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Post by twp on Apr 11, 2022 12:49:26 GMT -6
I've been reading about dire warnings of a food shortage, worldwide. This is coming from both commercial news sources and Prepper websites.
Do you think this is real or is it only Politics intended to spread FUD in the populace?
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Post by drhenley on Apr 11, 2022 22:17:26 GMT -6
The fertilizer shortage is real. But that doesn't affect the current or past harvests, only future harvests down the road. Whether farmers can find a way to grow enough food this year remains to be seen.
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Post by twp on Apr 12, 2022 11:42:53 GMT -6
I agree, based on what I'm reading, that fertilizer is/will be a serious stumbling block for farmers world-wide. Reason for Preppers to stockpile fertilizer AND have a compost pile in operation starting now.
Commercial farms face a crisis if their operations rely on chemical fertilizer application. Reason to find local food sources/farms which don't need commercial fertilizer. This could be hard to find.
Do any of you have recommendations for sources of fertilizer? That could be commercial/chemical stock BUT I think a better option is to find livestock operations from which to buy/trade for manure. Beware of horse manure as it is known to have a different nutrient content than cow manure. Composting with straw/hay is recommended, rather than directly applying horse manure to plant bed.
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Post by drhenley on Apr 12, 2022 12:09:10 GMT -6
If you live near a swamp that is like our swamps, that muck in the bottom of the swamp should work nicely. If you can get close enough with a front end loader without getting stuck...
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Post by twp on Apr 12, 2022 14:14:33 GMT -6
Swamp muck sounds like a viable source of nutrients. I'm in a semi-desert area (Reno, NV) so no swamps locally.'
I do know of some areas in the US northwest states where you can find eutrophic ponds which might be harvested for organic matter, 'course you'd need to own the land. Some states (WA/OR/CA) will make that illegal...
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Post by drhenley on Apr 15, 2022 18:27:04 GMT -6
Some states (WA/OR/CA) will make that illegal... Pretty sure it's not illegal at the BOL, but even if it is I don't know how the state could possibly know. "What happens in the swamp stays in the swamp" as they say...
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Post by twp on Apr 19, 2022 11:13:43 GMT -6
That's true about the Washington DC swamp too...<g>
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Post by kelabar on Apr 22, 2022 6:32:45 GMT -6
A lot of it is clickbait. An example on the theburningplatform.com has this headline: "Global Rice Production Set To Plunge 10%, Threatening Half Of Humanity". Read that again, the maths doesn't quite add up in that headline. Also rice production is "set" to plunge. It hasn't actually decreased at all. And the "threat" may be that, if rice production was 'decimated' (the media missed a good shock/horror word there), half the planet may have to sometimes have noodles not rice with their Kung Pow chicken; oh, the horror.
I wouldn't worry too much about actual food production. Even a complete lack of fertilizer for a year wouldn't affect overall production much and the article mentions only a theoretical 20% reduction is fertilizer use. Not every acre is planted every year and alternatives are available to mass application of fertilizer. Long term, over a period of years, yields would fall for sure if no fertilizer at all was available More importantly infrastructure, personnel and fuel are all still there. TBH any disruptions haven't been due to Covid or war, they have been due to govs and corporations. There isn't a problem, get the gov/corp idiots out of the way and there really has been no change to food systems. This is the key point. Farmers grow it, middle men shift it and/or process it, consumers eat it. Same as it ever was. Same as it still can be if there is no interference.
Of much more concern is events like Sri Lanka. They recently defaulted on their bonds. So the whole country is now up for sale. Cue Monsanto/Cargill/etc buying up the whole country at discount prices. Will Sri Lankans suffer? For sure, but like any corporation cares. Just ask the Tamils about human rights! Then you end up with a corrupt mess like Ukraine and not only do the food corporations profit but Lockheed/General Dynamics/etc as well as they "sympathetically help the poor, struggling (totally controlled) gov" suppress the "horrible terrorists" (starving, poverty stricken Sri Lankan civilians trying to feed their families). Are you seeing a pattern here yet. This sort of crap used to only happen in third world and African countries but it is spreading to the first world now. That is the real concern.
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Post by kelabar on Apr 22, 2022 6:43:57 GMT -6
As for ways to protect your own food production, I can only stress the magnificence of chemical fertilizers. The NPK chemicals such as superphosphate, MAP, DAP, urea, ammonium sulfate, etc can supply very high yields with application of a relatively small amount of fertilizer. Having a few bags of these sealed up and stored gives you a big advantage. Yes, compost, soil improvement and other organic methods work well but they are long term methods often requiring a full season to produce yield increases or sustainable long term yields. They are of no use if you starve during that season. Chemical fertilizers produce instant nutrients which may just make the difference between eating and starving until the compost is produced.
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