Over the past month or two I have read at least a half dozen articles regarding the pending food shortage due to severe weather and/or the current food crisis some are now claiming is occurring in their neighborhood grocery stores. I read this article this morning. Its a bit alarming and has photos contributors have sent in of empty shelves. Maybe some of you, too, have noticed a shortage of food items where you shop. Exclusive Photos From Readers Across The Country: Food Shortages Are Here Now And The Media Is Downplaying The Dangers - "Signs Of The Times" Part Two I have not. Not once other than some items being on sale and temporarily off the shelf. The isles are full of more foods than you can shake a stick at! In some of the photos, canned vegetables are shown to be in short supply. Now here's a question... how can canned vegetables be in short supply due to Mid-west flooding when that area is mostly a grain and cattle growing region? This year's crop of vegetables have likely yet to come in except in places like Florida and Mexico. So how are they now short? No doubt there will be price increases associated with the bad harvest of corn, soybeans, and maybe wheat. But I am dubious as to this alleged food crisis some are writing about. Our food supply originates in a lot of different places. Not just in the MW. Comments?
The shelves are still full where I live. I have bought a few more cans and other supplies. I think food will go up in the future. Pork has gone up so much I skipped buying it this week. The new normal? Wallmart priced sure are cheaper than my local grocery store when it comes to canned goods. Soup is a buck a can cheaper.
Food prices are going up right now. They are going to go so far up that people will be stupefied by sticker shock. In China, anticipating the loss of 50% of their total pork production, prices have already gone up so much that many people are switching to duck. And many restaurants are going to pork-free menus. Duck farmers have raised prices (while the getting is good) and are making money hand over fist. In the U.S., wheat corn and soybeans have gotten hammered. Right along with beef. We are, just now, in what I call the "inertia phase": things are going on pretty much like normal, except for a few worrisome little signs. When the first truckloads start not arriving JIT from the mega warehouses, prices will jump. and they'll be accompanied by "shelving delays". RIGHT NOW is when everyone should be gently but thoroughly stocking up on long-term food. Look at it this way: Let's say you spend an extra $500.00 on long term reserve food, and you eat none of it over the next year. A year later, you find the same food costs $600.00. Congratulations: your food appreciated 20% in one year. That's almost like making 20% interest on your $500.00. You could sell it and rake in some extra coin--or save it and let it appreciate even more. If there is a famine in the U.S., food will be almost priceless, and much too valuable to sell. But you'll still have yours (at the bargain price of only $500.00!) just when you need it the most. Make no mistake: we have had famines in this country before. We can have another. All we need is a perfect storm of agricultural failures. Wait! We already got that. Buy what you can. Grow and put up what you can. It doesn't matter how much, because any amount is better than none. Maybe a year's supply will do the trick--but I'm betting on two, at least. If it doesn't happen? Don't worry--if you maintained your OPSEC nobody will know you blew $500.00 (you idiot!). If it does happen, nobody will know you have a supply of food--if you maintained your OPSEC. Maybe not such an idiot after all...
A lot of it is just tighter inventory control. A slow mover is not restocked as fast. TAKE canned beef......east side does not buy canned beef so they do not stock it I am in the middle............my Publix stocks very little....one can face.....2 or 3 cans...it will sell out before they will restock 12 cans. Publix on the west side of town....people have money, like canned beef, and buy it.......... at any one time they have a 3 can face with 24 to 36 cans in stock...........it must sell....because the product is fresher BTW, Hormel ROAST BEEF & GRAVY. DATED 04/15/2013 WAS OPENED ON 3 AUG 2019, FINE BEEF. CANNED MEAT LASTS A LONG TIME IN CANS,....WORKS AS A TOPPING ON A BAKED POTATO, RICE, ADDS BEEF TO VEGETABLE SOUP ......I add it to canned beef stew to offset the potatoes. I SAY, I like beef in my beef stew. HAS always been very good, clean beef, NO WASTE.
It certainly makes sense for any forward thinking person to maintain a food stock on hand for a number of different reasons - shortages, price increases, financial emergencies, etc. But I have grown skeptical in my advancing years with regard to trusting what I read. Everything these days is a crisis. The weather is a crisis. The climate is a crisis. Water is a crisis. The economy is in a crisis. Now food is a crisis. Well, you get my drift. Everything is sensationalized, and has too many people running around in a panic. No doubt food prices will go up. So will fuel using ethanol. Any excuse will do. People will be so happy just to get the food after being conditioned that there is a food shortage that they won't complain about the increased prices they have to pay. No doubt that the grain farmers already subsidized with our taxes have had a rough spring planting season and the harvest will reflect that in a number of products. But you know what? I don't knowingly eat GMO corn and soy or the processed foods it goes into, and GMO is mostly what they grow. I do eat beef and pork. Chicken, too. I prefer local pasture raised but thats not always available... or affordable. I use gasoline, too, of course, and all of it will increase in cost. Although China is losing its pork, did you know that China now owns the largest pork producer in the US - Smithfield? China may just ship US-grown pork back to China and it will be us to have the pork shortage! Good discussion.
Media high lights gang related shooting in El Paso but ignores this item. Shooters get air time, more shooters wanting publicity.
Imagine that your preps lasted you through the latest disaster 3 months , and just as things are starting to look better another disaster strikes. Fires earth quakes floods and meteor strikes are not on some time table they happen when they happen.. This is where growing food is best, especially in a green house. If there is a nuclear attack the ground will be contaminated 4-6 inches deep or more nuclear fallout that will all have to be scraped off and what's left is not usually top soil so growing is going to be very poor for a long time. A volcanic eruption will be the danger of buildings caving in diligent care is essential. A prepared green house however is at an advantage if it remains intact. and you have a sufficient water supply to maintain it . I have my own water tanks full and the aquaponic garden recycles the water continuously loosing only a portion of water due to evaporation. When I am finished even the condensation on the inside of the green house will be captured and cycled in. Another item is UV lights for growing food . In the event there is a solar winter or shielded sunlight due to volcanic action you will need artificial light to get plants to grow. Gardening is a long learning curve, I am pathetic at best and have so much more to learn ,don't wait for the last minuet to get started .
I'd agree with most of your post, but sorta question how you plan to power UV lights in a solar winter. My limited experience with artificial light is it takes a hell of a lot of it to come close to duplicating ole Sol.
The Media shows up after disaster hits, they are never predictive unless it concerns fantasy propaganda like Global Warming...
Thinking I will call the local Game Warden....Ride with him and shoot a few pigs...You know,Its for the environment.
Shrimp,oysters,gators,hogs,deer,squirrels,birds of all kinds,lot of snakes,beef,and other things I won’t mention. Also a lot of good cooks here in Louisiana,be a while before I go hungry.
One of the easiest food preps is also one of the most important: cooking oil. Olive oil, hog lard, chicken fat, beef tallow--it's all good if it's not transfat. But even transfat is better than nothing. You can get protein and carbs out of plants very easily, but there isn't much fat in spinach. When you are running a little low on calories, fat helps a lot. How long will oil store? I've kept tins of lard for over ten years and found it perfectly good when opened. If you refrigerate your cooking oil, it becomes effectively immortal. Then, if the power goes out, you can start counting down on that "2-year shelf life" that people bandy about as if it were a Law of Nature. Now is a very good time for several families to get together, buy a hog or beef, and divvy it up. Kill the animal, dress, and butcher it yourself. It's not all that hard to do. What doesn't get smoked gets hot packed, or made into link sausage--which then gets hot packed. Boil the bones down into bone broth In my area a guy has 400-lb Berkshires he's selling for $100.00 on the hoof. Skinned & quartered for $150.00. At 57% yield, that's 228 lbs of meat, at $0.44/lb that's hard to beat. Plus there would be other usable products, like organ meats. Processing a hog alone might be a lot of work for one man, but it would be easy work for 4 families. Waste nothing. Burn the bones and spread the ash on your garden. Tan the hide: you'll find a use for it. Then, a month later, do it again. Act now: a full pantry awaits you.
I'm amazed anyone can, or would, raise a hog to 400lb and sell it for 100 bucks. I see 'market weight' ones (225-250lb) going for 160 bucks and that seems dirt cheap. I do have to buy my feeders, and the price varies year to year from $30-50, (even raising your own you have to factor in feed costs for the parents) but I still have another couple hundred minimum in feed along with pasture and garden/orchard stuff. I'll be killing the first of our two this Tuesday morning.
I just put half a cow, grass fed/finished, in the freezer. All vacuum packed. Not cheap! $4.50 lb. hanging weight. Raised on a farm locally. Still have a bit of grass fed Berkshire hog remaining. Didn't get it for $100, though! *laugh*
The "Looming Food Crisis" has been around for a while from Feb 2011 In wealthy nations as well as in poor ones, consumers express alarm about fast-rising food prices, and their governments are well aware that shortages can quickly translate into unrest and political crisis. Complaints today may be mild compared with those looming ahead unless governments take steps to curb policies that encourage speculation, warns economist David Dapice. Subsidies that divert corn to ethanol fuel reduce food supplies and add to price rise. Despite extreme weather events in some exporting nations, per-capita food production has climbed in recent years, he explains, adding that low interest rates encourage speculation, stockpiling and waste. Price hikes are less noticeable for wealthiest consumers whose products carry high marketing and packaging costs, but for the poor it’s a question of survival. Research and technology advances in the agriculture industry may sustain a growing population for only so long. Failure to address the needs of the poor could risk security for all. – YaleGlobal
I'd love to sell one of my Dexter beef for $2lb hanging.....can't get a nibble off Craig's List...I figure it was too big an amount to shell out for most folks (6-700lbs hanging). Processing would add about another 75 cents/lb including vacuum pack. Considering slaughtering a couple, keeping the prime cuts and canning the rest for dog food.
Dad did custom butchering in the '50s. Even out of practice we could take two 200lb butchers off the platform and he'd have them swinging in halves in 45 min. That's skinning them, scrapping is too much work. his hog skins were so thin you'd see the hair follicles on the inside. When you butcher figure on loosing one third of the weight every time you touch them, ie: live weight 200lb, dressed weight 150lbs. cut and wrapped 100lbs. We didn't, but if you save and use everything return would be better, casings etc. After the scare about T.S.E. I'd avoid brain and any neurological matter especially from bovines. Did anybody out there grow up having smoked pig hocks and kale? That's one meal I really miss.
