmer like you. It`s much probably scenario. You really need know how defend your and your food.
July 16th, 2007 at 3:06 am
Just some facts. A party of 10 hunting and foraging an area 50 square miles in a currently rural/agricultural location will deplete that area of wild game and wild edibles in under a month. How many city folk will rush out to live off the same land? I tell you they will be stripping off tree bark for something to eat. Locusts will look like dieters.
Your reletives/friends who raise beef, all food growers even bee keepers are registered, just like gun owners. Why? So in a pinch the government can “tax” you just like in the movies when the kings men took most of your food and valuables. Don’t count on registered beef. The government will confiscate it all for themselves, their family, friends, military. If you are left with anything it will be a small fraction of what you will need.
People will be eating anything. People will starve. People will eat people. Gangs will run like wild dogs consuming everything.
Only thing you can do in reality is have plenty of food on hand in a hidden, secure and defensible position and wait out the majority of the chaos.
Then the disease begins from all the dead lying around the garbage, the waste. This will take many more lives.
You’d better still be hidding out. Hope you have good air filtration.
Ok now what’s left and who’s left? Now it’s like madmax and beyound thunderdome maybe.
July 16th, 2007 at 3:39 am
Why does Americans always complain about gas prices.. 6 usd per gallon in a worst case scenario??
HA I pay 6.5 usd per gallon atm.
USA needs higher gas prices.
July 16th, 2007 at 3:41 am
This is silly.
No, alot of people couldn’t feed themselves, but then alot of people can’t hunt/defend themselves against tigers anymore, can they?
Through the evolution of society and humans, we don’t need to be able to grow our own food, so it’s pretty pointless because the chances of grocery stores all burning down and never being built again is nigh on impossible.
Anyway, im going to learn how to build a plane just incase all the planes suddenly blow up and we have no planes anymore…
July 16th, 2007 at 5:12 am
I keep a 60 supply of food & water, along with personal protection, etc.
I urge all readers here to learn survival techniques, wilderness AND urban. There is a wealth of FREE food out ther along with everything else you need to survive.
The ONE basic tool you need is a GOOD knife.
Also, keep a backpack loaded with the essentials that your well being requires, along with at least 3 days worth of food (military M.R.E.s keep forever, and are tasty too) in your car trunk.
July 16th, 2007 at 5:31 am
Interesting observation, this post. Not necessarily true, but most interesting in it is how it’s very American…
I happen to live in Moscow, which is one of the biggest cities in the world, more riddled with city problems than most of them, even. But in the event of national catastrophe, — most things short of a 5-megaton US warhead falling in the city, when I’m better off being burned in the first three seconds than surviving — I’ll need at most 15 hours walking to get to my parents’ house. It’ll hurt, since I’m a city guy and not very healthy at that, but I can survive that much. That’s assuming I don’t have enough gas for one last trip, which I should. I fully expect the lawn to be turned into a potato field by the time I get there (it’s been designed with such an emergency fully in mind. water? that’s why we have a nice well) and a fishing rod waiting for me, since I’m the only one in-house with fishing experience. There’s a few bicycles to go around visiting the neighbors who already have something growing (popular around these parts among the senior generation) to purchase or barter. There’s a forest nearby, so there’ll be no shortage of mushrooms and berries for a while. No solar panels, and presumably no generator fuel, so I’ll be bored stiff without the digital part of my life, but there’ll be other things to worry about. We can hole up there surviving for years, and I’m certainly not afraid of starving mobs much, since I can be scarier than most mobs observed to date if angered appropriately, weapons or no weapons.
It is definitely not economical for us to live this way now, neither cost-effective nor productive, it’s not a good use of our time, so we do not — but it’s an opportunity we can fall back on within days, with much grumbling and whining, but it will be done.
But that’s another country entirely, you see. It only works if we’re still a family. We’ve been a city family for most of the century, but our grandmothers still remember the war and surviving under the falling German bombs, our parents survived the Soviet Union, we grew up in the shadow of the economic collapse of 1992. Famine is only new here to the children born in late 90s. If you want to be ready for an emergency like that, stocking up on food will only help in the short term. The long term solution is to make sure you are not alone when such a collapse occurs. If you have that, get a few books on gardening, some seeds, and keep them safe. That, and some brains, will do.
But without a family, agriculture is pretty much hopeless.
July 16th, 2007 at 5:55 am
this is the DUMBEST article i have ever read..
July 16th, 2007 at 6:23 am
Great idea, society should take certain precautions on our food supply but after we’re all living like the 60’s the weather also chips in as a factor on whether we eat or not, so…
July 16th, 2007 at 6:56 am
RN3AOH: thank you for an interesting post.
I live in the UK, where I’m currently paying about $6/USgallon for petrol. The world has not collapsed yet. Also, I’m living in a city in one of the most fertile areas of the country: an hour’s walk from dozens of vegetable farms.
However, here disaster self-sufficiency for 100% of the population is fantasy. This was proved during WWII, when the population was less - we were dependant on food being imported by convoys, despite heavy losses to submarines. The population density of the UK is too high for anything other than efficient farming plus imports to sustain us.
July 16th, 2007 at 8:45 am
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July 16th, 2007 at 8:53 am
True, but getting a gun and being ready to kill my neighbors and take their food would help me a whole lot more.
July 16th, 2007 at 9:13 am
Hey joe. Do you think you would die from lack of flying if planes ceased to exist. Just wondering. Cuz that’s a pretty worthless analogy. Conversely your food source ceasing to exist could cause a slight problem.
RN3AOH. That sounds like an excellent plan. Like you said it wouldn’t be a very pleasant life…at first. Given how spoiled humans have become over the years. But it is still a plan. Most people here don’t seem to think such a plan would be necessary. I can only laugh at them because of it.
Of course given the type of audience this article is probably reaching. That doesn’t surprise me. All of you naysayers are probably just computer geeks that think technology will always be readily available and all our modern amenities will never cease to exist for any reason.
For all you naysayers. Allow me to cite 1 Hurricane Katrina. Look how quickly that whole area denigrated into anarchy. Now imagine that on a wider scale. No grocery stores would not be permanently gone, but tell me, given how long it took to get everything back on line in New Orleans, do you think you would be fine to take care of yourself for that period of time, or would you turn into one of those A$$holes that turned to violence in order to sustain themselves. I’m pretty sure I know the answer to that for most of you people.
Peter. Petrol being expensive isn’t really going to be the cause of something of this scale. A petrol blockade could possibly cause it, but who knows. I know you all pay a lot more for gas, but also most of you live a lot closer to your jobs. England doesn’t have quite the land mass the US does
it is a tick smaller. So gas prices may affect us a bit more. Also in something as drastic as we are suggesting in this thread were to happen the agriculture rich would support a small amount of people. Having the know how to do it would make sure you are one of those people. It’s like I said earlier. Darwinism works. And I relish that.
July 16th, 2007 at 9:14 am
If you’re actually concerned about these questions check out lifeaftertheoilcrash.net. Even if you don’t think oil is going to peak, as pointed out in this post there are many other scenarios that can constrict or remove the food supply and your ability to relocate. The people on this sight whole heartedly believe that oil is going to crash, and have amassed a lot of information on how to be prepared for the event, or a similar disaster.
July 16th, 2007 at 9:26 am
The long term aspects are not my immediate concern. I know that it takes 90 days of moderate weather to grow vegetables to fruition, mostly because we already grow a garden that we eat out of. It teaches my children responsibility as they are learning self-sufficiency.
The real problem is going to be when folks’ stomachs start rumbling as day 4 or 5 of no food deliveries take place. Societies unravel for less, like Lord of the Flies. If you can live through the first month, then you can start considering things like “where do you get the seeds to plant”. Did you know that many of the seeds in use today are genetically engineered to be sterile, so that farmers can’t use their own crops to provide seeds for next year? It forces them to return to the seed vendor to buy again…
I think the realistic consideration is for a large scale problem that lasts for a few weeks on at least a regional, if not global, scale. The big cities will burn themselves to the ground, with mob rule and cruelty on a scale that only ruthless people who are starving can deal with in that length of time. Your only chance of survival is to get as far away from that as is possible.
My personal plan is to take my freezer of food in my pickup, with my family and enough guns to survive, and retreat with the rest of my family to a place where we can defend ourselves from someone stupid enough to think that we couldn’t defend ourselves. From there, all that matters is surviving by riding out the storm.
July 16th, 2007 at 9:31 am
Katrina is the model!! You are all on your own unless you got a letter from the Government telling you and your family where to go in case of emergency. I did not get that letter and most of you reading this did not either. You platinum card will not save you. If you find your self in line with allot of hungry people it is your own fault. You have all been warned about this many times but humans refuse to believe the truth. You must retrain yourselves in the way of 150 years ago where people had to come together to survive. So Store food, Store weapons Ammo, Store seed, Store Salt.
Good Luck!!
July 16th, 2007 at 9:51 am
I sorta agree
However,
Victory Gardens have NO reference to us needing to make our own food. It’s simply to support our troops and rationing down in WWII.
Which is actually A VERY GOOD POINT TO MAKE OUT!
Why?
Think about it. in a time of war, we bound together to keep going. Likewise, we may be a stupider race than 60 years ago. Maybe smarter. But either way, Human instinct I am sure will bind us together and we will make it out alright.
July 16th, 2007 at 9:51 am
[…] you feed yourself and survive? Red State Green
July 16th, 2007 at 10:29 am
Of course one can’t feed themselves in modern society. One can’t clothe themselves, or manufacture the steel for their car, etc.
We live in a society where labor is highly specialized, and we reap enormous efficiencies because of it. Because life (and lifestyle) is inevitably a series of trade-offs, and optimizations towards certain things and away from others, that a person should expect to be “self-sufficient” is utterly absurd.
To even approach agricultural self-sufficiency for a small family, you’d need an acre of land and thousands of dollars of equipment (if you want to use primitive, cheap equipment, you’ll need more land). You’ll also need gasoline and petroleum based chemical fertilizers (if you don’t want to use these, you’ll need more land). Depending on what you’re growing / raising, you might need insecticides (again…you know the drill, more land if you dont’ want these).
Finally, if you’re going to be “self-sufficient”, with all of the qualifiers we’ve identified above, you’re not going to be Johnny Web Designer from 9-5, you’re going to be a bloody farmer!
Having said all of this, gardening is loads of fun, and doing a victory garden as a symbolic gesture supporting the lads fighting over in the Middle East, then that’s a swell thing, I suppose.
July 16th, 2007 at 10:31 am
First off, I’ve studied wild edible and medicinal plants for some time. My father gave me some instruction when I was young. He grew up on a farm during depression. Many plants now concidered “weeds” were even cultivated for food. My fathers family survived by eating wild edibles and hunting. I am certain if I had to I could find something to eat nearly anywhere. You might be suprised.
One day stuck in traffic in the downtown of a city I observed a homeless man, come up to a garbage can, take out a fast food styrofoam container, toss out the meat and ate the lettuce. I was saddened by this. Right below his feet, growing between the cracks in the sidewalk, were two wild edible plant varieties. Most of us walk on food every day and never know it.
July 16th, 2007 at 11:09 am
Can you really feed yourself? Probably not!!!…
This raises a good question,if shit really goes down can you feed yourself? Makes you think…….
July 16th, 2007 at 11:44 am
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July 16th, 2007 at 12:18 pm
Some cities have ordinances where you can’t raise chickens…
July 16th, 2007 at 1:11 pm
[…] Red State Green » Blog Archive » A matter of national security […]
July 16th, 2007 at 1:25 pm
Thank you for your post redstategreen. Aside from our ability to survive if the chain of food production was broken, I think learning to grow our own food is very important. We are so dependent on mass-produced, corporate-controlled food we have forgotten how much healthier, tastier, and more economical even a small vegetable patch can be. I think city dwellers can look into supporting community gardens.
I’m going to post on my blog about this right now.
July 16th, 2007 at 1:39 pm
To Chris Behrens:
An acre to even approach self sufficiency? Have you ever farmed an acre before? That would be FAR more than you would need even up here in eastern Canada, let alone the much more bountiful growing areas in the states…
As an example, one acre will yield approx. 100,000 lbs of tomato a year, 45,000 lbs of legumes, 57,500 lbs of potatoes or 90,000lbs of cucumbers. The average American eats about 1500-2000 lbs of food per year…..
July 16th, 2007 at 2:06 pm
[…] Red State Green wrote an article asking people simply, “Can you feed yourself?” The author examines our […]
July 16th, 2007 at 3:55 pm
I live in Manhattan and do not have (and have no need for) a car, so the driving to get food doesn’t affect me. However, of course, my food is mostly brought into the city by truck so this could affect me. My question is: What can I do since I live in an apartment with no possible place for a garden or livestock?
July 16th, 2007 at 4:26 pm
NC Forbes, what you really need to be aware of is the delicacy of the just-in-time economics that are used today by grocery stores and chain stores. Their inventory is marginalized very, very tightly. Only one comes in for one going out.
Now, yes, from one perspective that is a more effecient and cost effective way to work. However, with no safety nets built into the system one bump and the whole glass display case comes falling down.
Think about when a storm occurs - the shelves empty quickly and take a lot longer to re-fill than the few moments it took to empty them.
Think about when there is a distribution disruption - again, items that should be available are not.
Think about union strikes - again, if it isn’t being made, or isn’t being transported, its not going to be on the shelves for you to buy.
Even think about the price of one part of the distribution chain - think about how the price of corn, being driven up by demand for ethanol and by drought, is driving up the cost of several very basic items. One of these items is milk. It is up over a dollar over last year’s price. The price of milk is driving up the cost of foods that require milk.
There is just no cushion in the system. A small bump anywhere in the supply chain becomes exaggerated in the stores.
July 16th, 2007 at 5:01 pm
http://www.codeready.org http://www.backwoodshome.com/articles/hagan59.html http://www.appropedia.org permaculture
July 16th, 2007 at 10:02 pm
Chris B. Behrens:
Check out the Path to Freedom site I have linked in the sidebar. That family is well on their way to being self-sufficient, on 1/5 acre of land in the middle of a city of 200,000. (I grew up in Pasadena, it’s not the sticks by any means!)
It’s very possible. They are already food-sufficient, in fact they sell excess food to local restaurants as their home business. You do not have to move to learn to feed yourself.
July 17th, 2007 at 7:57 am
I disagree with “one weeks supply”
Yes the food is there but in practice people run out of one key ingredient like Eggs, milk, stove to make the meal. Ever had to run out to the store to get that one item? Its kinda like having a cell phone with a dead battery (hint hint)
I was amazed at how few types of powdered milk there are. Carnation brand has a MFG code, not expiration date. Powdered eggs are almost impossible to find - even though restaurants use them.
If you do have a weeks food then keep a lock on the pantry so the kids do not graze you to death.
Just my thoughts. Hope they help
Kobie
“Be prepared” Sir Baden Powell, founder of Scouting
July 17th, 2007 at 9:28 am
For the apartment dwellers: Learn all you can about growing, hunting, foraging, purifying water, first aid, shelters etc.
Plant in pots, there is uite a bit you can grow under lights. You could enjoy fresh leaf lettuce, chives, radishes, and more. We had a cherry tomato plant give us an occasional tomato all through winter.
Create a plan on where yu can go in a hurry that you will be safe. A plot of land in the wild would be ideal, you could build a cashe of food, supplies and weopons here so when you had to skip town you didn’t have so much to carry with you.
Have a bugout bag ready and handy with several days worth of food and basic supplies. If you have a vehicle you intend to use, extra fuel stored in cans with a fuel storage additive.
Be prepared, be knowledgeable.
July 17th, 2007 at 9:40 am
Farming doesn’t necessarily require so much land if you choose the right plants. For instance, how many varieties of vegetables do you even find in a grocery store? I realize choices are better now but it’s basicly corn, potato, bean, pea in a can. Did you know there are over 2000 kinds of vegetables?
Many of the vegetables grown as crops in other countries and in this one when it was young, are concidered weeds and destroyed. These plants tend to grow well in marginal conditions and without any chemical sprays.
When it comes to farming for your family, don’t listen to the chemical pushers who want to sell you chemically dependant seeds. Organic is much better for you and the invironment.
There are all sorts of methods for maximizing production and minimizing the work to growing organic. A knowledgeable person can produce many times more than what a chemically dependant corporate farmer can. Bio-intensive french method, mini farming, no till planting, raised beds, square foot gardening, the list goes on.
Need a source? http://www.bountifulgardens.org/
July 17th, 2007 at 9:59 am
This is an important a serious topic that I have been considering for a few years in connection with the increasing risk of a severe bird flu pandemic. Here is a chapter excerpted from my new book on the pandemic. It is pretty long and hopefully this will not violate your forums rules. It addresses a lot of the issues brought up here and is especially directed at those of you who simply can’t fathom the possibility that food security is something they should concern themselves about.
Grattan Woodson, MD
Our Vulnerable Food Supply
An Excerpt for The Coming Pandemic Catastrophe, In Press for fall 2007, Booksurge Publishing, Charleston, SC
By Grattan Woodson, MD
Copyright 2007 Grattan Woodson
The unsustainable size of the human population
From a purely biological prospective in the short run, our species, through technology and the benefit of favorable weather for the last 100 years, has outwitted the natural impediments to unrestrained population growth. These factors have created the conditions for a human population explosion that has crowed out many other species and resulted in environmental imbalances due to the vast increase in the number of humans on earth. During the 20th century the human population tripled to 6.6 billion. This growth in percentage and absolute terms is unprecedented for our species and constitutes an exponential phase in our numbers, a biologic event that in the past with other species has always been followed by a rapid and dramatic die off as the balance of nature is restored.
Regrettably, there is very little to be done about our population size or its continued growth. Many have sounded the warning claxon but most of humanity remains deaf to its clear and unmistakable cry.(1) Since humankind has been unable to control itself, this task will default to the ultimate arbitrator of life and death on earth, Mother Nature.
There is really nothing anyone can do about this now, as it is much too late. Our only option is to sit by and wait for nature in her guise as the grime reaper to administer the bitter medicine. Research into this problem has lead to the conclusion that a worldwide crop failure is the tool nature will use to control the human population. There are more than a few ways this could occur with some being common and others being rare events. They include natural disasters and manmade ones. There is hope that we can prevent the manmade causes for crop failure. On the other hand, there is no way to avoid the catastrophic natural disasters, which will all happen given enough time. A failure of world food production is the weakest and must vulnerable link underpinning and supporting the rise and maintenance of the human population. It is certain that this calamity will happen at some point, the when and how is a matter of speculation. One of the most likely causes for a worldwide crop failure in the near future is a severe influenza pandemic that disrupts food production, processing, or distribution.
Food shortages, starvation, and civil disorder
Widespread food shortages will predictably result in a breakdown in civil order leading to great loss of life that will add significantly to those who succumb directly to starvation. Conflict between nations desperate to obtain what food supplies remain can be expected to occur. State failure, civil war, and coup d’etat will become commonplace for years following the disaster, even after food supplies become more plentiful. All these human events will contribute to the death toll. Under these conditions the human population will be particularly vulnerable to epidemics of fatal diseases presently held a bay like cholera, tuberculosis, plague, and pneumococcal pneumonia.
These thoughts bring to mind the writings of the 19th century economist, Thomas Malthus who first published his observations on the factors limiting human population growth in 1798. (2) While Malthus had many supporters, history has proven his critics correct in debunking his prediction that exponential human population growth would outpace agricultural production before the end of the 19th century leading to the catastrophic prediction quoted below.
“The power of population is so superior to the power of the earth to produce subsistence for man, that premature death must in some shape or other visit the human race. The vices of mankind are active and able ministers of depopulation. They are the precursors in the great army of destruction, and often finish the dreadful work themselves. But should they fail in this war of extermination, sickly seasons, epidemics, pestilence, and plague advance in terrific array, and sweep off their thousands and tens of thousands. Should success be still incomplete, gigantic inevitable famine stalks in the rear, and with one mighty blow levels the population with the food of the world.”
Economists point out that Malthus failed to apprehend the Green Revolution, globalization, and the prolonged period of supportive climatic factors present during the 20th century which allowed food production to rise as fast as the population. As a result, some refer to him as “the failed profit of doom.”(3)
Malthus erred in not giving human ingenuity sufficient credit and in his timing of the catastrophic human die off but his basic prediction will probably be proven correct in the long run. The deadly sin of hubris has led humankind to declare premature victory over the forces of nature that Malthus knew and understood hunt man just as wolves and wild cats control the populations of deer and other herbivores.
Politics and food policy
Food has been so plentiful in the world’s developed nations since 1950 that those born after this time take this largess for granted. Governments of all advanced nations have followed a policy that keeps the supply of food high and the price low. The politics of this is simple; most people in the economically advanced nations, live in cities, and are employed in the non-farm economy and produce 95% of the GDP of these nations. For instance, based on data from the US Department of Agriculture from 2002, farm worker productivity has risen to the point in the US where less than 1 in 54 of the 167 million working Americans produce most of the food consumed there as well as a healthy surplus supporting millions of others the world over.(4) What’s more, only 1 in 3 of these workers are classified as wage or salaried employees while the remainder were farm proprietors.
The burden of this food policy comes at the expense of those who produce food like the 890 thousand US farm laborers who perform the vast majority of the hand labor in the fields and on the farm. Farm profits are kept so low by this food policy that small farmers are unable to operate at the economies of scale required to make a reasonable profit for the resources invested. Over the last 60 years in the US this has led to the demise of the small farmer and the accent of gigantic agribusiness enterprises that now produce most of the grain, produce, and meat in this country.
Wages and salaries paid to farm workers by both the remaining independent farmers and US Agribusiness is low compared with those employed in the non-farm economy. This fact and the hard physical labor required for this work has made it difficult to find people to perform it. As a result, many farm workers in the US are undocumented aliens or those with limited emigration status such as those with guest worker visas in the EU. These workers often live in very overcrowded conditions, have little of no access to healthcare, and are socially invisible to the society they serve.
The food policies of the advanced economies have been exported to the less developed nations by default through the power of the international commodities markets that normalize prices paid to farmers for their goods worldwide. In the poorest nations, 42% of the working population is employed in agriculture, 22 times the number seen in the US. The impact on farmers and employed farm workers in the less developed nations of the world is the same as in the wealthy nations; it keeps them poor and disadvantaged.
Despite the growth in world food production, the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) estimates that over 800 million people do not have enough food to eat today and nearly 2 billion have nothing like real food security on an ongoing basis. Virtually all these people live in the undeveloped nations. Failure of world food production for any reason will impact these persons first and most severely resulting in starvation of the majority.
Not everyone working in agriculture is disadvantaged, impoverished or poorly educated. There are many good jobs in the farm economy that require high skill levels and expertise. These persons though do not perform the hand labor still required in the field and slaughterhouse.
Human population, technology, and the weather
The unbridled increase in population since Dr. Malthus made his predictions is an outgrowth in part of the industrial revolution and the bounty it produced. The tools and technology developed over the last three centuries has led to the shared delusion that we are no longer subject to forces of nature. Today many unconsciously invest their fellow men with Olympian powers that have the potential to overcome any and all obstacles produced by the natural world.
Archeological evidence from prior eras provides ample proof of the burden our ancestors had coping with the natural world. Beginning in about 1900, the planet began to warm creating a climate where advances in agriculture could be readily exploited.(5) The vast increase in world food production since that time presaged the human population explosion it supported.
While the technological advances in horticulture permitted humankind to exploit these favorable environmental conditions, the supportive weather pattern we have enjoyed over the last century is what made our agricultural success possible in the first place. This favorable period is but an eddy in the geologic lifespan of the planet and not very typical of the past and probably not of the future either.(6)
Climate change has been a constant feature even without our release of excess carbon dioxide and other manmade chemical pollutants into the atmosphere, which many now think explains the rise in global temperature seen recently. From the accompanying world temperature graph, it is quit clear that the temperature of the earth began rising in about 1900 and the rate of increase has been the same throughout the last 100 years.(7) This is a surprising finding, because if global warming was indeed due to carbon dioxide release by industrialization, the rate of climate change should have picked up as the burden of gas increased. This is not what the data show and is an interesting anomaly. Whether or not global warming is really due to man’s release of greenhouse gases or not, there is little question that polluted air and water are undesirable and that global fossil fuel production will peak someday if not already. That our stewardship of the earth’s environment has been abysmal is not debatable. The question is can we change our behavior quickly enough to prevent the extinction of our species from a poisoned environment? We still have a chance to avoid this embarrassing demise but how much time is anyone’s guess.
The Green Revolution and good weather
Food production per acre has increased dramatically in the last century through the combined effect of skilled and unskilled labor, fertilizers, irrigation, hybrid seeds, herbicides, pesticides, machinery, advances in horticultural science, efficient commodity markets, bank credit, and favorable weather conditions. There is no doubt that the inputs contributed by humankind have been critically important to this success but it is the benign weather condition that has been the key factor.
Good weather is the most important independent variable in the food production equation upon which everything else depends. Today, all the best arable land on the planet is already under cultivation. Some has already been ruined by over farming. More is being consumed by the growth of cities. Intensive use of resources especially irrigation has permitted the exploitation of marginal areas as well. Fresh water resources are being exhausted at a rapid rate due to its use in agriculture and to support large human populations.
As Malthus pointed out, human population growth and agricultural production are interdependent; both rising in parallel over the last few millennia. It is unlikely that agricultural production can continue to grow exponentially in the future as it has during the Green Revolution. In fact, the FAO reports that world food production peaked in the early 1990s and has been in a slow decline since. The “low hanging fruit” generated by science and technology has already been harvested. Future growth in yields will require the widespread adoption of genetically modified foods and more intensive use of resources like fertilizers, herbicides, and pesticides but is likely to be incremental rather than the exponential as seen during the twentieth century.
Pandemic Influenza’s impact on food security
Pandemic influenza is a natural event that is both common and very likely to occur soon. A major pandemic of the severity of the 1918 Spanish Influenza occurring today is likely to be much worse than in 1918 due to burgeoning world population and its concentration within urban areas. The manner in which a pandemic could affect world food production relates to its effects on workers within both the non-farm and farm economies. Large-scale absenteeism due to illness and death will interrupt the orderly flow of the inputs needed to maintain world food production at current levels.
Illness and death among the vulnerable agricultural workers who do the menial labor in the fields and food processing facilities worldwide is a factor that will keep food production reduced for years into the future even after the non-farm economy has recovered. These workers are among the lowest paid and are quite unprepared to survive the ravages of a deadly influenza pandemic. In the US for instance, Mexican immigrants, most of whom are undocumented, compose a large percentage of agricultural and food processing workers. They do much of the hand field labor and perform a considerable portion of the most undesirable slaughterhouses work within US Agribusiness. These workers are for the most part in the age 15 to 45 year-old group predicted to take the brunt of the pandemic storm once it arrives.
This same demographic holds for farm laborers employed in other major food-producing nations be they advanced or undeveloped. In 1918, this age group suffered higher death rates than any other. World food production is everywhere dependent upon men and women within this demographic who are those most likely to succumb to pandemic influenza. In their absence, whom will do the stoop labor, the hand planting, and picking needed to plant, maintain, and bring the crops in? Very few citizens of the developed nations that produce food work in agriculture today and those that do are primarily employed in skilled positions. Obviously this is an unstable situation that places everyone at risk should the world experience a major pandemic in the future, an event that has become increasingly probable and soon.
Replacing the absentee field and food processing workers will be very difficult as most people employed in the non-farm economies of the world have no experience with hard physical labor and are too weak and soft to perform this work well even if they could be persuaded to do so. Meat processing in the US and Europe is highly dependent upon this disadvantaged demographic. It is difficult to imagine finding additional native born American or European replacements for the absentee Mexican, Turkish, or North African employees ready and able to work in a chicken processing plant or a cattle or swine slaughterhouse.
Obviously, food security is an important condition for maintaining civil order in any society. Food shortages will not be well tolerated by people who have never been hungry before which includes most people alive today in the developed nations. A failure in world food production during a major influenza pandemic can result from an interruption of inputs critical to agricultural production and/or absenteeism of farm and food processing workers. Civil disorder is an obvious consequence of worldwide famine.
One world crop failure and billions starve
It will come as a surprise to many that the great achievements in food production are really quit fragile and subject to collapse from a variety of circumstances. The coming pandemic, should it be as severe as many others and I expect, will lead to a significant decrease in world food production for a year or longer due to sickness and death among farm workers, food processors and distributors. It will also interrupt the supply of inputs critical the success of world agriculture causing crop yields to fall precipitously. Given the fragile dependence of the present human population on continuous high productivity of world agriculture for its sustenance, the only logical outcome from just one world crop failure is mass starvation for as many as half the human population.
1 Paul R. Ehrlich, The Population Bomb., 1968 Bomb. A Sierra Club-Ballantine Book, N.Y.
2Malthus Thomas R.., An Essay on the Principle of Population, first published in England in1798.
3Biography of John Maddox., What Remains to Be Discovered: Mapping the Secrets of the Universe, the Origins of Life, and the Future of the Human Race 1998
4USDA Agricultural Data Statistics at www.usda.gov.
5Jones, P.D. and Moberg, A. (2003) “Hemispheric and large-scale surface air temperature variations: An extensive revision and an update to 2001″. Journal of Climate, 16, 206-223.
6Jones PD., Mann ME,., Climate Over Past Millennia Reviews of Geophysics, Vol. 42, No. 2, 6 May 2004.
7Brohan, P., J.J. Kennedy, I. Haris, S.F.B. Tett and P.D. Jones (2006). “Uncertainty estimates in regional and global observed temperature changes: a new dataset from 1850″. J. Geophysical Research 111: D12106.
July 17th, 2007 at 10:49 am
[…] State Green’s recents posts I decided to do some research on my own. Prior to this, in a comment on “A matter of national security”, I used some somewhat high output figures I found on another […]
July 17th, 2007 at 12:29 pm
in my city we’re actually not allowed to keep chickens, ducks, pigs, etc. on our property. I have a small garden, though..
July 17th, 2007 at 3:29 pm
[…] you feed yourself and survive? Red State Green
July 17th, 2007 at 4:03 pm
I don’t think its “doomsday” fear that keeps me growing my own garden, but a sense of independence from an industrial culture that has separated me from the process of subsistence.
The peas I grow are mine. I planted the starts, transplanted them, and watched them grow. I harvested and ate them, I will dry them and can them, and when I’m done I will rip them from the earth and start again. I have the power over life and death, the plants and my own.
I use almost none of my yard and I have more tomatoes and lettuce than I can eat.
This fall I’m considering planting sugar beets for ethanol production.
Its all pretty easy, just takes patience. Its a better way to spend your time than watching CSI or American Idol.
July 17th, 2007 at 4:27 pm
I personally beleive that we will be in the middle of the worst pandemic since 1918 within the next 5 years.
The 1918 flu killed between 2.5% and 5% of the people it infected, and it devistated the world. The H5N1 virus that we are watching today is killing MORE THAN 55% of the people it infects. And remember that we have more medical advances now then they had in 1918.
That being said I have enough food and supplies in the house to last my family of 6 just shy of a year, with up to 4 months of that time being without power.
Yes it is A LOT of food, and it takes up A LOT of room, however it is simply an investment of insurance to me.
Now, if I am wrong and we NEVER have a pandemic, what am I out? Some extra space around the house? But nothing else, the food will be eaten, the supplies used, no matter what. And on top of that, I’ll be eating food I bought at “last years” prices.
What if your wrong? Are you prepared to be wrong? Will being wrong kill you or your child? Think about it, please.
HomeSchooling Momma of 4
July 18th, 2007 at 1:39 pm
“toxyc Says:
July 16th, 2007 at 12:33 am
What if a virus gets genetically engineered and reproduces most efficiently in small gardens, infecting those people who try to grow their own food with a highly deadly form of influenza? …”
That is the stupidest thing I have ever read. I feel stupider just for having read it.
July 19th, 2007 at 7:46 pm
[…] Consegue alimentar-se? No caso de por alguma razão os canais de distribuição deixarem de funcionar. Red State green. […]
July 28th, 2007 at 4:59 pm
[…] yourself” guide. After setting off a firestorm with her initial post on the plausibility of feeding yourself (see also GreenSpree’s interesting article on small footprint farming) she went on to explain […]
July 30th, 2007 at 8:41 am
Can You Feed Yourself? You Might Think So, You Might Be Wrong….
[…]Let?s say, for example, that your car died, or ran out of gas, or something. Could you feed yourself then? Sure, you say. I have stuff in the fridge, a few things in the pantry. We?re set. Cool. The average person has about a week?s worth of food …
August 10th, 2007 at 3:08 pm
[…] you feed yourself? (RedStateGreen […]
August 19th, 2007 at 7:51 pm
Those who don’t stockpile are usually people who plan to live off their neighbors who DO, in case of emergency.
August 30th, 2007 at 4:01 am
I believe the original post was asking a simple question, can you feed yourself? I for one could feed my household and neighbor for around 9 -12 months as is. Not counting my animals, most which could graze where I live and already do partly. There are some great points that have brought up. What if you became disabled? Out of work? snowed in for weeks? flooded in? It could be any number of things that could keep you away from stores….. which would no longer be around if it was a fuel crisis. I was snowed in where I live for more than 6 weeks this past winter and with the exception of regular milk the last 2 weeks we didn’t do without.
I think the point that was originally made was a very important one, even the government has issued warnings on their web sites to be ready, there are large bulliten boards asking if your ready, and many health care places have brochures out asking the same.
The government wants everyone to be ready because they know they can’t care for everyone. Large farmers won’t be able to help much, they will be looted beyond belief in the first week, and most crops wasted because of the way the food was taken.
I was unable to work for several years and was very grateful for my shopping habits and gardens (although small during that time).
This article is an eyeopener for those who can feed ourselves, maybe 10 clips per gun isn’t enough…… and maybe 2 ammo boxes full isn’t enough……. and maybe 2 years of garden seed isn’t enough (even if it isn’t genetically altered seed). And maybe just maybe those of us who do have a garden are eating tomatoes that taste like tomatoes, enjoying fresh picked corn, and saving money all the while preserving a tradition that has kept this country and it’s people alive since it began.
As far as protecting ones self, I have children……. enough said!
While we are discussing those who are serious about being ready for differant emergencies I would recommend picking up the Kurt Saxon series it’s $100 for 5 books. It teaches everything about the way things used to be done, and includes a formulary book in the set. It’s a great read, just to see how people did things in the past and well worth the money. He also has a website.
And whether a garden or self sufficiency is for you or not, isn’t always good to be ready for at least a few weeks.
October 17th, 2007 at 10:07 am
[…] read more | digg story […]
October 21st, 2007 at 8:27 pm
[…] read more | digg story […]
October 24th, 2007 at 12:33 pm
[…] been four and a half months since my article linking food supply and national security, and I was idly wondering how you all are faring. Any of you learn to garden? Anyone learn to cook […]
October 25th, 2007 at 12:18 am
Eric…
Thanks for the nice read, keep up the interesting posts…..
October 28th, 2007 at 12:00 am
Read “Alas, Babylon”. It’s an old book, may be hard to find.
Then, sit down somewhere quiet, look at your shirt/blouse fabric and consider what it took to get it to you; the farming, fertilizers, fuel, carding, machines, labor, trucks, everything.
Then consider this … we have used up more than one half of all known oil supplies. We have turned that oil into people. We feed people with oil. What happens when our government fails to make plans for this? If you are smart, you will.
November 16th, 2007 at 4:53 pm
beverley knight video…
Man i just love your blog, keep the cool posts comin…..
February 2nd, 2008 at 9:57 am
[…] Looking at the responses to my food security article last year, it’s clear to see where others who have stopped by are at. […]
April 30th, 2008 at 11:11 am
[…] much more detail into what she’s talking about. This is the best thing we could be doing to secure our food supply. Which, after all, is no one’s responsibility but our own. redstategreen posted this entry […]
June 9th, 2008 at 9:07 pm
[…] hope all of you have made steps to feed yourselves, and have more than three days food on hand. If not, there’s still time to […]