Editor’s Note: Though this article was not written by Dr. Joseph Mercola with our sponsors in mind, it behooves everyone that we alert our readers to three long-term storage food resources. We’ve listed these sponsors here for you to consider.
STORY AT-A-GLANCE
- Across the world, experts and analysts are now warning of skyrocketing food prices and catastrophic food shortages. In mid-May 2022, United Nations chief Antonio Guterres said the world is facing years of famine
- Blame for this global food shortage is, officially, being laid at the feet of “climate change,” the COVID pandemic and the Russia-Ukraine conflict, but other factors are also contributing to bring our food system to the breaking point
- Crop failures and low yields have caused several countries to reduce or halt food exports, and fertilizer, fuel and energy shortages further worsen this already strained food supply
- President Biden’s decision to transition the United States away from energy independency by shutting down the Keystone pipeline, canceling offshore oil leases and freezing new leases and permits for federal oil and gas drilling doesn’t help the situation in the U.S. It also doesn’t help that the U.S. and U.K. continue paying farmers to not farm or to grow less
- Globally, food prices increased by 29.8% between March 2021 and March 2022, while meat prices rose 2.2% in a single month between March and April 2022
Across the world, experts and analysts are now warning of skyrocketing food prices and catastrophic food shortages. In mid-May 2022, United Nations chief Antonio Guterres said the world is facing years of famine, and urged Russia to “permit the safe and secure export of grain stored in Ukrainian ports” to ease shortages.1,2
Blame for this global food shortage is, officially, being laid at the feet of “climate change,” the COVID pandemic and the Russia-Ukraine conflict.3 But while all of those have played their role, other factors are also contributing to bring our food system to the breaking point.
Death by a Thousand Cuts
For example, between January 2021 and April 2022, at least 20 food processing facilities have gone up in flames,4 and a string of barn fires has also impacted farmers.5,6 While most of these fires have been blamed on equipment or safety failures, and fact checkers insist fires are common in these kinds of facilities, there were only two such fires in 2019, and at least some of the barn fires at the end of 2021 were suspected arson.
In 2020, wildfires also destroyed a number of farms,7 and in in early 2022, bird flu outbreaks among poultry resulted in the culling of millions of chickens, ducks and turkey.8
In March 2021, a massive container ship became wedged across the Suez Canal in Egypt — blocking “an artery of world trade,” triggering a rise in oil prices and leading to fallout that affected shipping around the globe.9
More recently, there was the U.S. infant formula shortage, precipitated by the Food and Drug Administration shutting down one of the manufacturing facilities that is part of the U.S. formula monopoly.
Russia is also withholding fertilizer exports10 in response to the EU’s decision to ban seven of the nine Russian banks from the SWIFT system,11 and anyone who wants to buy Russian oil or gas has to pay in Rubles.12
On top of the fertilizer shortage and subsequent price increase triggered by Russia’s ban on exports, Union Pacific (a key investor in which is BlackRock) is also restricting fertilizer shipments by train, causing shipment delays and higher prices.13 A Canadian Pacific freight train carrying potash (a key fertilizer ingredient) also recently derailed in Alberta, Canada.14
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President Biden’s decision to transition the United States away from energy independency by shutting down the Keystone pipeline,15 canceling offshore oil leases in Alaska and the Gulf of Mexico,16 and freezing new leases and permits for federal oil and gas drilling17 doesn’t help either.
We need fuel to farm and to ship food and fertilizer, so rising prices at the pump automatically result in higher outlays for farmers and higher food prices. It also doesn’t help or make sense for the U.S. and U.K. to continue paying farmers to not farm or grow less when a global famine is looming.18 And, let’s not forget the elephant in the room — out of control money printing — which is the real cause of inflation.
Shortages Are Predicted Everywhere
As reported by The Economist:19
“Ukraine’s exports of grain and oilseeds have mostly stopped and Russia’s are threatened. Together, the two countries supply 12% of traded calories. Wheat prices, up 53% since the start of the year, jumped a further 6% on May 16th, after India said it would suspend exports because of an alarming heatwave …
Nearly 250m are on the brink of famine. If, as is likely, the war drags on and supplies from Russia and Ukraine are limited, hundreds of millions more people could fall into poverty. Political unrest will spread, children will be stunted and people will starve …
Russia and Ukraine supply 28% of globally traded wheat, 29% of the barley, 15% of the maize and 75% of the sunflower oil … Ukraine’s food exports provide the calories to feed 400m people. The war is disrupting these supplies because Ukraine has mined its waters to deter an assault, and Russia is blockading the port of Odessa …
China, the largest wheat producer, has said that, after rains delayed planting last year, this crop may be its worst-ever. Now, in addition to the extreme temperatures in India, the world’s second-largest producer, a lack of rain threatens to sap yields in other breadbaskets, from America’s wheat belt to the Beauce region of France. The Horn of Africa is being ravaged by its worst drought in four decades …
All this will have a grievous effect on the poor. Households in emerging economies spend 25% of their budgets on food … In many importing countries, governments cannot afford subsidies to increase the help to the poor, especially if they also import energy — another market in turmoil …
Since the war started, 23 countries from Kazakhstan to Kuwait have declared severe restrictions on food exports that cover 10% of globally traded calories. More than one-fifth of all fertilizer exports are restricted. If trade stops, famine will ensue.”
Food Prices Skyrocket Worldwide
Globally, food prices increased by 29.8% between March 2021 and March 2022, while meat prices rose 2.2% in a single month between March and April 2022. The map below, posted on Twitter by Marc Ross,20 shows the areas of the world hardest hit by food price increases.
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Not surprisingly, poorer countries notice price hikes the most, while people in wealthier nations can afford to pay more without tipping into starvation. Eventually, however, as inflation continues while salaries remain flat, even the middle-class will start to feel it. And, of course, at a certain point, it won’t matter how much money you have because you can’t buy food, at any price, if there is none.
Great Reset Is Underway
By now, you’ve likely heard about the World Economic Forum’s (WEF) Great Reset and their plan for you to “own nothing and be happy” by 2030. We’re now seeing this plan in motion all over the place.
For example, in the first quarter of 2021, 15% of U.S. homes sold were purchased by corporate investors21 — not families looking to achieve their American dream. Seemingly without warning, we’ve entered an era where home ownership is becoming out of reach for many, and that’s a first step to “owning nothing.” As noted in a tweet by Cultural Husbandry:22
“This is wealth redistribution, and it ain’t rich people’s wealth that is getting redistributed. It’s normal American middle class, salt of the earth wealth heading into the hands of the world’s most powerful entities and individuals. The traditional financial vehicle [is] gone forever.
Home equity is the main financial element that middle class families use to build wealth, and BlackRock, a federal reserve funded financial institution is buying up all the houses to make sure that young families can’t build wealth … This is a fundamental reorganization of society.”
Indeed, and it’s right in line with plans for societal reorganization described under banners such as The Great Reset, Build Back Better, Agenda 21, the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development,23,24 and the Green Energy movement. These agendas all work together toward the same goal, which is a global monopoly on ownership and wealth, with a clear separation of the haves and have nots; the owners and the owned; the rulers and the ruled; the elite and the serfs.
In 1992 at the Earth Summit, under-secretary-general of the Convention on Climate Change and executive director of the UN Environment Program, Maurice Strong, stated that:25
“Current lifestyles and consumption patterns of the affluent middle class, involving high meat intake, consumption of large amounts of frozen and convenience foods, use of fossil fuels, appliances, home and workplace air-conditioning, and suburban housing, are not sustainable.”
If meat consumption, frozen foods, fossil fuel use, home appliances, air conditioning and single-family homes are “unsustainable,” it stands to reason that the goal of any sustainable development scheme is to eliminate all of those things, and this process of elimination is now well underway.
It’s All About Creating Forced Dependency
Understand, The Great Reset involves the destruction of supply chains, the energy sector, the food supply and workforce, to create dependency on government, which in turn will be taken over by private interests and central banks through the collapse of the global economy. A large-enough war would accomplish all of these aims, which is why the possibility of world war cannot be discounted. An anonymous correspondent recently wrote about this on WinterOak.org:26
“Welcome to the second phase of the Great Reset: war. While the pandemic acclimatized the world to lockdowns, normalized the acceptance of experimental medications, precipitated the greatest transfer of wealth to corporations by decimating SMEs [small and medium-sized businesses] and adjusted the muscle memory of workforce operations in preparation for a cybernetic future, an additional vector was required to accelerate the economic collapse before nations can ‘Build Back Better.’”
The article presents “several ways in which the current conflict between Russia and Ukraine is the next catalyst for the World Economic Forum’s Great Reset agenda, facilitated by an interconnected web of global stakeholders and a diffuse network of public-private partnerships.”
Disruption to supply chains fit right into this plan, while food shortages, driven by the many factors discussed and, perhaps, orchestrated attacks on food plants, will accelerate the acceptance of synthetic foods, such as lab-grown meat, which has also been championed by Great Reset front men like Bill Gates.
Solutions
There are solutions, but we have to jump on them now. In my previous article, “Why Food Prices Are Expected to Skyrocket,” I review how biodynamic farming can help us out of these dilemmas, as it doesn’t use synthetic fertilizers and requires far less water. I also discuss new investment opportunities that can support regenerative agriculture projects. On an individual, more immediate basis, however, some key areas of basic preparation include:
- Food — Grow some of your own food, make friends with local farmers, create or join a local CSA, and shore up your long-term food stores. (Rather than panic buying mass quantities all at once, consider spreading it out and just buy a little more than you need for the day or week each time you go shopping. You can build up a backup supply rather quickly that way)
- Water — Identify sources of potable water and make sure you have one or more ways to purify questionable water supplies
- Power — Consider how you might power some of the essentials in your home if there are rolling blackouts, or the electrical grid goes down altogether
- Firearms training for self defense and hunting — Learn how to use, store, carry and clean a firearm and work on your marksmanship. Other forms of self-defense training can also be useful, if nothing else, to make you feel more competent and confident in potentially high-risk situations
- Communications — Give some thought to how you will communicate with friends and family if cell towers and/or internet goes down
- Medicine — Stock up on nutritional supplements, medications, how-to books on alternative home remedies and first-aid supplies
- Money — Keep cash on hand, including smaller denominations. Both power grid and internet outages can eliminate your ability to buy without cash. For more long-term protection against inflation, consider buying physical precious metals such as gold and silver
Remember to consider and include analog devices and manual tools in your preparation. We’re so used to having unlimited electricity and continuous wireless communications, it can be difficult to imagine the restrictions you’ll face without them. If need be, turn off the breakers in your home for a day or two, ditch all wireless devices, and see what challenges come up. Then, figure out what you need to solve them.
Also, consider keeping hardcopies of useful books and important documents, such as your most recent bank statements, asset statements, the deed to your home or car and so on.
Entire books can, and have, been written on prepping, and some will take it to extremes. But while you probably won’t need an underground bunker stocked with a decade’s-worth of food, everyone, at this point, really ought to be preparing, to some degree, for food and energy shortages.
My list above is merely a summary of some of the key areas of focus. The details of how to go about each one, however, are manifold. As a community, we can help each other with this.
So, please, share your personal ideas for basic (and not so basic) preparation in the Vital Votes comment section below. If you have questions, be sure to post those too, so the community can help answer them. Of course, building supportive communities into a variety of people can bring their skills will become paramount, so don’t just rely on online relationships. Get to know your physical neighbors too.
- 1 BBC May 19, 2022
- 2 France24 May 18, 2022
- 3, 19 The Economist May 19, 2022 (Archived)
- 4 Foodstoragemoms.com May 4, 2022
- 5 WNDU.com November 18, 2021
- 6 CBS Minnesota May 29, 2022
- 7 The Guardian August 31, 2020
- 8 Newsweek February 16, 2022
- 9 BBC News March 24, 2021
- 10 Agri-pulse March 4, 2022
- 11 Euro News July 3, 2022
- 12 AP News March 31, 2022
- 13 Michigan Farm News April 19, 2022
- 14 Reuters May 22, 2022
- 15 CNBC June 9, 2021
- 16 Yahoo News May 12, 2022
- 17 CNN February 21, 2022
- 18 Off-guardian April 25, 2022
- 20 Twitter Marc Ross May 19, 2022
- 21 Slate June 19, 2021
- 22 Twitter Cultural Husbandry June 8, 2021
- 23 UN 2030 Agenda
- 24 JBS.org Stop Agenda 2030
- 25 International Journal of Environmental Studies June 16, 2016: 339-340
- 26 Winter Oak March 9, 2022
Five Things New “Preppers” Forget When Getting Ready for Bad Times Ahead
The preparedness community is growing faster than it has in decades. Even during peak times such as Y2K, the economic downturn of 2008, and Covid, the vast majority of Americans made sure they had plenty of toilet paper but didn’t really stockpile anything else.
Things have changed. There’s a growing anxiety in this presidential election year that has prompted more Americans to get prepared for crazy events in the future. Some of it is being driven by fearmongers, but there are valid concerns with the economy, food supply, pharmaceuticals, the energy grid, and mass rioting that have pushed average Americans into “prepper” mode.
There are degrees of preparedness. One does not have to be a full-blown “doomsday prepper” living off-grid in a secure Montana bunker in order to be ahead of the curve. In many ways, preparedness isn’t about being able to perfectly handle every conceivable situation. It’s about being less dependent on government for as long as possible. Those who have proper “preps” will not be waiting for FEMA to distribute emergency supplies to the desperate masses.
Below are five things people new to preparedness (and sometimes even those with experience) often forget as they get ready. All five are common sense notions that do not rely on doomsday in order to be useful. It may be nice to own a tank during the apocalypse but there’s not much you can do with it until things get really crazy. The recommendations below can have places in the lives of average Americans whether doomsday comes or not.
Note: The information provided by this publication or any related communications is for informational purposes only and should not be considered as financial advice. We do not provide personalized investment, financial, or legal advice.
Secured Wealth
Whether in the bank or held in a retirement account, most Americans feel that their life’s savings is relatively secure. At least they did until the last couple of years when de-banking, geopolitical turmoil, and the threat of Central Bank Digital Currencies reared their ugly heads.
It behooves Americans to diversify their holdings. If there’s a triggering event or series of events that cripple the financial systems or devalue the U.S. Dollar, wealth can evaporate quickly. To hedge against potential turmoil, many Americans are looking in two directions: Crypto and physical precious metals.
There are huge advantages to cryptocurrencies, but there are also inherent risks because “virtual” money can become challenging to spend. Add in the push by central banks and governments to regulate or even replace cryptocurrencies with their own versions they control and the risks amplify. There’s nothing wrong with cryptocurrencies today but things can change rapidly.
As for physical precious metals, many Americans pay cash to keep plenty on hand in their safe. Rolling over or transferring retirement accounts into self-directed IRAs is also a popular option, but there are caveats. It can often take weeks or even months to get the gold and silver shipped if the owner chooses to close their account. This is why Genesis Gold Group stands out. Their relationship with the depositories allows for rapid closure and shipping, often in less than 10 days from the time the account holder makes their move. This can come in handy if things appear to be heading south.
Lots of Potable Water
One of the biggest shocks that hit new preppers is understanding how much potable water they need in order to survive. Experts claim one gallon of water per person per day is necessary. Even the most conservative estimates put it at over half-a-gallon. That means that for a family of four, they’ll need around 120 gallons of water to survive for a month if the taps turn off and the stores empty out.
Being near a fresh water source, whether it’s a river, lake, or well, is a best practice among experienced preppers. It’s necessary to have a water filter as well, even if the taps are still working. Many refuse to drink tap water even when there is no emergency. Berkey was our previous favorite but they’re under attack from regulators so the Alexapure systems are solid replacements.
For those in the city or away from fresh water sources, storage is the best option. This can be challenging because proper water storage containers take up a lot of room and are difficult to move if the need arises. For “bug in” situations, having a larger container that stores hundreds or even thousands of gallons is better than stacking 1-5 gallon containers. Unfortunately, they won’t be easily transportable and they can cost a lot to install.
Water is critical. If chaos erupts and water infrastructure is compromised, having a large backup supply can be lifesaving.
Pharmaceuticals and Medical Supplies
There are multiple threats specific to the medical supply chain. With Chinese and Indian imports accounting for over 90% of pharmaceutical ingredients in the United States, deteriorating relations could make it impossible to get the medicines and antibiotics many of us need.
Stocking up many prescription medications can be hard. Doctors generally do not like to prescribe large batches of drugs even if they are shelf-stable for extended periods of time. It is a best practice to ask your doctor if they can prescribe a larger amount. Today, some are sympathetic to concerns about pharmacies running out or becoming inaccessible. Tell them your concerns. It’s worth a shot. The worst they can do is say no.
If your doctor is unwilling to help you stock up on medicines, then Jase Medical is a good alternative. Through telehealth, they can prescribe daily meds or antibiotics that are shipped to your door. As proponents of medical freedom, they empathize with those who want to have enough medical supplies on hand in case things go wrong.
Energy Sources
The vast majority of Americans are locked into the grid. This has proven to be a massive liability when the grid goes down. Unfortunately, there are no inexpensive remedies.
Those living off-grid had to either spend a lot of money or effort (or both) to get their alternative energy sources like solar set up. For those who do not want to go so far, it’s still a best practice to have backup power sources. Diesel generators and portable solar panels are the two most popular, and while they’re not inexpensive they are not out of reach of most Americans who are concerned about being without power for extended periods of time.
Natural gas is another necessity for many, but that’s far more challenging to replace. Having alternatives for heating and cooking that can be powered if gas and electric grids go down is important. Have a backup for items that require power such as manual can openers. If you’re stuck eating canned foods for a while and all you have is an electric opener, you’ll have problems.
Don’t Forget the Protein
When most think about “prepping,” they think about their food supply. More Americans are turning to gardening and homesteading as ways to produce their own food. Others are working with local farmers and ranchers to purchase directly from the sources. This is a good idea whether doomsday comes or not, but it’s particularly important if the food supply chain is broken.
Most grocery stores have about one to two weeks worth of food, as do most American households. Grocers rely heavily on truckers to receive their ongoing shipments. In a crisis, the current process can fail. It behooves Americans for multiple reasons to localize their food purchases as much as possible.
Long-term storage is another popular option. Canned foods, MREs, and freeze dried meals are selling out quickly even as prices rise. But one component that is conspicuously absent in shelf-stable food is high-quality protein. Most survival food companies offer low quality “protein buckets” or cans of meat, but they are often barely edible.
Prepper All-Naturals offers premium cuts of steak that have been cooked sous vide and freeze dried to give them a 25-year shelf life. They offer Ribeye, NY Strip, and Tenderloin among others.
Having buckets of beans and rice is a good start, but keeping a solid supply of high-quality protein isn’t just healthier. It can help a family maintain normalcy through crises.
Prepare Without Fear
With all the challenges we face as Americans today, it can be emotionally draining. Citizens are scared and there’s nothing irrational about their concerns. Being prepared and making lifestyle changes to secure necessities can go a long way toward overcoming the fears that plague us. We should hope and pray for the best but prepare for the worst. And if the worst does come, then knowing we did what we could to be ready for it will help us face those challenges with confidence.