A positive unintended consequence of this will be that obesity and diabetes rates in the West will drop. Most Americans could stand dropping their carb intake by 50%.
Oh, wait to see what kind of crap the people will get on their tables.
Bill Gates is the largest farmland owner in the US. His vaccines pretty much tell the story - he won't be supplying the world with nutritious food, but rather GMOs full of crap.
You have a point. I was kinda being flip above, but, yes, any food crisis will be an opportunity for a serial psychopath like Gates. In my utopia, people learn to grow ad trade their own food in communal gardens. Too optimistic?
I very much doubt that people will be replacing their cheap (or not quite so cheap) carbs with fresh produce & grass-fed meats!
In fact, cheap animal protein is also going to get more expensive, as grains form the basis for most farm animal diets. So factory farmed meat will also get a hit - which might be a good thing, except that it will get replaced by their lab-grown crap.
I'd kill for grass fed here. But your point very well taken. Not sure what is sustainable or even if the alternative would be appreciated if it were available.
Exactly. A reduction in grains and sunflower oil, as long as alternatives could be made available, could be the best thing possible for human health. Healthy, whole, real, taking in Georgi's point.
The thing is, *what* alternatives? It sounds like there will be scarcities of pretty damn near everything. If there are shortages in one or two things, people can adjust, but if it’s across the board…
I don't know if it's sustainable in the population as a whole, but meat and veg only for me. I do miss a good sandwich, but they kill my Type II diabetes. Had a couple of tortillas with some soft shell tacos over the past year. But that's it. We have to import most meat here, which comes from Australia, NZ, US, Canada, some chicken from Brazil. But if you're US based, no imports of any of that should be necessary. Even the olive and avocado oil I use comes from California. But that's me. I had a major issue with carbs and that may not be the case for you or many others. I'd be curious about studies performed on providing enough calories based on local produce.
And don’t forget that fertilizer is a fossil fuel product. Specifically nitrogen fertilizer, which is overwhelmingly the worlds number one fertilizer. In a fertilizer production plant huge amounts of natural gas are converted to ammonia, a nitrogen rich gas. Natural gas is responsible for feeding half the world today. Connect the dots.
All the government decisions of the past two years will ensure three things: runaway inflation, food shortages, and finally, famines. Not that they will ever take responsibility ...that is only for the common herd...but I predict that having a garden and a few chickens, as we did during the War, is going to make a big comeback.
Thanks for reminding me of my idea to buy an extra bag of rice and an extra few cans of beans every time I go grocery shopping these days. Cheap and lasts, I think. Just in case.
The lady selling organic seeds at the seed fair yesterday told us that seeds can last 3-7 years if stored well. The root cellar is too damp. Her mother keeps seeds in a shoebox in her linen closet.
I have had a rat chew through a plastic box to get at granola bars left in my garage. The garden shop did not have any metal garbage cans when we asked yesterday. I am starting to look at "Prepper" websites and suppliers, likely 2 years too late.
That seed lady keeps her varietals separated! One flavour of carrots at home, one grown at her sister's, one at her mother's, etc., to keep the heritage varieties fairly original and avoid cross-pollination and hybridisation. Possibly a couple of acres each, I will maybe see at the end of the month.
It's amazing what one can learn from a knowledgable source with a couple of questions and an ability to listen.
The rat was four years ago, and just had commercial granola bars left over from sailing (much preferable to having him gnaw on expensive racing sails.) Maybe he came to sharpen me up before I really needed to know. You do remember why the Pharaonic Egyptians worshipped cats?
I have a few friends who are farmers here in the UK. They are literally at their wits end. I am convinced one of them is suicidal. Not for his own woes, but those of his country. Fertilizer has just doubled, having already doubled during lockdowns. Seed has trebled. Fuel to run the tractors has shot up too. He said point blank, there is NO WAY he will be ABLE to plan crops next year. He has looked at every possible avenue and all are closed, unless he runs at a significant loss and starves his own family. He said growing Daffodils is the only option left, and they fetch about a penny each which barely covers the (Romanian) workers to pick them.
I have been an optimist most of my life. Hence why I feel very odd saying this, but it's my honest belief: It's all over.
Is it possible to support them as a community? Like a group of community members sign up for boxes of vegetables per week, pay the farmer to cultivate them, everybody wins? We have to go back to local.
I think Britain uses the same tax logic as we have in Sweden. When people have tried what you suggest they have been charged with the same fees and taxes, including VAT and sales tax, as if they had sold the harvest on the market.
So you' get t do all the work and then pay taxes on the goods even if you didn't sell a single pea. Oh, and the amount of goods taxed will be decided by the taxation agent, without any measurements or anything.
So it's not just going back to local, it's going medieval including how to handle police and taxmen. My ancestors used to smoke them as you do fish and hang them from trees at major roads. 'Course, that was during the fifteenth century.
hahah. BEAUTIFUL!! Yes, medieval would work, but then we have so many different cultures, religions, races etc, it wouldn't work today. People would just go tribal, just as they do now, if you look carefully enough. People flock to their own, to what they know, to what is 'safe' evolutionarily. Trust is broken. Community is broken. So getting everyone together to fight off the tyranny as one solid unit, is impossible. And no, I don't think that's by accident. Multiculturalism kills all cultures, not just the indigenous one.
Yes, liberal capitalism, the modern post-1970s version and communism have the same end goal culturally speaking: turning us into one homogenous mass of producers/consumers, in a malthusian utilitarian ethical framework, where no loyalties beyond to the system itself can exist. Nothing beyond the state, nothing above the state (and if the state is called a One World Accord or a Global Corporate State or whatever is just varnish and garnish).
To those people, whether classic liberal or marxist, loyalty and belonging (Gemeinshcaft) is a threat to power if it cannot be made a fetisch or a commodity. Thus, multiculturalism which reduces culture and race and ethnicity to artifacts: cooking, music, dances, clothing - as if a heap of building materials was called a house.
Plato would be oh so proud of today's adherents to his notion of a total state run by philosopher kings. Sokrates and Diogenes not so much.
It's a nice thought, and in theory, yes that is the solution. The trouble is, it's WAY too late. The 'community' concept has been well and truly destroyed, beyond repair. Thanks Zuckerberg. We have discussed this, but the farmers laugh. Where I am the population is extremely low, so the produce which keeps the farmers (and the area) alive goes up the chain via combustion engines, which are of course being psuedo-banned via the deliberate price hikes and 'events' to destroy anybody's ability to use such engines in the future. They couldn't rationally convince people to start hating their combustion engines, even despite Greta's involvement. So now they are going to plan B. Make it impossible to afford to run them.
I have successfully learned to grow food without agribusiness inputs.
Aside from the Fact these inputs you mention do not grow nutrient dense food, this method of production also degrades the soil to the point of carbon exhaustion. Then no amount of this fertilizer will work. Like the region named the Fertile Crescent, these soils will no longer be fertile. So sooner of later.. Probably sooner reading about missiles sinking ships slowing global trade.
Growing food without inputs requires small scale operating biointensively. The numbers work out less than 5% of the land now under cultivation could feed this planet full of people. But small scale requires people to grow the food they eat, major problem number one, and the land has been hoarded by the fascists who control food/land production.
Tough luck for the island, even if all of the land went into biointensive production, it couldn't feed 10% of its population.
Yeah, we really are quite fucked aren't we. I was talking to a bloke the other day about all this shit, in a quite abstract way to be fair, but he got the message that I am both anarchistic and quite pessimistic about the future. He was a little sceptical of the governement but still a long way off being awake to the truth in this world. He told me that I shouldn't be so pessimistic, and that he was always optimistic. I told him that anyone who is presently optimistic is a fucking fantacist. On that not, the conversation ended.
Are you familiar with the work of Ice Age Farmer? He was kicked off Twitter I think back in 2020. He was talking about coming food shortages back then... so far, things are unfolding in a way that the crazy conspiracy theorists predicted... or should I call the crazy conspiracy theorists "very good analysts." :)
I sometimes get the feeling that the Gates and the Schwabs of this world reads conspiracy sites and also prepping blogs, and then go "Yeah, let's eff things up the way they speculate there - it's a good plan!".
Igor, I have been following you (for free) for a while. Because you asked, and because you do such a stellar job, I do not want to see you have to beg to support your work. I am now a year long subscriber. Please accept my sincere thanks for everything you have done this past year and for allowing me to follow you for so long for free. You are so worthy.
Allowing government to control the flow of goods has always seemed like a bad idea to me. This confirms it.
A positive unintended consequence of this will be that obesity and diabetes rates in the West will drop. Most Americans could stand dropping their carb intake by 50%.
Oh, wait to see what kind of crap the people will get on their tables.
Bill Gates is the largest farmland owner in the US. His vaccines pretty much tell the story - he won't be supplying the world with nutritious food, but rather GMOs full of crap.
You have a point. I was kinda being flip above, but, yes, any food crisis will be an opportunity for a serial psychopath like Gates. In my utopia, people learn to grow ad trade their own food in communal gardens. Too optimistic?
You are exactly right - we should push towards small, local, community food production.
I hope we get this one right and become more self-sufficient rather than dependent on sociopaths like BG.
Bill Gates is dead.
I very much doubt that people will be replacing their cheap (or not quite so cheap) carbs with fresh produce & grass-fed meats!
In fact, cheap animal protein is also going to get more expensive, as grains form the basis for most farm animal diets. So factory farmed meat will also get a hit - which might be a good thing, except that it will get replaced by their lab-grown crap.
I'd kill for grass fed here. But your point very well taken. Not sure what is sustainable or even if the alternative would be appreciated if it were available.
I've heard long pork is delicious .........look it up. Yum!
Exactly. A reduction in grains and sunflower oil, as long as alternatives could be made available, could be the best thing possible for human health. Healthy, whole, real, taking in Georgi's point.
The thing is, *what* alternatives? It sounds like there will be scarcities of pretty damn near everything. If there are shortages in one or two things, people can adjust, but if it’s across the board…
I don't know if it's sustainable in the population as a whole, but meat and veg only for me. I do miss a good sandwich, but they kill my Type II diabetes. Had a couple of tortillas with some soft shell tacos over the past year. But that's it. We have to import most meat here, which comes from Australia, NZ, US, Canada, some chicken from Brazil. But if you're US based, no imports of any of that should be necessary. Even the olive and avocado oil I use comes from California. But that's me. I had a major issue with carbs and that may not be the case for you or many others. I'd be curious about studies performed on providing enough calories based on local produce.
This is the wake-up call for reducing our reliance on chemical fertiliser.
Glad I listened to my granny. So much knowledge is and has been lost.
And don’t forget that fertilizer is a fossil fuel product. Specifically nitrogen fertilizer, which is overwhelmingly the worlds number one fertilizer. In a fertilizer production plant huge amounts of natural gas are converted to ammonia, a nitrogen rich gas. Natural gas is responsible for feeding half the world today. Connect the dots.
All the government decisions of the past two years will ensure three things: runaway inflation, food shortages, and finally, famines. Not that they will ever take responsibility ...that is only for the common herd...but I predict that having a garden and a few chickens, as we did during the War, is going to make a big comeback.
Thanks for reminding me of my idea to buy an extra bag of rice and an extra few cans of beans every time I go grocery shopping these days. Cheap and lasts, I think. Just in case.
The lady selling organic seeds at the seed fair yesterday told us that seeds can last 3-7 years if stored well. The root cellar is too damp. Her mother keeps seeds in a shoebox in her linen closet.
I have had a rat chew through a plastic box to get at granola bars left in my garage. The garden shop did not have any metal garbage cans when we asked yesterday. I am starting to look at "Prepper" websites and suppliers, likely 2 years too late.
Thanks.
Further info.
That seed lady keeps her varietals separated! One flavour of carrots at home, one grown at her sister's, one at her mother's, etc., to keep the heritage varieties fairly original and avoid cross-pollination and hybridisation. Possibly a couple of acres each, I will maybe see at the end of the month.
It's amazing what one can learn from a knowledgable source with a couple of questions and an ability to listen.
The rat was four years ago, and just had commercial granola bars left over from sailing (much preferable to having him gnaw on expensive racing sails.) Maybe he came to sharpen me up before I really needed to know. You do remember why the Pharaonic Egyptians worshipped cats?
Read Joseph and the Pharaoh. You had to be able to keep the corn for the seven lean years, and the cats kept the rats from the stores.
Similar stories with The Pied Piper and Dick Whittington ( the cats suppressed the plague-bearing rats.)
We should have done this thread on El Gato Malo! R
I have a few friends who are farmers here in the UK. They are literally at their wits end. I am convinced one of them is suicidal. Not for his own woes, but those of his country. Fertilizer has just doubled, having already doubled during lockdowns. Seed has trebled. Fuel to run the tractors has shot up too. He said point blank, there is NO WAY he will be ABLE to plan crops next year. He has looked at every possible avenue and all are closed, unless he runs at a significant loss and starves his own family. He said growing Daffodils is the only option left, and they fetch about a penny each which barely covers the (Romanian) workers to pick them.
I have been an optimist most of my life. Hence why I feel very odd saying this, but it's my honest belief: It's all over.
Is it possible to support them as a community? Like a group of community members sign up for boxes of vegetables per week, pay the farmer to cultivate them, everybody wins? We have to go back to local.
I think Britain uses the same tax logic as we have in Sweden. When people have tried what you suggest they have been charged with the same fees and taxes, including VAT and sales tax, as if they had sold the harvest on the market.
So you' get t do all the work and then pay taxes on the goods even if you didn't sell a single pea. Oh, and the amount of goods taxed will be decided by the taxation agent, without any measurements or anything.
So it's not just going back to local, it's going medieval including how to handle police and taxmen. My ancestors used to smoke them as you do fish and hang them from trees at major roads. 'Course, that was during the fifteenth century.
hahah. BEAUTIFUL!! Yes, medieval would work, but then we have so many different cultures, religions, races etc, it wouldn't work today. People would just go tribal, just as they do now, if you look carefully enough. People flock to their own, to what they know, to what is 'safe' evolutionarily. Trust is broken. Community is broken. So getting everyone together to fight off the tyranny as one solid unit, is impossible. And no, I don't think that's by accident. Multiculturalism kills all cultures, not just the indigenous one.
True words, those.
Yes, liberal capitalism, the modern post-1970s version and communism have the same end goal culturally speaking: turning us into one homogenous mass of producers/consumers, in a malthusian utilitarian ethical framework, where no loyalties beyond to the system itself can exist. Nothing beyond the state, nothing above the state (and if the state is called a One World Accord or a Global Corporate State or whatever is just varnish and garnish).
To those people, whether classic liberal or marxist, loyalty and belonging (Gemeinshcaft) is a threat to power if it cannot be made a fetisch or a commodity. Thus, multiculturalism which reduces culture and race and ethnicity to artifacts: cooking, music, dances, clothing - as if a heap of building materials was called a house.
Plato would be oh so proud of today's adherents to his notion of a total state run by philosopher kings. Sokrates and Diogenes not so much.
Beautifully put. And wholly accurate. My sentiments exactly, expressed more eloquently. And then some. :)
It's a nice thought, and in theory, yes that is the solution. The trouble is, it's WAY too late. The 'community' concept has been well and truly destroyed, beyond repair. Thanks Zuckerberg. We have discussed this, but the farmers laugh. Where I am the population is extremely low, so the produce which keeps the farmers (and the area) alive goes up the chain via combustion engines, which are of course being psuedo-banned via the deliberate price hikes and 'events' to destroy anybody's ability to use such engines in the future. They couldn't rationally convince people to start hating their combustion engines, even despite Greta's involvement. So now they are going to plan B. Make it impossible to afford to run them.
Coming soon, a depression that will make '29 look like a bad party.
All according to plan. You have to tear down everything to "Build Back Better".
Bill Gates was buying stakes at Biontex, Moderna, Pfizer before the pLandemic hit. So he made a killing of 20x his initial investment.
Lest year there were reports he became the largest farmland owner in the US. Yet another miraculously good investment, no?
I gues the starving world and Europe will pay dearly for his GMO crap.
I have successfully learned to grow food without agribusiness inputs.
Aside from the Fact these inputs you mention do not grow nutrient dense food, this method of production also degrades the soil to the point of carbon exhaustion. Then no amount of this fertilizer will work. Like the region named the Fertile Crescent, these soils will no longer be fertile. So sooner of later.. Probably sooner reading about missiles sinking ships slowing global trade.
Growing food without inputs requires small scale operating biointensively. The numbers work out less than 5% of the land now under cultivation could feed this planet full of people. But small scale requires people to grow the food they eat, major problem number one, and the land has been hoarded by the fascists who control food/land production.
Tough luck for the island, even if all of the land went into biointensive production, it couldn't feed 10% of its population.
Yeah, we really are quite fucked aren't we. I was talking to a bloke the other day about all this shit, in a quite abstract way to be fair, but he got the message that I am both anarchistic and quite pessimistic about the future. He was a little sceptical of the governement but still a long way off being awake to the truth in this world. He told me that I shouldn't be so pessimistic, and that he was always optimistic. I told him that anyone who is presently optimistic is a fucking fantacist. On that not, the conversation ended.
https://robdubya.substack.com/p/not-quite-a-sonnet-but-when-youre?s=w
Watching day 5 of grand-jury.net talks about the lead up to this. This has been a long time coming, and those in power are trying to hasten the fall.
Yes Hungary banned export. Also I can report that weather is absolutely horrendous. Not enough rain.
Are you familiar with the work of Ice Age Farmer? He was kicked off Twitter I think back in 2020. He was talking about coming food shortages back then... so far, things are unfolding in a way that the crazy conspiracy theorists predicted... or should I call the crazy conspiracy theorists "very good analysts." :)
I sometimes get the feeling that the Gates and the Schwabs of this world reads conspiracy sites and also prepping blogs, and then go "Yeah, let's eff things up the way they speculate there - it's a good plan!".
Igor, I have been following you (for free) for a while. Because you asked, and because you do such a stellar job, I do not want to see you have to beg to support your work. I am now a year long subscriber. Please accept my sincere thanks for everything you have done this past year and for allowing me to follow you for so long for free. You are so worthy.
Thanks for your support but I am not Igor! I will continue to keep you informed on what is going on however.
sorry I am old and get confused. But I do admire your brainpower. Envious. Wish I had a brain left :-)
I'm Igor, and so is my wife.