Food, Food Shortages, and Your Fundamental Independence

Weekly Mourner 7, August 24, 2020By Ethan Elgersma (contributor)

(From the Editor)This article by a guest contributor is about food. Oh yeah. And it is a recipe of sorts. A really good one. It’s a recipe we all need to begin to follow.

     My Grandparents canned food for years. It was food that they had grown in their own sizable garden. I remember thinking about it like it was magic when I was little. What I mean by that is that I couldn’t wrap my mind around how someone could grown their own food, turn it into delicious, organic, tomato sauce, for example, and then keep jars and jars of it for what seemed like years. They had a whole pantry full of food they had grown and stored. They grew their own herbs and spices too. It’s not that they didn’t shop at a grocery store, but a great deal of the food we would eat at Sunday dinner was garden grown right in their own backyard. My Grandfather also composted scraps and replenished his own garden beds with it. 

     Being independent is a lost art. But these kinds of losses happen by degree, usually, don’t they? It makes sense to conclude that the farther out society gets from the kind of independence my Grandparents demonstrated for most of their lives, the more willing a society will become to give up other facets of independence. If one can’t even feed oneself when it matters then one may soon come to be dependent on others for their essential philosophical independence. 

Dependent on others for independence.

In civil terms, that’s the scourge of our time in America. 

It’s not that I don’t cherish the luxury of a constantly stocked local grocery. I do. I hope it’s always around. But independence amidst the luxury of plentiful food and incredible technology is really an art that we must learn again in this society. It’s a must. In my family we try to buy meat that is locally sourced from farms that we know. It’s one small way to be independent. I think the fate of our nation does hinge to a significant degree on this concept. Will we embrace true independence or not? If we don’t, how can we balance this Republic? If we cannot balance this Republic… or… if we allow bureaucracy to become our independence, which is no independence at all, but utter dependence, then we are all headed toward life under totalitarian tyranny. This isn’t alarmist. It’s a common world experience. We would be amazed if we knew how often the descent into utter tyranny and oppression began with food. Research that. It will blow your mind. 

So it’s with great pleasure that I want to introduce this article by my friend and acquaintance, and contributor to the Mourner, Mr. Ethan Elgersma. 

Read this article with an open mind. This is no shallow environmentalism. This is a clarion call to be independent in the most righteous sense of the word. And we begin with our nom noms. Food. 

Happy reading friends. 

editor in chief,

screm

Food and food security

IN the modern world there are two types of propellant, oil and food.  Without these the world cannot function.  We have built our modern industrial system on the ready availability of fossil fuels, all the while ignoring the second half of the equation…..food.  

     Throughout history humans have been largely responsible for what goes into their mouths.  It has been the driving force of humanity, eating as a means of staying alive.  Hence the ever changing weather patterns, regional conflict, invading insects, fire, war, and the ability to harvest and plant have been first and foremost in the minds of our ancestors.  If you look back through history you can witness the struggle to eat, to survive, and the adaptation that took place, from hunting and gathering to agriculture and animal husbandry.  Society depends on food.  

Which brings us to the modern era.  We are entering an incredibly unique moment in history.  Never have so many people been dependent on so few for their sustenance. 

 AS the population of the earth has exploded the people and industries responsible for feeding this ever burgeoning humanity have shrunk dramatically.  This has only been possible because of technology of course, taking the workload of thousands and transitioning it into the hands of a dozen or so individuals.  There has also been a great monopolization of the food industry, out of the hands of thousands of small farmers and ranchers and into a few massive, industrial, globalized conglomerates (Look up Tyson, Monsanto, and Bayer to name a few).  This monopolization of the food industry has radically transformed history in just a few short years.  For example… look at the number of dairy farms in Wisconsin now as opposed to fifty years ago.  Look at the diversity of seeds and crops in the last fifty years. Look at the soil erosion, the genetically modified plants, the virus mutations and the advent of new and incredibly dangerous diseases (“mad cow” and “chronic wasting” diseases). These are all byproducts of an industry that has become unsustainable and corrupt.  Food has been literally taken out of the hands of the individual and transferred to a quasi global government institution and trust me, they don’t have your best interests in mind.  

     Fifty years ago almost everyone grew a garden.  We knew about seeds, we passed them down from generation to generation.  We knew how to care for animals, we understood birthing cycles and death and diseases and we were able to care for it all.  We preserved food, in jars and smoke houses and cellars.  We understood the value of safeguarding the one asset that humans require to survive.  Food.  

     Fast forward fifty years and we’ve all but lost that sense of survival.   Food is everywhere, in abundance, from every corner of the globe, there at our fingertips, just waiting to be purchased and consumed. This modern phenomena of abundance, and even waste, holds no relation to the last thousands of years of human history. We have lost the sacredness of provision, the value of food, because it has become commonplace and cheap, and therefore how would it ever be otherwise?  

     Let’s go over a few scenarios... First, food is still harvested from the ground.  The majority of what we consume comes from a thin layer of topsoil that is quickly and irrevocably disappearing from the earth. It takes about a thousand years to produce one inch of topsoil, and yet each year, due to our industrial farming methods, we are watching topsoil erode and drift into the sea (look up the annual tons of topsoil lost in the US). This thin veneer has no replacement, we cannot grow food in the volume necessary without this medium. However, to compensate for the loss of topsoil we have become incredibly dependent on bio-engineered crops and fertilizers. Most of these fertilizers are mined in China and the current crisis has drastically reduced their availability. Without these fertilizers crops such as corn and soybeans would not grown on the industrial farms dotting the country.  

Seeds are another issue. At some point Monsanto became the god of seeds. They were able to genetically engineer “suicide seeds” or, seeds that would only last for one harvest and then fail to reproduce, causing the farmer to become completely dependent on Monsanto for its supply of seeds. Furthermore, Monsanto began going after seed savers, people who would plant their own seeds and harvest them, saving a portion to plant for the following year, something that humans have done for generations. Because these suicidal seedlings are patented, Monsanto can sue whichever farmer saves their seeds, even if the seeds they planted were not purchased from the seed giant. Because of the way corn pollinates, the DNA of neighboring crops will sync with the crops of other corn growers, giving them the same marker as the patented corn, allowing Monsanto to sue them for infringement if they dare to save their seeds.  

THIS altering of the historical way we plant and harvest has placed humanity at the mercy of a few select crops and a few large corporations, without giving us any backdoors to protect our food supply.  

The rise of poultry and beef conglomerates has also damaged the food supply. As the demand for animal proteins have increased throughout the planet the stress on our industry has grown. Now chickens are grown in dark houses by the thousands, taking four weeks to mature instead of twelve months, spurred on by the injection of antibiotics, steroids and genetically altered food. The same is true for pigs and cattle. We have changed the way we interact with animals, removing people from the source of their burger and so allowing these industries to create inhumane and disease ridden practices that go unnoticed because they are packaged in neat, plastic containers.  

     The relationship between people and animals has digressed so dramatically we no longer realize what we consume. For instance, the outbreak of Mad Cow disease in the 90’s and 2000’s was quickly covered over as a simply outbreak of animal disease.  In reality this “disease” is actually a mutation of a protein that has nothing to do with traditional viruses. Instead it is a direct result of us feeding the dead animals back to the living. Yes, you heard that right. Our modern meat industry takes the dead chickens, cows and pigs and turns them into feed which is then consumed by the living. This has led to a mutation in the protein of the animal that causes something akin to dementia and madness, and has even crossed over into the wild animal populations in the form of chronic wasting disease in deer. This protein can affect humans and some even have speculated that the rise in dementia and Alzheimer’s is a direct result of the meat supply. 

The fragility of any system is based on its complexity.  

THE more parts you require the more fragile it becomes. This description perfectly encapsulates our current climate. As people became accustomed to out of season foods, as our shopping changed from our local gardens and flocks into transnational industries, we started to expect that mangos from Argentina and grain from Uzbekistan would always be on the Walmart shelf, even if we didn’t realize the distance it had traveled to get there. This modern invention of a globalized food industry has many flaws,logistics being among the greatest.  Look at the current pandemic for instance. The lockdowns and border closings have created huge hurdles to the transportation of food.  Countries that no longer are able to feed their burgeoning populations now require grain from Russia, fish from Japan, and corn from the US. These supplies are now being stretched and tested in ways they have never been before. For example, Russia and Uzbekistan ceased exporting grain at the beginning of the crisis, and China made one of the largest purchases of corn in history from the US. Every country is in a mad scramble to ensure food security amid this crisis and all of this is dependent on global supply chains and markets staying intact. Once the trust and the supply fails these chains will break and each country will be on its own. 

     So what does that mean? Do we as a nation have the ability to feed our populations and who is responsible for that? The answer is incredibly complex and opinionated, I would wager no one really knows.  Countries such as China and India do not have the ability to feed their populations outside of international trade (Learn more about China’s alarming food crisis here: https://youtu.be/kctRclZzL6A  The US would be capable of feeding it’s citizens if not for two problems: we ceased keeping a strategic grain reserve in 1995, and we started converting our grain into fuel due to the lobbying of the farming and ethanol industry. Now there is no backstop for food shortages and we are left to fend for ourselves should the corn or soybean crop ever fail or the supply chain break down.  

     The modern supply chain is very complex and relies on many different mechanisms to succeed. The food we see on the shelf of our grocery store is mostly from agricultural industries that have no local or regional footprints. This means that they have to be transported here from far away. This transportation system works on a “just in time” basis, meaning the bread we see on the shelves is usually sold out within four hours and needs to be replaced by multiple deliveries throughout the day for it to be in stock. Should there be a wrench thrown in the works, that food would disappear within a day and the stores would be empty, having no warehouses to pull from in an emergency. 

SO where does that leave us? For the entirety of human existence each person has been responsible for the foods that fuel our daily activity and keep us alive. We have formed a relationship with the earth, the soil that grows our crops, the weather that waters the ground, and the animals that give their lives to sustain ours. Without that relationship food security is not possible. In modern culture the idea of food security is buying bulk items and canned goods and storing them away somewhere in case of an emergency. This is all well and good for a season (look into how much food it takes to sustain a family of four for a year and see if you have enough in your pantry), but it’s not sustainable.

       The idea of providing our own sustenance has disappeared. Gone are the days of canning and smoking and storing up for the winter. Instead we’ve replaced the mechanisms of our own survival with the dependence of a highly leveraged industry that is quickly self-destructing, (look into the depletion of the oceans by unreported Chinese fishing fleets.) The answer to this is not complex: it is simply to build a relationship between you and the food you consume. This literally means if you eat it you should have a hand in where it came from. If you cook a chicken breast you should know what the chicken looked like and even the egg it hatched from. If you cut into a tomato you should have watched it ripen on the vine. If you grill a steak you should have the skin of the cow stretched and hanging in your garage. OK, that’s going to sound a little extreme but in all honesty it’s not. This is how we lived throughout all of human history; we had a relationship with our food and therefore knew what it took to sustain that supply.  

     Instead of going into detail on how to can, smoke, dehydrate, and store our own food, I recommend that we start to form a relationship with everything you consume. This is the ONLY way to form sustainable food security. It begins with us. We have to know where every morsel originated, from the burger to the bun.  There are still local farmers and ranchers who will sell you a quarter cow directly, or who will supply you with a truckload of corn. Even better, start planting a garden, even if it’s indoors (tower gardens are very easy to maintain even in a condo), and if you have the land buy a few chickens. Start forming a relationship with your food, otherwise you are at the mercy of a thousand different industries, all of which are at the mercy of history, and... history is not kind to those who do not prepare.

http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,18814,00.html

https://www.google.com/amp/s/qz.com/948980/china-has-fished-itself-out-of-its-own-waters-so-chinese-fishermen-are-now-sticking-their-rods-in-other-nations-seas/amp/

https://youtu.be/kctRclZzL6A