The most wildly grown banana in the world is now suffering from a new fungus and since it is sterile and only grown by cloning, it can not be cross bred with other wild bananas for disease resistance. This leaves some form of gene modification as the only way to develop resistance. Many of our foods are concentrated in only a few strains, often either intensely inbred or cloned. A few kinds of apples, one kind of banana, most of the hybrid seeds, corn, sugar cane, sugar beets, apples, all use the same genetic "root" stock. Some of the SHTF stories in the past have discussed that angle, the classic No blade of grass, etc. I raise the old bloody butcher corn, it doesn't have the yields and I do it as a hobby, a couple dozen plants, but it would reproduce after the SHTF, has at least some chance of resisting new diseases, either naturally or introduced, and makes decent corn meal. Just because it is an old fashioned open seed doesn't mean you are safe. Hubbard squash, butternut squash, the old varieties of tomato. potato, etc and the classic breeds of animals, Leghorn chickens, Holstein cows, Belgian horses, Hereford cattle, and so on, all list their genetics back to a few source animals and are as close to clones as modern breeding methods can achieve. While the Mormon food storage, long term basic foods, may have its limitations, it is compact, cheap, proven to work, and for the cost of a decent AR, would allow you to survive until some new food sources become available. There was wide spread starvation in the medieval cold period as the grain crops failed, or in Ireland when the potato crop failed, but after a period of time the population recovered as they changed to root crops, cabbage, beans etc. As it is now we insist on our Granny Smith apples, one kind of selected celery etc at the supermarket and everyone world wide raises the same fruit, plant, animal, herb, flower, etc. If you do buy one of the "seed selections" for storage, you will in fact get a selection of open pollinated seeds that will continue to reproduce, but if you don't raise and select your own seeds, you will never know if they are suitable for your soil, rain fall pattern, micro climate, local diseases and insect pests, etc. Seeds without gardening, planning to raise animals, heating with wood, solar power, separate water source, etc, for use after the SHTF, is putting all you eggs in one basket and hoping you will not drop it on the way to the house. Pigs are a quick source of food , eat almost anything, a few animals will breed into a large herd quickly, are an excellent source of high calorie fat and meat, a food that almost everyone loves to eat, and all that, but if you live in large portions of China, a swine disease has made it impossible to raise them at this time. Swine flu, hog cholera, all kinds of diseases could spread quickly if the present animal health control system breaks down and even more quickly if our enemies decide biological weapons are easier to acquire and distribute than atomic bombs. I would argue that it is going to take both a very flexible individual and several years food storage as well as land for a garden etc to maximize your chances of survival.
I suspect a conspiracy to make Pigs the only meat crop, to survive the SHTF Event, so that all muslims, and jews, would die of protein starvation....
With about 7 billion people on Earth food security is a major issue. There is no "surplus" in any of the staple foods such as corn, wheat, rice, potatoes, etc. (There is a lot of waste, but no surplus. A least half the population presently lives on the thin edge of severe malnutrition or are starving outright.) Monoculture is the most convenient way to feed the masses, but it's also the riskiest. Drop the world production of any food source by 10% and the result will be worldwide famines. And food wars. Diversification and decentralization are the only ways to create food security. But that's not going to happen because there are too many political and economic barriers in the way of "small farms". There are an almost endless number of ways Big Farming could fail. Just for giggles & grins, I'll mention one that I bet no one on the Monkey Board has ever heard of: the real No Blade of Grass near-disaster. About 25 years ago (MOL) some people in England figured out a way to save money in the production of silage. Rather than fermenting the post-harvest farm waste in huge silos and turning it into animal feed, they bio-engineered a bacterium that could be sprayed on the fields immediately after harvest. This little beastie would infect the plants (living & dead) and ferment them on the spot. Then the auto-fermented silage could be harvested from the fields and processed directly into animal fodder. This beastie was examined, tested in the lab, and put through all it's paces in England It passed every legal requirement for unrestricted use with flying colors, and was approved for unrestricted use. During the mandatory one-month grace period provided for challenges, some people in Ohio State U. heard about it and got interested. They obtained a sample, and tested it. Surprise! Surprise! It performed as advertised. In fact, it performed even better than advertised. When sprayed on ordinary grass, it fermented the grass roots to the point that the grass died of alcohol poisoning within a few days. It turned out to be pretty much a universal killer of anything green. They didn't have time to try it on trees, but it probably would have killed them, too. Right along with every crop planted in a field that had ever been sprayed or otherwise infected. And it could reproduce. Exponentially. The guys at Ohio State got a challenge in just before the grace period expired, and the whole program was shut down overnight. Granted, a few individuals of many plant species would have developed defenses against this bacterium, but that would not have happened in time to save the human race--or most of the plant & animal life on this planet. If you want to dig up the facts on this near-apocalypse, you'll have to do your own research. It won't be easy. Those guys at Ohio State are why we are still alive. I rather suspect they got no credit whatsoever for the save.
Late one evening, I heard an interesting radio show which had some professor stating that 'all farmable land would be in use by 2023' and by that time 'we would not be able to produce enough to feed the world.' Of course, this woke me right up and got my attention. LOL! What she was going on about was getting the funds and materials to cultivate/irrigate the Sahara... Yeah, okay, and of course, she wanted that funding to come from America...
So when the starving hoards come to your door demanding their fair share, you hand them an empty cup and say, "you had your fair share long ago."
The thing that most concerns me about a SHTF deal.....not govt weenies, not black helicopters, not all that stupid internet conspiracy crap....but Bubba....your neighbor that lives down the road in an old single wide, has nothing put up, wife and 3 hungry kids, and a rusty 30-30 in the closet with 1/2 box of shells left from a deer hunt 10 years ago. He comes and maybe asks the first time...because he knows you have cows, chickens, pigs, garden, etc....so you MUST be the type that puts up food. He gets little or nothing from you. The next time, he creeps around in the bushes above your house and shoots you went you step out.....and takes what "you should have shared".
I've always said first we'll fight the cops, then our neighbors. The neighbors will be the bloody one.
First thing you do in a SHTF deal is cut those bushes back...waaay back! This denies Bubba cover and gives you good fields of fire/ kill zones. In any SHTF deal you need to LOOK before you go outside, and THINK TWICE about going outside. For the first few months you want to keep a low profile, going out ONLY when you HAVE to. If you have to go out, go out low, fast and armed! Don't have a fixed routine, and try to get most chores done before dawn and after sunset. Darkness and low-light conditions can work to your advantage, especially if you have night vision/ thermal equipment. Personally, I have a plan to deal with a lot of the Bubba-types...just spread the word about a FEMA camp, that may or may not exist, about 10 miles or more away. That should take care of some the problems.
i'm with @TnAndy on this one, its the people who pretend to be 'nice' neighbors that will bite you in the back when you aren't looking thinking they are entitled to what is yours even though they have done nothing to prepare. @Wildbilly i think you missed @TnAndy's point. it aint about the bushes... the bushes were just a way to illustrate the point he was making. You cannot protect your back all the time and you do have to go out and feed the animals, tend the garden etc. you cant stay holed up forever. back to the original topic I do think having many types of heirloom or land race seeds in your preps are a good idea. More genetic diversity and i also think life is very adaptable in the long run. We may not survive as individuals but life will prevail. In the cattle and livestock arena there are several 'recognizable' breeds but most are not 'pure' bred animals. Our yearling heifers were always crossed with the smaller mexican bulls in their 1st year so that the calves were smaller. We kept those babies because they were hardier and produced a better quality of meat. They looked like angus cattle but were not pure Angus. 2 generations later you could not tell they were not Angus cattle. but still they were cross breeds. I'm just saying nothing is 'pure' in genetics. Go to the State fair and wander thru the livestock pavilions. Lots of diversity for chickens, ducks, sheep, pigs, cattle, rabbits.
Well Bubba sure as hell isn't gonna stand out there in the middle of the front yard with a gun, that would be too easy. Also, I'm figuring that with a 30-30 and not spending a lot of time at the range, that Bubba isn't gonna be making too many 1000 yd. shots. I CAN stay holed up until Bubba and his family either starve or relocate...doesn't matter to me...although relocation would be faster and better for me. Hence, the fictitious FEMA camp where they will be sheltered, fed, etc., if they stay here I'll eventually have to deal with the bodies. I have Gen 1 & 2 and FLIR Thermal units so I can work at night.
