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The Coming Food Catastrophe

economist.com

121–130 of 634 posts

Re: The Coming Food Catastrophe

#121

Tip from an old geezer: Plant Your Victory Garden Now! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victory_garden

Been practicing since 2020. Never ceases to amaze me how LONG it's taking society to fall apart.

How did society fall apart? "Gradually, then suddenly".

Re: The Coming Food Catastrophe

#122
post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wanna add a solar panel. Having 50 or 100w is going to make my life a lot better than 0w.

If you have the setup where you've got that connected and make it work, that's a great idea. The neighbors next to my building have some on their roof--it's not too different from having batteries for your radio.

You can get 100-ish watt solar panels on Amazon surprisingly cheaply, and they're small enough to take car-camping.

https://www.amazon.com/PROGENY-Portable-Kickstand-Flashfish-...

https://www.amazon.com/Jackery-SolarSaga-Portable-Explorer-F...

Re: The Coming Food Catastrophe

#123
I am refusing to agree that it is all "Putin's fault". The war is his decision and is not to understand from the normal Western position. However, it is the decision of the West to sanction Russia and to

1) accept increasing energy prices

2) accept a lower fertilizer production

3) break up supply chains even further

4) accept the refugee crisis, the costs of entering this war as a proxy combatant, sending tens of billions to not let the enemy win

5) ... and ultimately win and accept the even worse consequences: pouring billions into a corrupt Ukraine to rebuild it, deal with a terrible unbalanced post-war society (women who came to the West will stay, men will find no women in UA after the war; young people will stay in Europe, while UA population will be much older on average after the war) and finally a Russia crisis that could be something like the "crazy 90s 2.0" or a Russia that broke into many unstable post-Russian republics.

I am saying this as a person with UKRANIAN ROOTS.

The West has decided to fight for some "Western values" and now all people living here have to accept the costs and long-term consequences.

Re: The Coming Food Catastrophe

#124

What nobody understands is that this is not happening strictly because of the war or the drought, but because of the fragility of the global food system, which simply cannot bear any shocks. https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/10/2/02... https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-019-1712-3 https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/may/19/banks-... We either fix this or we simply won't have a global…

... but the only fix is going to mean higher prices.

Though that's not going to fix it, just burry those who are already on the edge financially.

Re: The Coming Food Catastrophe

#126

What nobody understands is that this is not happening strictly because of the war or the drought, but because of the fragility of the global food system, which simply cannot bear any shocks. https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/10/2/02... https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-019-1712-3 https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/may/19/banks-... We either fix this or we simply won't have a global…

I think it is but it's worth asking ourselves: is a global fold system worth the trouble we have to go through?

Re: The Coming Food Catastrophe

#127
post #103

Tip from an old geezer: Plant Your Victory Garden Now! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victory_garden

This is really hard, I had four 8x4 raised beds (all I could fit) for 5 years. The amount of space and time it takes to produce enough food to replace actual meals for more than just a few times in the summer is absolutely astonishing (unless you like squash all the time). I grew tomatoes, kale, squash, onions, lettuce and peppers. It tasted great, and got some salads and side dishes out of it, but that was about it.…

Consider canning and fermenting some of your food. Also, grow things that can last throughout winter, such as potatoes, carrots, beets, etc. They can last in a cool dark place for months. Broccoli and Okra can be blanched and flash-frozen. Cucumbers can make pickles.

There are tons of good ideas out there about preserving your own food. But, I agree, that a small garden won't take a big bite out of your food needs. You're not trying to become self-sufficient, you're trying to lower your reliance on store-bought food.

Re: The Coming Food Catastrophe

#128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't have to grow 100% of your food to benefit from a home garden.

Sure, but "the coming food catastrophe" implies something more than "I grow some tomatoes in a corner of my yard" as a necessary response. A garden is great, but it's not gonna solve a global food crisis.

The post you're replying to suggests a Victory Garden. While a personal victory garden may not have a big effect on global food supplies, it can absolutely help supplement food for households that are squeezed by higher food prices (which is another side effect of global food shortages).

Victory gardens, also called war gardens or food gardens for defense, were vegetable, fruit, and herb gardens planted at private residences and public parks in the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Australia and Germany during World War I and World War II. In wartime, governments encouraged people to plant victory gardens not only to supplement their rations but also to boost morale. They were used along with rationing stamps and cards to reduce pressure on the public food supply.

Re: The Coming Food Catastrophe

#129

What nobody understands is that this is not happening strictly because of the war or the drought, but because of the fragility of the global food system, which simply cannot bear any shocks. https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/10/2/02... https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-019-1712-3 https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/may/19/banks-... We either fix this or we simply won't have a global…

I wouldn't argue against the research but to me, the "global food system" is much more robust than I imagined.

We stayed in our homes for months en mass without prep time and prior warning and the food availability barely changed. We are creatures that need to eat multiple times a day and yet we can stay in our homes for months and get fed just as well. Therefore I'm not very worried about the management of the food production and distribution, we are extremely good at it.

Thanks to the global nature of it, things move quickly and even though a problem in one location can be felt everywhere we don't end up with millions of deaths in that location. I'm really not onboard with "localize everything" motto because everything being local means catastrophic consequences at local issues.

What scares me is something biological or ecological happening at global scale. Something that takes at least 6 months to fix for example.

Re: The Coming Food Catastrophe

#130
post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wanna add a solar panel. Having 50 or 100w is going to make my life a lot better than 0w.

If you have the setup where you've got that connected and make it work, that's a great idea. The neighbors next to my building have some on their roof--it's not too different from having batteries for your radio.

A lot of the grid tied systems don’t even support off-line use, but you could always bodge something together during prolonged outages.
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