Do'wanna be late fer lunch...

If a person wants to eat lunch on a regular basis in the near future, they should probably take a look at what the Covid-19 Pandemic has done to food production in the United States--and around the world.

It's not a pretty picture.

In the US, farmers can neither plant nor harvest because of the nation-wide lockdowns. There are no field hands available because everyone is under house arrest.

Meat producers are strapped trying to feed livestock they can't ship to market. All the livestock auctions are shut down. And the same loss of farm production for human food has been reflected in the production and distribution of animal feed, as well.

Ten of the largest pork processing plants in the US have shut down because they were rife with the Coronavirus.

The more you search, the more bleak the picture gets.

Here in Florida, the cucumber crop is in. And it's mostly rotting in the fields because the pickle packers aren't buying, and the local grocery stores can't handle the glut of would-be suppliers.

Some of the most successful farmers--the Big Boys--are taking losses of $250,000.00 a day.

They can't sustain that for very long.

The smaller farmers are taking smaller daily losses but, in the end, the losses are really all the same size: 100%.

Corn farmers can't ship to the alcohol makers, and they can't ship to the gasohol makers. The gasohol guys are losing obscene amounts of Federal money, even as the US may be forced to fall back on the use of (gasp!) gasoline.

And what it all boils down to is this: under the very best possible circumstances, the US will probably be in a nation-wide famine within the next three months. And it will last for at least eighteen months.

It's funny (not!) how seeds are selling out as fast as toilet paper right now. A lot of the older folk remember the past, and see it in the present.

There's still a little rebound in the food chain. Inertia, I call it. It'll last until the pump runs dry. Then people are going to see that the Fed can print unlimited amounts of money, but they can't print a single bite of food.

At my local grocery, they had a bin full of hams last week. This week, that bin is full of beer, and there isn't a ham to be found.

Last week, eggs were inexpensive, and you could buy as many as you wanted. This week, they are still inexpensive--but you can only buy two dozen.

The rationing that foreshadows the leading edge of the famine has already begun.

So prep-up, fellow monkeys. Find a way to start growing food, even if it's only a few tomato plants in a window box. Don't shop to survive until the first wave of the Pandemic passes. Shop to survive until food production starts to normalize.

Even before the Pandemic, the US was a net food importer. We exported a lot, and imported a lot more. In the latter part of 2020, I doubt that we will be exporting food, and I doubt we'll be able to import it.

It has long been said that the world is living on the brink of a world-wide famine. Let any one of our basic food sources decline by 1%, and the famines will start, the declines will multiply, and we'll all be in a world of hurt.

Food production has already been disrupted worldwide. The losses are in every sector from fishing to cropping cabbages. And the losses have been far greater than a mere 1% in each.

 

If you have got it now, you won't be able (or allowed) to get it then....

also

 

Knowing that it is getting ready top hit

What would you suggest stocking up on now, before there are shortages?

I get $1200 burning a hole in my pocket and want to help the local stores...

flour
pancake mix / Bisquick /Krustez
hard (waxed cheese)
alfalfa seeds for sprouting

anyonme?

 

Vitamins
Beans and rice
Jerky
Oats
Sugary stuff &nuts
Dried fruit is cool too
Canned anything

For my cat obviously cat food...my cat is going to outlive me lol.

basically for the food imagine if you can’t eat all of it within a month and there is no room in the fridge/freezer....its gotta be shelf stable for majority of it

Hiding some of it might be needed too since if this does happen fully expect raiding to start (though rural areas might take longer)...Alaska is probably pretty safe at least for the summer.

 

Helped extended family, Bro, nieces, nephews, friends, butcher and process 10 300 lb. hogs. Local farmer couldn't find any processor to buy them, couldn't afford to keep feeding them. Bro got them for $50 ea. Did five last week will finish the last three tomorrow. All the small meat butchers are scheduled out to after new years. Haven't ever seen that much naked pork in one place.

 

Beans & rice, just like corn & beans, provide complete proteins when eaten together. So buy lots of each.

In addition, buy lots of fat: lard, olive oil, peanut oil, and the like. As "upper-class" fatty foods like hamburger & bacon become unavailable, cooking oils can provide the dietary fat you need.

Buy white flour for biscuits, breads, and gravy.

Buy cornmeal for mealie. That's the porridge that still provides 90% of the caloric intake in Zimbabwe. Without it, the whole country would have long since starved to death.

Buy canned everything, but be warned: when your neighbors are hungry don't let them see an empty can. Cut both ends out, strip & burn the labels, flatten the cans, and bury them deep. Put nothing food-related in your garbage, because the pickers will certainly find it.

In essence, buy the same staples you'd need going West in a wagon train a hundred years ago.

For fresh meat, if you have the space & privacy, get rabbits: three does and a buck. They are quiet can live off wild greenery, and produce a surprising amount of meat. Buy rabbit chow while it's available. Consider 200 lbs. of rabbit chow to be essentially the same as 200 lbs. of rabbit meat that won't spoil before you can eat it.

Four hens--no rooster--can provide eggs in quantity off the worms you farm in the rabbit poop, plus greenery & rabbit scraps. Four hens can be happy with 16 sq. ft. of scratch space. 4 ft X 4 ft, IOW. They need 4 cubic feet of roosting space, and 2 nests. They don't need a coop that a human can walk into.

If necessary, you can hide rabbits and chickens (both!) in an old junker van, as long as you keep it well ventilated. As in: Park it in shade and open the side door toward a building, so no one can see into it.

Buy comfort foods guiltlessly. They provide immense relief from stress while eating a crisis diet.

My latest gag is good when mushrooms are cheap.

I buy a LOT of them, slice them up and saute them. I freeze them in a thin layer on cookie sheets. After that, I break them up and bag them by the gallon. Then I can incorporate them into anything.

I'm betting that the grid will not go down, because without electricity the FedGuv couldn't possibly keep control of the populace. The sheep would go bonkers.

One last word on the subject of "I can't". As in:
"I can't raise chickens because of my HOA."
"I can't raise rabbits because I live in an apartment."
"I can't raise moose because _____________________."
Etc.

Yes, you can.
When the bottom line is live or die, "I can't!" just doesn't cut it anymore.

I say in absolute seriousness that if you need four chickens and four rabbits, to keep yourself and/or your family from starving to death, you'll find that you can bloody well raise them in your living room.

It won't be fun, but it'll be a lot more fun than burying your family. Or starving to death. Or both.

 

I did/wrote an article 3-4 weeks ago about this very subject and how this virus and in reality thus far very short shut down has exposed some major flaws and weakness in our entire modern supply chains. The biggest problem I see is that our local and regional economies have been destroyed and replaced and are nearly wholly dependent on imports from the National and Global economies. As most know I own a couple of Farmers Markets, A Food Truck and A Very Productive Small Farm that direct Markets all but our personal reserves that are produced through the Farmers Markets, Food Truck, a On Farm Store and a CSA. So I have a pretty good working knowledge of what time it is in the area of Food Security in local and regional Markets particularly my own AoO. I also talk a lot with other Independent Market Owners and Small Farms that are actually productive and feeding significant numbers of people locally and regionally around the Nation.

Locally produced food makes up a whopping 3%-5% of the Food consumed in virtually every region of the USA. The bulk of the foods consumed are imported from CA, GA. FL. Mexico, Brazil, Peru, Turkey and Asia. Regional food production has been manipulated and directed into mono cultures by the USDA and Government in general and the diverse production family farms are almost all gone. Thus we have the Corn, Bean and Wheat rotations. Wheat with double crop beans and Corn on Corn with maybe a rotation to beans dominating the midwest. There is not much diversity in most regions as everything is nice, organized and compartmentalized. While one area might produce 3-5 products in mass there are 500 things that have to be imported Nationally or Globally. This works great until like now, when it is broken and doesn't.

What is broken now is the Harvest, the Transport, the processing, packaging, warehouse and distribution (Second Stage Transporting). Doesn't matter if it is hogs or cucumbers the same supply chain breakdowns are present throughout the entire conventional National and Global market place. Unlike in say the stock market where these things are felt and seen in real time, there is a 2 week to 12 month lag in food ripples being felt depending on what the product is and where there malfunction in the system is.

Two Months ago I started tracking the prices of 5 items ate the grocery store Coffee, Sugar, Flour, Whole Chickens, and Pinto Beans. Since that time flour and beans are virtually non existent on the store shelves and what comes in on the delivery truck is less each week. Sugar is in a bit better shape and there is usually 3-4 Five pound bags on the shelf. Chicken is very hit and miss one week the case will be full and the same day the next week it will be empty. Coffee has amazed me it is always in stock and has not gone up in price. For Beans, Flour, Sugar and Chicken the price has gone up 12% to 18% and averages a 15% overall price increase over the last 8 weeks. Flour and Beans may become better stocked as the wheat harvest will replenish reserves and the same with beans much later than the wheat. Chicken will depend largely on the logistics and Processing problems, but so long as 750,000 fertile eggs on the hatchery side of the poultry business are are being sent to rendering plants and landfills every day instead of hatched and sent to meat bird production and egg production there is going to be a ripple a very large ripple coming down the road. While I am not tracking supply and price of these closely I am observing pork, beef, and Milk and following the market news of them. Milk is being dumped in lagoons and ditches by the millions of gallons each day. Pork and Beef are stuck on the farms and feedlots. It will eventually get to the point that it will be cheaper for a hog confinement to shoot the hogs and mass bury them than to keep feeding them. It ain't cheap to feed 5,000 10,000 20,000 hogs every day in a confinement that you might see $30-$50 per head profit from when things are working smoothly. It does not take too many days before feeding is converted to losing A LOT of money every day.

Another problem arising is that other Nations that have been exporting their surpluses to the USA are now retaining those surpluses and stock piling food both domestic and imported.

Migrant labor in the South and West is in very short supply. No one like the illegals until the food they plant. pick, and pack is in short supply and then we sit around wondering why all of the American Citizens sucking the welfare system dry are not put to work doing what the illegals do..............

Recently our regional Not For Profit Local Food Organization that wants to be the overlord of all small farms and local food in Southern IL said if there are food shortages our local farms, "You know like the farmers you see at the farmers markets will feed us." NO WE WON'T there are very damn few of us that produce enough to dependably feed anyone! There are around 3.5 million people in the 618, there are maybe 150-200 of us that produce any significant amount of food. Most of those farmers at farmers markets don't produce enough to feed their own families let alone anyone else's They are either doing it for a bit of side income or are producing enough under a grant to keep the grant funding that keeps their so called farm afloat and money in their pockets from the administrative fees they milk from the grants. Most of those fly by night farms milk the grant system for 2-3 years, liquidate any equipment and structures like greenhouses and high tunnels (Paid for by grants) and walk away from the property mortgage and then hop to another state and Start the grant process all over again on a new piece of property in the spouses or a kids name. Yeah us tax payers PAY $30,000 to people to plant 8 rows of Okra to determine if it is marketable and drop $12,000 for their high tunnel that they buy used for 3 grand and at the end of three years sell used for 3 grand, and buy them $40,000 tractors that 2-3 years later after it is out of the grant program and theirs free and clear they sell for $25,000 of clear profit. This crap cost the tax payers MILLIONS upon MILLIONs of dollars every year and we get ZERO in return on those bad investments to people with not a inch of their own skin in the game. Then there are the FMPP Grants that dole out up to $100,000 per year to Farmers Markets to operate. ( My Markets and My Businesses to not participate in any grant programs and are totally independent of any USDA free money programs, I operate totally independent of organizations and Government except for the regulatory side of it.) It cost me around $2500 per year in insurance and advertising per Market to operate Not anywhere near $100,000. Where I am going with this is all of those folks GREATLY INFLATE their sales numbers, production numbers and market visitor numbers to make it look like they are huge productive successes on paper and that keeps the Grant Money flowing Freely. It also shows in the Data and Statistics that as a whole local and regional food is a whole lot more productive than it really is. I guess the right hand did not tell the left hand at the USDA/NCRS that for 20 years strong we still make up the same 3%-5% of the regional market share for food.

No getting around the fact that I am one of the Big Ballers in my region. Not the biggest by a long shot but in the upper end of production and feeding a good number of people directly. There is no way in hell all of us that are productive in this region can feed 3.5 million people! At Max capacity full production I can feed 300 families Pork, Beef, Poultry, Eggs, Fruits, Vegetables and Herbs per year. Maybe another 100 more if I diverted what supplies the Chuck Wagon to Direct Marketed Farm Products. I simply cannot get any bigger without buying more land and building bigger facilities and hiring more people...... And Good LUCK hiring more people now days, destitute people won't take a job so long as the Government will keep the welfare money to Babys Momma rolling in. So that leaves me no choice but to do it all myself or hire illegals to work the fields seasonally...... except our illegal migrant pool has dried up.

What is funny is the demand for food has never been higher in America than it is right now and the distribution system is so broken in so many areas that the food simply can't get from the farm into the market place.

 

@T5R -
I think you didn't precisely and explicitly pinpoint the problem, but your description of the effects makes a lot of great points regarding production. IMHO, the root problem is the lack of hands in picking and processing. The dot gov logically interfered with that by going the isolation route. Not to blame any particular entity, but if you force quarantine or other near prison restrictions on people, legal or otherwise, they cannot work, either for themselves or the hungry others. Once the logjam of missing bodies is busted open and production restarts there will still be a hitch in the gitalong until supplies catch up with pent up demand. That will be, minimum, at least one production season with shortages of any given product, be it pork or paper.

JIT put a hurtin' on food retailers with no warehousing facilities, they left themselves no inventory to carry over the thin spots. Definitely NOT a prepper mindset. Still and all, it sure is doubtful that your average grocery store could have enough wet good storage to survive three months. Dry, maybe, thinking of paper and staples like flour and sugar.

 

Great post, T5R!

That was a real eye-opener.

Your post pretty much nails it. And I think it illustrates a very important point.

When (and if) things go back to being exactly as normal as the way they were before the coronavirus came along, they'll still be exactly as screwed up as they were.

We'll still be eating California oranges in Florida, and Florida oranges in California, and the oranges imported from Brazil will be still be slamming both sets of growers.

With thousands of miles of transport behind almost every bite we eat, we're gambling that the foreign suppliers will always be there when we need them--forever.

Now their Just In Time delivery is turning into Just Isn't There delivery.

The food they choose not to export is the food we can't import.

But we don't have to depend on illegal labor to harvest our crops. Or to do any other job that needs doing. We still have a small segment of our population that will work at any job they can find, because they don't want to live on Welfare.

And we have a much larger segment of the population that is determined not to work at all because living on Welfare is so easy, and much more fun.

It's past time for the US to stop paying able-bodied people to sit on their butts.

Welfare should no longer be an enviable profession.

Every State in the Union could mobilize it's very own Welfare Army--if the FedGuv would cooperate--and put the professionally unemployed to work on anything and everything that needs doing--including work in the fields.

The US has, I understand, quite a bit of infrastructure that needs repair. Lottsa labor needed for that.

The Welfare Army could be paid a legal working wage for the work they did--and be entitled to the same benefits as any other worker--while having their pay deducted from their Welfare payments.

As long as they kept working, let them keep the excess Welfare--for five years. But if they stop working, the Welfare stops the same day.

Hungry? That would be their free choice. Got no money? That would be the same free choice.

Hungry and broke enough to want a job? Sign back up with the Welfare Army and all your problems will be solved--except that little one about not wanting to work for a living.

Done your five years and about to lose that excess Welfare? Live off what you earn, just like everyone else, and if it isn't enough find a better job.

The best thing of all is that five years of work could provide a lot of on-the-job training for a person that wants to improve their life.

And why limit the Welfare Army to Welfare recipients? Let anyone sign up that wants a job.

I have dug ditches for a living. It's a far better job than having to say "Ya wanna side a fries widdat?

Sigh.

From famine to Welfare, to solving the Unemployment Problem, all in one small thread. But then, isn't everything connected, ultimately?

 

I think the major point that we all need to take away from Uncle Morgan and T5R's posts are this crisis is no where finished. In fact, it is just getting started and the Main Event is coming up, the real crisis.

The wife and I are sitting down today to discuss what more we can do to prepare more for long-term. We are set up fairly good, much better than most, but if it is a serious food shortage beyond 12 months then it's hard to say what could happen.

My train of thought right now is one cannot eat money, no matter if its worthless paper money or gold, so think it is time to get the check book and buy what we can and do what we can thinking specifically long-term, beyond 12 months.

@UncleMorgan and @Thunder5Ranch Thanks much for taking the time to write this up! Your words are wise and will be heeded.

 

About that "As long as they kept working, let them keep the excess Welfare--for five years. But if they stop working, the Welfare stops the same day."

You stop Welfare - you will get this


hell, you get it anyway.


The so called War on Poverty (which we lost BTW) -
Great Society was a set of domestic policy initiatives designed to eliminate poverty and racial injustice in the United States, reduce crime and improve the environment. It was launched by President Lyndon B. Johnson in 1964 to 1965.

Why
1964


yup - many here are old enough to remember the "Long Hot Summer"
(50 Years Before Ferguson, A Summer Of Riots Wracked The U.S.)

the fix, dump welfare $$$ into the ghetto. Not a fix, but it stopped the riots long enuf for LBJ to get re-elected.

As for the rest?

Yes that is a town in Venezuela
The caption?
The Fruits of Socialism – Venezuelan Food Lines

Wait, you say - that can't happen here...



News flash for the Gen Xers - it not only can, is has. More than once, if looked at on a region by region basis.

As much as I hate to say this, The Sun God, Emperor, the First, One and Only, B Husein Obama prevented a repeat of this by dumping 40 to 100 Billion a month into the economy for several years. Yes, this prevented a deflationary cycle that could have done as much or more damage than say, shutting down the economy over a flu-like disease.... Oh, wait!

Yup. Enter Sugar Daddy Sam and three to five Trillion dumped into the economy (in a couple of months) to keep it creaking along.
Just wait till the inflation hits.

You'll think Jimmy Carter did a good job....all he did was mess with gas prices and availability.

If you don't have it now, you won't be able to get it 'then'.

/rant

 

There are some significant disconnects on all this stuff about the ag industry. Some of the things posted in the OP and running on the news are not consistent with other stuff going on.

My brother is in the ag consulting business. He recently told me his farmers through Illinois, Indiana, Missouri, Iowa, etc. are all planting and looking forward to this year as the weather has been good compared to last year. No significant shortages or issues. Granted these guys are mostly grain farmers and big guys. My brother helps guys who farm 1-2 thousand acres grow that to 10,000 or more.

One of the largest egg producers in the country are owned by my wife’s second cousins and they are good friends. One of my best buddies is a key manager there and he told me the egg market is fantastic right now. Demand way up, wholesale prices up as much as 300% in some areas though they aren’t able to realize that in many cases due to production contracts. They can’t increase production fast enough. The Texas AG was even looking into price gouging allegations due to the shortages and resulting price increases.

Other relatives have a butchering business. Sales are good and livestock available.

So, I am not completely buying all the doom and gloom for food production. Yes, some packer houses are down due to ill workers but in most if not all the states with lock downs, agriculture, food production and transportation is deemed essential and consequently has not been stopped or slowed.

People need and are eating about the same amount of food now as they were 2 months ago yet there is clearly some weirdness happening.

What I think is happening is the distribution channels are very established and specialized. For example, some egg producers were contracted through wholesalers that were contracted to distributors that supplied only restaurants not groceries. Restaurants close or scale back and those wholesalers and distributors don’t have the channels into the retailers like my relatives do with Walmart, Kroger, etc. Same with milk, meat, etc. People are eating the same amount, just buying it at different places.

It will take time for the distribution channels to realign and exclusivity contracts to expire or be reworked such that products that had ended up in restaurants can end up in grocery stores. It will happen, especially if government stays out of things and doesn’t fuck it up by stupid stuff like pursuing price gouging allegations or prosecutions or trying to fix/cap prices.

AT

 

Good points.

 

quote for truth

 

Great info and read for @UncleMorgan ,@Thunder5Ranch & @Airtime
Here we have Jamaican men working the potato farm ,, Can't or haven't hired a white for 16 years , they don't work or screw up / talk on phone mostly ..
Welfare problem in Canada also ..
Sloth

 

Went to Walmart and Sam’s club yesterday.
Zero TP at both. Here is the meat section at Walmart:








Granted this was a Sunday and maybe restocking slows a bit on weekends or maybe shoppers hit the stores harder.

Clearly there is demand. At the farmer side there is clearly ample supply. So the problem is somewhere in between them.

 

Very much like the various recovery schemes put in place after the 29 crash. Hm.

 

We have plenty here? Even saw Charmin on the shelves at the dollar store,Hit the maw and paw places,Piggly Wiggley etc.etc

 

Good suggestions. Thanks.

I had looked simply out of curiosity. We easily have 2 1/2 to 3 years worth of TP in our storage. And about 1/3 of a beef and 1/4-1/3 of hog left in the freezer plus cousins with a butchering operation and connections to the growers. So, we be good in the meat department too. We can also do the butchering ourselves if need be.
I had to go to the city for hydraulic oil and figured I’d stop at Sams to stock up on their house tequila. Pretty decent stuff at only $20 for a 1.75 liter bottle.
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