What precautions are you taking against the coronavirus in your poly networks?

You may want to see if anyone in the cul de sac can do research on whether COVID-19 is transmissible through Soylent Green prior to executing your plan. ;)
 
You may want to see if anyone in the cul de sac can do research on whether COVID-19 is transmissible through Soylent Green prior to executing your plan. ;)

Good point. That would have to be me. I've been assuming the virus would be killed during the cooking process.
 
River, seeing as you predicted famine for the country, I'm curious what you have to say about the fact that the biggest food problem among Americans in sequester is that we seem to be putting on weight. There's even a hashtag for it - the #Covid15 - and memes abound.

My prediction of food scarcity (and money to buy food with scarcity) were not so much about the immediate near term but the slightly more distant near term, like early or late summer, or maybe autumn. Maybe even later. But soon enough. We're experiencing disruptions now from the collision of a global health crisis with a global financial / economic / political / social crisis.

Enjoy your abundant food supply--and relatively low food prices--now. Tell me "I told you so" if we avoid terrible hardship with food and money through the autumn and into the winter.

Naturally, I hope I'm wrong. But if I'm wrong, the odds are that tens of thousands of food relocalization and backyard / front yard gardens will have staved off the worst potential risks going forward. And, I'm not exactly a voice in the wilderness here, as you will see if you snoop around searching terms like "food security" in relation to coronavirus and economic recession / depression. This is something the whole world is talking about, albeit, in whispers for now compared to the days to come.

Happy gardening!

Oh, and PS... If food prices don't shoot way up soonish I promise to eat my hat. Especially with regard to certain staple items like rice and wheat products. I predict a doubling or tripling of prices for these (globally averaged) in the near term. Or worse. Possibly much worse.
 
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River is speaking from a middle class bubble. The thing is, it takes quite a bit of money and especially, time, to plant, maintain and harvest a crop. Very few people today have the ability to grow enough food to last them through the winter.

It takes hours a day in the hot sun to plant, water, weed, and prune a garden. It takes time and a lot of knowledge to rid the plants of pests and diseases, whether you do it organically or by using chemicals.

People at the poverty line might have time to nurture a few plants. Single mothers would have to arrange reliable, safe and free childcare to be able to spend a few hours a week tending to a lot of plants, instead of tending to their children. They would also need easy access to a close by community garden. If River has great ideas about how single mothers, either rural or urban, are going to find this garden space and free childcare, by all means, do tell.


I'm living well under the middle class bubble.

If millions of people grow small gardens which require relatively little time to maintain while peri urban polyculture farms utilize some the underutilized labor of the moment, etc., etc., etc. (don't expect me to write a whole book here, which is what it would take to get the idea across), maybe we can escape the worst case scenario.

What's happening in our world can ONLY be understood holistically, not as separate pieces that function independently. There is currently mass unemployment everywhere (nearly). If you're going to talk down to me this way I'll return the favor. How do you think 99.5% of people get food? With money, at grocery stores -- right? How much money will be circulating in July, August, September...? A hell of a lot less, right? Do you think this virus will have gone away by then? My answer is: not even close. Nor will the economic shocks be going away in the near future -- unless some unexpected miracle happens.

Things are intertwined and interconnected, and I'm too busy trying to prevent catastrophe to spell out the infinite details of my "theory' -- which is simply that all of our artificial systems are FAR more fragile (irresilient) than folks who doubt me are supposing. But it's my job to know that. It's what I do.

Meanwhile, I'm actively creating real stuff in the real world to address the problem, and it is working at all levels … all at once. Mostly, as much as possible, without calling too much attention to myself. It isn't about me, after all. it is about us.

One among hundreds or thousands of things happening now which may help us through this is:

https://civileats.com/2020/04/02/the-moment-for-food-sovereignty-is-now/

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/25/dining/victory-gardens-coronavirus.html

https://www.experimentalfarmnetwork.org/project/28

https://www.facebook.com/groups/cooperativegardens/

https://www.politico.com/newsletter...rdens-born-out-of-coronavirus-pandemic-786441

https://www.resilience.org/stories/...ponse-requires-post-growth-economic-thinking/
 
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I'm not saying that millions of tiny backyard gardens, requiring a relatively small investment in time, energy, etc., is ENOUGH to stave off worst case scenarios all by themselves. Nope. It's not that simple. I'm not that simple! But if millions of unemployed people start this process we will also be talking amongst ourselves about what more we can do -- such as creating peri urban polyculture farms where that is possible. And much more!

It's about PROCESS. The process which is industrial agriculture and its supply chain and money dependencies are much more fragile than most of us realize.
We don't realize it because we expect it will always work just fine, so why bother looking into it?

Those who actually look into it learn what I know. Those who don't, don't.
 
Meat plants, a.k.a, meat packing plants, with thousands of workers are closing all over the country, in large and expanding numbers right now because their workers are getting sick with coronavirus.

This will impact the price of meat, sending it up. It will likely also impact supply. This is just one of myriad disruptions to our industrial food supply.
 
How will someone with no "backyard" and no reliable childcare and no income afford to find some land, enrich the soil, purchase plants or seeds, and plant and tend to a garden that will make any appreciable benefit in her ability to feed herself and her children?

I understand you are talking about planting "Victory Gardens" much like was encouraged and done in WWII. I like a nice veggie garden myself. There's nothing wrong with being prepared. I just don't see how a person who is "well below the middle class" can do it. You can. You live on a cul de sac. You have a smartphone or computer. You're not as poor as the single mothers I am concerned for. They don't have a wifi connection. They don't own a cell phone. They might be homeless. Who is going to feed them? You?
 
I've done a fair amount of research into the food restrictions during and after WWII, in the US and in England.

Both countries had food rationing during the war. England had poverty and food restrictions for several years after the war. Most people didn't even get refrigerators until well into the 1950s. Many didn't have indoor plumbing except for maybe a cold water tap.

It was much different in the US, since many people had refrigerators well before the war. And our food became abundant right after the war, men came home from overseas, women stayed home again and made babies and cooked and cleaned like servants.

I'm not sure what was done with the double whammy of WWI and the influenza pandemic, but it would be interesting to look into it. Our countries were a bit less urbanized then. We didn't have much in the way of industrialized farming. Small family farms were extremely common.

So you're thinking that this "war" on Covid will cause food shortages and our food will become expensive, and maybe even be rationed. Surely a victory garden by all who can afford to have one, would be a great idea. Veggie gardens are a great idea anytime.

Most people have lost the farming skills they probably had back in the early 20th century, although some take more interest in organic food now than in the latter part of the 20th century, when most people were excited to eat out of cans and the freezer.
 
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