Food Shortage

[Wifezilla]

If the SHTF we are all doomed as the government will not tell us about any predicted shortages until it's too late

That's why some of us started preparing LAST YEAR (or earlier...I was a little slow on the uptake )

I'm one of those wierdos that think the dollar will collapse, in which case it might be worth it to invest in land while the money is still worth something. I welcome y'alls' perspectives on this.

Buy the land. Seriously.

Koxxx and I have both been following the crop reports and various info on yields. Something is rotten in the state of Denmark. It doesn't add up.

 

[rebecca100]

Fortunately we have family and friends to count on. However I do not to be where we are now if TSHTF. We have decided NOT to sell our places in AR(rent instead). There is just too much happening down here for my comfort and I want to be able to get us and his family out of here if necessary. We have 10 acres in AR while small would support us if we didn't overcrowd it and it is in a remote area with like-minded people for a distant neighbor. I feel more at home there than I have anywhere including the home I grew up in.
I honestly didn't know modified seeds couldn't be saved! I want to find some heirloom seeds, but we have moved around and so much has happened in the last 3 years that we haven't been able to finish a garden.

 

[patandchickens]

I honestly didn't know modified seeds couldn't be saved! I want to find some heirloom seeds, but we have moved around and so much has happened in the last 3 years that we haven't been able to finish a garden.

Two different things here -- bottom line being, you needn't likely worry about yours seeds.

1) there are some commercial genetically-modified seed lines that have had a gene added that makes their progeny infertile -- the so called 'terminator gene'. Obviously this is not going to be of any use for you in a saving-seed-for-next-year situation! However I am not sure anyone but Monsanto sells them and I do not believe they are even SOLD small-retail as opposed in agricultural-sized quantities to farmers. I can't imagine you actually have any yourself.

2) what you probably DO have is seed from *hybrid* varieties, which are not genetically-modified (well, I mean, I don't know of any GM varieties available at the small-retail level), it's just that they're produced by crossing two different parent lines. Like sexlink chickens. And just as you can perfectly well breed on from sexlink parents, You can MOST CERTAINLY save seed from hybrid varieties if you want or need to; it just will not come true to the original. You will get more or less of a variety of offspring, some with enough of the traits you want, some kinda crappy. Basically it is less RELIABLE than seeds from open-pollinated lines.

So, ideally you would look for seeds from good locally-adapted open-pollinated varieties... but in a pinch, anything will do

And honestly, experience in how to tend the soil and grow the plants will count for a LOT more than what variety seed you have, anyhow

Good luck, have fun,

Pat

 

[Farmfresh]

I look at the world as it is today. I see Europe and the European Union on the brink of financial disaster. And we, because of treaties with the IMF, are directly connected to them. Should they collapse, that will bring us down financially right along with them. But you want to know something? No matter what mankind has done or continues to do to our beloved little planet, it's NOTHING compared to what can happen the day mother nature gets up on the wrong side of the bed.

Examples.... Had a Katrina like storm hid New York City, estimated dead, over 100,000. Quite a few of us here I would assume were old enough to remember when Mt. St. Helen's erupted. Fact is in the volacano terms was a minor burp, and still managed to cool the entire planet down by 1 degree for two years. Now think about this, when the caldera under Yellow Stone eventually pops, there goes pretty much all of America's bread basket....for years! This is one of the reasons I was inquiring about a greenhouse in another forum. There might, and I will admit there's only a slim chance of this happening in my life time, chance of a rapid weather change that could prevent any of us from growing outdoors. Everyone knows that eventually California is going to be hit by the "big one". So they've actually prepared for this. But, what about New Madrid fault? That pops again, St. Louis and Memphis will be flattened most assuredly. But of major consequince, there's major fuel (natural gas and oil) lines, rail road and highways that cross the mississippi. If you took that section from St. Louis down about 200 miles and removed every bridge, how much food and resources you think the rest of the bridges can handle?

The Boy Scout motto...."Be Prepared!" You can't prepare for everything. It's impossible to do so and any attempt would just drive one insane. If we start worrying about every little thing that "might" happen, would life really be worth living? I personally don't think so. But we can plan for most things. The rest, well, we'll just have to see.

You bring a lot of valid thoughts to the table. Volcanic activity HAS caused world wide famine before and it will again.
1800 and Froze to Death

The New Madrid earthquakes in the years 1812 Quakes causes some major damages and effects were felt across the country. "Church bells were reported to ring as far as Boston, Massachusetts and York, Ontario (now Toronto) and sidewalks were reported to have been cracked and broken in Washington, D.C. There were also reports of toppled chimneys in Maine." These quakes happened at a time when there was little development around to be destroyed. Unfortunately Missouri has never seemed to take any notice of the time bomb it sits on. We have no "earth quake standards" to build our buildings to withstand, like California does. No "hurricane standards" like they do in the south either even though we are SMACK in the middle of tornado alley.

I also perfectly understand about the "quality" of the people that live around me. Wrong is only wrong if you get caught. I am pretty sure MY food supply would be pillaged if anyone knew it existed. The one thing I do have in my favor ... IF I live long enough to use it ... is the KNOWLEDGE of HOW to find (wild foods), grow (gardens) or raise (animals) more food. I also have been using and honing other skills (soap making, preservation etc..) that will be valuable in a TSHTF scenario.

The main issue here (in the city) will be living long enough to use what I know. Even if I had an arsenal at my disposal I would run out of energy to pull the trigger before I ran out of people ready to kill me to fill their belly. Pardon me for being a bit depressive about this stuff, but in this city people kill people just to watch them fall sometimes. I can only imagine how bad it would get if they were truly hungry ... and that would happen within DAYS of a major event.

 

[rebecca100]

I worry about a quake in Arkansas too. We have had very small tremors in our area before, but I look at that as just a warning or reminder. All the oil wells around there have me worried also, but surely it will still be safer than the gulf coast. That is unless something happens at the Pine Bluff arsenal! The CSEPP (chemical stockpile emergency preparedness plan) commercials on tv there the last couple of years have worried me along with the instructions on what to do in a chemical emergency or disaster. Also been ads telling people to prepare for a natural disaster like an earthquake with .gov websites.