Grow more food! Think there will be more shortages

General Gardening
#397

Oh come on, leave the nonsense elsewhere. Let’s talk about growing food not your conspiracy bs.

#398

conspiracy is in the eye of the beholder. :wink: there’s a reason things are going to crap even if its being ignored on the news.

5 Likes
#399

Oh, yes. Knoxville TN (actually across the line in Anderson Co.) has been collecting methane from the ‘dump’ for probably going on 30 years.

#400

Steve I see you got 9 ‘likes’ but your comment that got removed.
Seems incongruous.

#401

It also got flags.

I don’t think this thread is going to be able to stay open much longer.

3 Likes
#402

@scottfsmith

We may as you say want to close the thread if you feel that’s best. It was supposed to be a thread about growing more food as we thought there would be more shortages at the time. Those shortages have materialized.

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#403

Stuff is getting weird again, like beginning of covid weird as far as not being able to find certain things because of a combination of panic buying, legitimate shortages, and possibly from logistics or infrastructure stresses (likely a combination). The best way to deal with it is doing what we can to grow more ourselves. I decided this past week that I am going to expand our “community office garden” and grow a bunch there this year, where only my coworkers have in the past. Even if my coworkers help to eat it, it will be good to have more local food available.

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#404

Weird is right @disc4tw Ryan. I’m still trying to figure out everyone’s angles. At the end of the day we need to look out for our family and friends.

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#405

I know I’m spoiled when the shortage I feel most acutely is the Kroger brand lactose free 1/2 gallon milk hasn’t been available in Whole for about a month. I’ve been making do with 2%. It’s the only brand, aside from Costco which doesn’t carry whole, that consistently doesn’t taste cooked.

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#406

The lactose free life is not one I lead :grin:

Sam’s club makes a decent vanilla almond milk, and the containers are sturdy and good for starting seeds.

I forget the brand, but my wife was buying a coconut “yogurt” from target for a while that was absolutely amazing. It might not be on the shelves anymore, maybe due to a shortage, not sure.

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#407

I’m lactose intolerant, but think real milk is delicious. I buy a lot of lactase enzyme.

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#408

FWIW, threads like this one are popping up all over the place in the small grower internet space. It is about a real, urgent, present problem.

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#409

The disruption to commodity markets that the Ukraine invasion has caused is worrisome. Here’s some background:

"Hard winter wheats have a higher gluten protein content than other wheats. They are used to make flour for yeast breads, or are blended with soft spring wheats to make the all-purpose flour used in a wide variety of baked products. Pure soft wheat is used for specialty or cake flour. Durum, the hardest wheat, is primarily used for making pasta. Almost all durum wheat grown in North America is spring-planted.

“Winter wheat is grown throughout Europe and North America, and in Siberia.”

According to the Wikipedia article, hard-red-winter wheat comes originally from Ukraine. See, also:

And this:

And this:

“In 2021/22 [Ukraine] is estimated to produce 42mt of corn according to the USDA, and expectations were for exports to total 33.5mt. This would have left Ukraine making up around 17% of global export supply and taking the spot as the world’s fourth largest corn exporter.”

“The USDA estimated it to produce 33mt [of wheat] in 2021/22, whilst exports were expected to total 24mt. This would have left Ukraine as the third largest exporter, holding a share of almost 12% in the global export market.”

“Ukraine is the largest sunflower seed producer, with the USDA estimating 2021/22 output of 17.5mt, which accounts for more than 30% of global output. It also has a large domestic crushing industry, of which sizeable volumes of both sunflower meal and oil are exported.”

The upside is that the hard-red-winter wheat is already in the ground in Ukraine, so we don’t have to rely on the Russian Army to plant it, but they probably won’t be top-dressing fertilizer, which means yields will be down even if harvest proceeds normally later this summer. Moreover, shutting down Russian commerce takes an awfully lot of food and fodder off the market not only from Ukraine but from Russia as well, which is a huge net exporter in its own right.

Gasoline, aviation fuel, and heating oil prices are only the beginning. With such mega-disruptions of commodities markets, currencies markets can’t be far behind. Currencies, after all, are valued for what they’ll buy, and that, in macro-economic terms, is commodities. It’s probably time to pull the panic switch.

6 Likes
#410

U R right about Ukraine supplying much grain.

Some comes from Russia too.

Not likely this season!’

Then, Australia keeps having problems in floods/droughts.

And California rice and lettuce and stuff isn’t being planted this summer…as precipitation only about 60 percent for their rainy season.

And fertilizer prices means a lot of farmers plan to use less…and consequently the harvest smaller in summer and fall.

SHORTAGES should be expected, and prices higher.
So, plant more seeds and fruit bushes.

3 Likes
#411

@BlueBerry

Desalination plants should have been built in California. People will say desalination costs a great deal of money but again it’s not difficult. Droughts in that area are not new. “The Haber Process, also called the Haber-Bosch Process, is a complex chemical procedure that takes nitrogen from the air and under high pressures and temperatures combines it with hydrogen to produce ammonia. This ammonia is the base of the synthetic nitrogen fertilizers increasingly used around the world today.” Hydrogen can be split from water. The current process “In a modern plant, nitrogen fertilizer is produced from natural gas. In several transformation steps, natural gas, essentially methane, is upgraded by combination with nitrogen from the air to form nitrogen fertilizer.” It does not need to be made that way.

We have so much wheat in Kansas we pile it on the ground during harvest because we run out of space in the elevator. “The United States exported some 992 million bushels of wheat in 2020/21, and imported about 100 million metric tons of wheat in that time period.” • U.S. wheat imports and exports, 2022 | Statista . The problem is not that we don’t have plenty of everything it’s about how are the resources used? If they need help with desalination they should just ask since many other countries don’t have this problem

New tech is available

5 Likes
#412

I have more hand crank radios than I’d like to admit, and flashlights, and other disasters supplies. Hand crank radios are fine, but it’s a lot of work for minimal return. In a crisis you’ll crank away if you don’t have any other info, but it’s not my primary plan. Cell phones do a lot of that function now, and can call out.

If you’re wondering what disaster supplies to have on hand, from someone professionally in this space (but not in the prepper space), here’s my list:

  • Bike helmet in the shelter, per person

  • Water, food, snacks (in rodent & bug proof box)

  • SOL 2-person bivvy sack (don’t bother with space blankets, you need to be wrapped up on all sides) - we have one of these in both cars, and our shelter, and our go-bag. They’re tiny, light, affordable, and can save your life.

  • Life Straw for water filtering

  • Flashlights & fire starters (as a last resort - fire and emergencies are not a good combo)

  • Comfort items - books, stuffed animals, toys

  • Fireproof folder for the go-bag - important docs, cash

  • Bucket & bags (toilet) for shelter, wet wipes, antibacterial wipes, dust masks

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#413

Thanks Leah,

That’s some good info, imo.

I’m not sure about the recommendation for the bike helmet?

Sounds like the crank radios are not so great. Your advice matches what I saw on reviews.

1 Like
#414

Bike helmet is for the shelter. Where we are there are tornadoes and hurricanes. It’s to protect fragile heads against flying debris.

1 Like
#415

Gotcha. Thanks!

#416

It’s only expensive when you have to pay someone else to do it. Wind is a great economical option to add to an array, but again, it’s install costs that’ll make the project not worth the time…