Galen Chadwick of the Well-Fed Neighbor Alliance discusses localized farming and how returning America to community-based agricultural production will be a necessity to maintain adequate food supplies.
In Restoring Local Food and Economic Sovereignty Mr Chadwick writes:
You can imagine this scenario: three days after the trucks stop rolling, a thought slowly stirs in the minds of millions of hapless Missourians, one sixth of whom exist in the fog of Federal Food Supplements and handouts. Ultimately, this thought will begin to take the shape of a small bubble, which finally struggles to surface: “I can’t feed myself, and nobody else can either!†No doubt a long silence will follow this epiphany, both individually and collectively. The next thought will be: “Nobody had a “Plan “B.†Ask not for whom the bell tolls . . .etc.
The lesson of history is stark: whom ever controls our food controls our destiny. Because we have lost control of our local and regional food base, the coming fight is not going to be framed by agricultural efficiencies, or government price policies, but the issue of basic survival. The top-down paradigm has failed us, and a grassroots, all-volunteer citizen’s drive to restore local food and jobs has begun. Why? Not one county in Missouri can feed its own people, much less the teeming millions in urban centers.
We have often discussed the importance of survival food preparation at SHTF Plan. While freeze-dried foods, vacuum packed rice and MRE’s should be a part of any emergency preparedeness reserves, we highly recommend learning gardening skills and how to set up a micro farm. It can even be done in the suburbs, on a 1/5 acre plot of land!
Any disruption in our food supply could literally cost millions of people their lives. Take a close look at the government’s response during Hurricane Katrina. Another few days, and people would have been dying by the thousands in New Orleans from lack of food and water. The point is, if there is any disruption in the food supply, then only those who stored food, or those with the means to produce their own food, are going to make it.
Trend forecaster Gerald Celente has said “We don’t need Walmart, we need mom & pops. We don’t need factory farms, we need family farms!” He is right on target, because what he is saying is that we need to bring the production capacity back to the USA, to the local communities, like we did in the first part of the 20th century. It was our ability to produce and innovate, not spend and consume, that made America great.
Mr. Chadwick highlights the problems facing our food supply and how we can return to what we once were:
The last generation that can actually feed itself, and not with overseas slaves, cheap oil, and industrial mono cropping are now in their 80’s and 90’s. The last people with any inkling how to survive, and feed the rest of us, are slip-sliding away. Going with them: control of our mutual destiny. To lose the capacity for food self-sufficiency is to lose the only true commonwealth that the common man has ever had.  The truth? We’ve so lost track of what is essential to our lives that freedom itself is now on the line. Food sovereignty means, “We, the people, have the inalienable and God-given right to own, grow and trade our own food under no other authority than what we ourselves see fit.â€
The changes we desperately need in this country will not come from politicians in Washington D.C. They will come from individuals and organizations on the ground within the local community, like The Well-Fed Neighbor Alliance.
Read Full Article: Restoring Local Food and Economic Sovereignty…
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The last paragraph really caught my eye, that the last generation who really knew how to take care of themselves are now passing away in their 80s and 90s. What will be left is 99.99% of us who are completely dependent on the “system” to provide us with food.
Could this be the reason for Codex Alimentarius? Just wondering. It’s right around the corner I hear, but no one’s talking about it.
We are seeing the pendulum shifting in this country and it’s taking our freedoms along with it. The governement knows that if they take our food supply away from us, then we are completely dependent on them.  Look into HR bill 875 or The FDA Food Safety Modernization Act.   These bills will negative impact every micro farm, or mom and pop farm in America. In my humble opinion, they are trying to obliderate the American dream as we know. In response to the title of this blog, (boy did you get it right) I would like to quote Catherine Bertini, UN World Food Program Executive Director, 1997,
How scary is that?
Chris, that is exactly why we don’t hear about the Codex Alimentarius! What good are independent producers/thinkers that are not reliant on the system?
Personal, home farming/gardening is under attack and may soon be outlawed!!
Federal Food Police Coming Soon to a Farm Near You!
Oh, i just realized Tess linked to similar information 🙂
I have all ready purchased my “Survival Seeds” . Non -Genetic Modified or Hy- Bred type . Yeah I know , I know . I got to wait for the veggies to grow . Thats why  I have stored food as well . We are rapidly approaching the time when it will be too late to prepare. I hope everybody gets the picture . Prepare NOW .
Many seed catalogs are mailing out right now. I’ve seen the “Survival seeds” ads on websites and done the math, they are VERY expensive and needlessly so. Many seed suppliers sell open-pollinated varieties much cheaper than those “Survival seed” packages. Some good ones:
Pine Tree seeds http://www.superseeds.com
Territorial Seed http://www.territorialseed.com
Sorry to be late to this important discussion. I posted this a s a reply recently on one of the Traders’ sites (ES) and it closely alligns with what you’re talking about (the North Korea reference was about food rationing):
“Interesting about North Korea but that will never happen here, right? An opinion piece on Bloomberg yesterday ( http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601039… ) raises the question: How involved & intrusive can (will) OUR Government be during crisis in pursuit of a ‘National Interest’. The answer? Supreme Court precedent suggests it’s pretty much limitless.
While most market-type folks like us are at least passingly familiar with Executive Order 6102, which was the order signed in 1933 by FDR “forbidding the Hoarding of Gold Coin, Gold Bullion, and Gold Certificates” by U.S. citizens (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gold_confiscation ) , Bloomberg raises the much lesser known case of Ohio farmer Roscoe Filburn, who in 1941 planted 23 acres of his land & subsequently harvested 462 bushels of wheat (soley for his own use) – which was 239 bushels more than he was allowed under the Agricultural Adjustment Act of 1938 ( http://www.law.louisville.edu/constitution-day/… ).
“In a landmark decision styled Wickard v. Filburn, 317 U.S. 111 (1942), the Supreme Court rejected Mr. Filburn’s challenge and upheld the Agricultural Adjustment Act. Wheat grown on the Filburn farm, though consumed on the premises and never shipped out of state, sufficiently affected the national economy to permit federal regulation of Mr. Filburn’s crop and that of millions of other similarly situated farmers.”
While there are significant differences between the 30s and today, it still behooves us to game out likely policy choices (such as confiscation, hyperinflation, currency devaluation, etc) and organize a strategy based on probabilities accordingly. Once done, history (and Rosco Filburn) suggests we extend the outlier outcomes well beyond anything we consider reasonable given current conditions….”
So I’m making two points –
1)HR875 (or any other control or confiscation initiative) if passed will be upheld by the Supremes – that is a fact based on legal precedent.
 2)There is conceivably no limit to how far Goovt will go if the S really does HTF. Nothing is too ‘small’ to be dismissed. Consider that a small family farmer was heard (and rejected) in the Supreme Court over a couple hundred bushels of wheat that were to never to be sold nor leave his control! Therefore you need to be thinking waaaaayyyy outside the, er, box when contemplating outlier scenarios and your possible options/reactions.