NorthStarXO  

Last week we talked about emergency evacuation and how to prepare your vehicle. The week before we touched on Sheltering In Place. This week I want to go back over the Shelter In Place discussion but focus on the topic of the global food crisis.

Let's start with some of this week's news stories because I can't believe that we're in such a position, globally, considering all this planet has to offer. There are too many reasons that we shouldn't be in this position and too many obvious, political reasons that we are. It's ridiculous.

So here's the news:

Hundreds of Thousands Face Famine as Rats Devour Rice Crops in India
Friday, April 18, 2008
Associated Press
GAUHATI, India - A food shortage has hit nearly 70 percent of a remote
Indian state's people after an army of rats began devouring rice crops
and triggered a famine scare, officials said Friday.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,351740,00.html

World Bank Leader Urges Action on Food
Sunday, April 13, 2008
Associated Press
Washington, DC - The president of the World Bank on Sunday urged
immediate action to deal with mounting food prices that have caused
hunger and deadly violence in several countries.
http://www.foxnews.com/wires/2008Apr13/0,4670,FinanceMeetings,00.html

Guyana Gives Away Seeds Amid Food Crisis
Thursday, April 17, 2008
Associated Press
Georgetown, Guyana - Guyana is tackling the soaring price of food in
markets by sending citizens to their gardens to grow their own.
http://www.foxnews.com/wires/2008Apr17/0,4670,GuyanaSeedGiveaway,00.html

UN: North Korea Faces Potential Food Crisis
Wednesday, April 16, 2008
Associated Press
Seoul, South Korea - North Korea faces a looming food crisis due to
floods last year that devastated the country's agricultural heartland,
exacerbating already perilous shortages, the U.N. food agency said
Wednesday.
http://www.foxnews.com/wires/2008Apr16/0,4670,NKoreaFoodShortages,00.htm

Food Crisis
Friday, March 14, 2008
Washington Post Editorial
Washington, DC - The skyrocketing commodity prices that have made the
Farm Belt one of the most prosperous regions of the United States have
had a rather different impact on large areas of the developing world.
Foodstuffs have gone up 41 percent in price since October 2007, pushing
many people over the line from poverty into privation or even hunger.
The Food and Agriculture Organization, a branch of the United Nations,
has identified 36 "crisis" countries, 21 of which are in Africa. The
World Food Program, another U.N. agency, estimates that it will need
$500 million on top of what donor nations have already pledged to fill
what the WFP calls a global "food gap."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topic/South+Africa?tid=informline

Global Food Crisis Looms as Climate Change and Fuel Shortages Bite
Saturday November 3 2007
The Guardian
London, England - Empty shelves in Caracas. Food riots in West Bengal
and Mexico. Warnings of hunger in Jamaica, Nepal, the Philippines and
sub-Saharan Africa. Soaring prices for basic foods are beginning to lead
to political instability, with governments being forced to step in to
artificially control the cost of bread, maize, rice and dairy products.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2007/nov/03/food.climatechange

Food Crisis Feared as Fertile Land Runs Out
December 6, 2005
The Guardian
Madison, WI - New maps show that the Earth is rapidly running out of
fertile land and that food production will soon be unable to keep up
with the world's burgeoning population. The maps reveal that more than
one third of the world's land is being used to grow crops or graze
cattle.
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines05/1206-01.htm

Bangladesh Faces Food Crisis
Thursday, 10 April 2008
BBC News
Dhaka, Bangledesh - There is a simple enough way of judging how serious
Bangladesh's food crisis has become this year - it is to count the
changing number of people queuing up to buy government-subsidised rice
each day. 
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/7341111.stm

The Food Crisis: Global Markets and Deregulation Strike Again
April 18th, 2008
Food First/Institute for Food and Development Policy
You wouldn't know it by watching Congressional debate on C-SPAN, but if
you turn on the news, it's clear that the global food system is in
crisis. Food prices globally have skyrocketed, in some cases 80%. Food
protests and riots from Italy to Yemen have begun capturing worldwide
attention, and policymakers are scrambling to point fingers at a litany
of culprits-everything from climate change, high oil prices, a weak
dollar and the biofuels boom, to meat eaters in China. All of these
factors have played a part in the current crisis, but the blame game is
also allowing one culprit-the principle protagonist in this story-to get
away with not even a mention. It's a character you might have heard of
recently for its role in that little unfortunate sub-prime mortgage
mess. That's right, deregulation.
http://www.foodfirst.org/en/node/2099

Pouring Fuel on the Food
April 16th, 2008
Food First/Institute for Food and Development Policy
This week's headlines are ablaze with reports of food riots. Seemingly
overnight, the world went from cheap food and surpluses to food prices
spiking 80% and countries banning exports of food in an attempt to stave
off shortages.
http://www.foodfirst.org/en/node/2090

Rising Food Prices, Rising Food Protests
April 11th, 2008
Food riots are currently on the rise across the globe, caused less by
shortfalls in world food production than by the rising food prices that
increased 45 percent in the past 9 months (July 2007 through March
2008), according to the FAO.

The global surge in protests and conflicts over rising food prices began
in January 2007 with Mexico's "tortilla crisis" when tortilla prices
more than doubled over the previous year. The country's dominant
tortilla producers, Gruma (of which ADM owns 27%), claimed that it was
passing along the high corn prices that were being pushed up by US
ethanol policy. However, public outrage pressured the president to open
an investigation as to whether the company had been hoarding supplies so
as to artificially lift prices even further. Reports say that 70,000
protesters took to the streets, some with banners reading "no queremos
PAN, queremos tortillas" in a play on the word "pan" that rejected both
the white bread that some households had been forced to switch to as
well as President Calderon's PAN political party. For more, see
http://grist.org/comments/food/2007/02/22/tortillas/

As grain prices continued to rise-corn, wheat, and soy have each
approximately doubled over the past two years-discontent erupted in
places that had not fallen victim to such overt price-gouging.

* Italy: In September, Italians boycotted their national food, pasta,
for one day to protest a jump in the cost of wheat and other staples.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/6992444.stm

* Morocco: Protesters stymied government plans to raise the price of
bread by 30% after a confrontation that injured at least 50 people.
Violence returned in January, killing 60.
http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/F6F855F2-BF6D-4C99-BBF9-E21FDA362
...
* Mauritania: In November, one person died and several were injured
after police clashed with groups of mostly young people complaining
about the price of cereals and oils.
http://www.mg.co.za/articlepage.aspx?area=/breaking_news/breaking_news__
...
* Senegal: Riots were sparked after the president issued an order to
evict street vendors in a climate of growing discontent over food prices
and inequality. "Prices of basic commodities are reaching
incomprehensible levels," a union leader told the Integrated Regional
Information Networks. http://allafrica.com/stories/200711220888.html

* Indonesia: In January, 10,000 protesters pressured the government to
lift an import tax on soy, a predominately imported staple source of
protein for working people, that had doubled in price on world markets.
http://www.asiaone.com/News/Latest%2BNews/Asia/Story/A1Story20080215-498
...
* Burkina Faso: In February rioters targeted government buildings two
weeks after officials pledged to take "strong measures" to control the
rising prices of food and other basic goods.
http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=76905

* Cameroon: At least 20 people were killed in the country's worst
rioting in 15 years after the president announced an extension to his
regime's rule. Protesters demanded cuts in food and fuel prices as well
as the president's resignation.
http://uk.reuters.com/article/oilRpt/idUKL2934234720080229?pageNumber=1&
...
* Yemen and Middle East: A dozen people were killed in a string of
protests over bread prices that have doubled over the past four months.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/25/world/middleeast/25economy.html?_r=1&r
...
* Egypt: Shortages of subsidized bread have created long lines, making
for tense situations that have occasionally turned violent. At least 10
people died during the first two weeks of March outside of bakeries that
produce subsidized bread.
http://www.reliefmine.com/articles/preparedness/61-preparedness/101-food

http://www.foodfirst.org/en/node/2086

France to Double Aid for Food Crisis
April 18, 2008
Allied Foreign Press
Paris, France - France will double its emergency food aid this year,
spending 60 million euros (100 million dollars), President Nicolas
Sarkozy said Friday, as he warned the world's food crisis was breeding
unrest.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20080418/bs_afp/francepovertyinflationaid_080418095730

And for the one GREAT news article I saw:

UK Finds 15 Possible Sites for Eco-Towns
Thursday, April 03, 2008
Associated Press
London, England - The British government selected 15 possible locations
Thursday for its ambitious plans to build 10 new low-energy,
carbon-neutral towns entirely from recycled materials.
http://www.foxnews.com/wires/2008Apr03/0,4670,BritainEcoTowns,00.html

**************************************************************

Can you believe all this? I'm not sure it's been this bad in all the years I've been alive which is 43. I vaguely remember the gas & energy crisis in 1973. I don't think that there has been a food crisis of this level in my lifetime.

I think our biggest problem here in the US will be due to the price of fuel raising the price of food. I know that I can't afford to commute and keep buying food at the same time. Gasoline is over $3.50 a gallon here and milk is $4.29 per gallon. I can shop around and get these cheaper. I have a special gas station I go to where gas was still $3.39/gallon this morning and up the street it was $3.77.

I can shop around and get milk for $3.57 a gallon. But how much gas will I spend going out of my way?

Stocking up and shopping the sales is what you need to do. For everything, not just food.

Our website, at www.preparednessnetwork.org/northstar has all the FEMA & Red Cross recommendations but I'm talking about some serious stocking up. Buckets, cans, bottles & jars of back up emergency food.

Per person you should have the following for one year:

Grains

150 pounds of wheat

25 pounds flour, corn meal, oats

50 pounds rice

25 pound pasta

This is 300 pounds of grains per person

Fats & Oils

4 lbs shortening

2 gal vegetable oil

2 qt mayonnaise

1 qt salad dressing

4 lbs peanut butter

For a total of 25 lbs fats & oils

Legumes/Beans

30 lbs dry beans

5 lbs lima beans

10 lbs soy beans

5 lbs split peas

5 lbs lentils

5 lbs dry soup mix

For a total of 60 lbs of legumes/beans

Sugars

3 lbs Honey

40 lbs sugar

3 lbs brown sugar

1 lbs molassas

3 lbs corn syrup

3 lbs jam

6 lbs fruit drink, powdered

1 lbs flavored gelatin

For a total of 60 lbs of sugar

Dairy

60 lbs Dry Milk

12 lb Evaporated Milk

13 lbs Other

For a total of 75 lbs of dairy

Cooking & Baking Staples

1 lbs Baking Powder

1 lbs Baking Soda

0.5 lbs Yeast

5 lbs Salt

0.5 gal Vinegar

14 gal water

1 gal bleach

You'll have to get meat through hunting and fishing unless you've stored a lot of canned meat. The list above are the staples. The basics that will give you protein and energy to survive but you'll have to learn how to hunt & gather to supplement these items.

Get a good book that lists the local plants that are edible. Make sure it's for your region.

Do you like your spring mix salad or mesclun salad? Some of what are in these mixes are weeds and wild plants like dandelions, corn salat, purslane - stuff that you can find in your yard, around your neighborhood, etc. You have to make sure that these items aren't treated. Don't use chemicals on your lawns. And don't forage next to a travelled road. The remnants of exhaust can contaminate the food.

Plant a garden. You can plant in containers and keep them in lighted windows in your home if you don't have a deck, patio or yard. You can buy seeds that are sealed in a can for long-term storage. These are heirloom seeds which are the kind you want to buy. Heirloom seeds are seeds that you can save and they will grow the same plant next time. Seeds nowadays are genetically-modified and if you save the seeds and replant them you may not even get the same plant. You definitely won't be able to harvest the same vegetables or fruits.

Stock up on canned food. Take your budget and add a buffer in it in case there's something on sale so that you can buy extras. Canned food needs to be rotated but you can do that by putting new purchases behind old purchases.

Also, watch buying at big box club stores. It's not always a deal and I've actually seen where it would cost more to buy six cans of corn then if you bought the same brand at the grocery store that's not on sale.

Books Recommended in This Show:

Squarefoot Gardening by Mel Bartholomew 

Living on An Acre: A Practical Guide to the Self-Reliant Life by U.S. Department. of Agriculture (Author), Christine Woodside (Editor) 

The Self-Sufficient Life and How to Live It by John Seymour and Deirdre Headon

The Self-Reliant Homestead: A Book of Country Skills by Charles A. Sanders 

The Modern Homestead Manual by Skip Thomsen and et al 

Root Cellaring: Natural Cold Storage of Fruits & Vegetables by Mike Bubel (Author), Nancy Bubel (Author) 

Back to Basics: How to Learn and Enjoy Traditional American Skills by Reader's Digest