How Are You Increasing Your Nation's Food Supply?

[igorsMistress]

Always good to have a backup plan, IMO.
I live in drought- stricken CAs Central Valley, I see fallow fields, due to lack of water, and crops unplanted, no longer available to American consumers. Much like Ukrainian food exports, once plentiful & available to other nations, many commodities are now scarce or only available at 2x their usual cost, Climate change affects American dinner tables and pocket books. I’m grateful our increasing food costs aren’t due to war, but still, I try to grow a lot of the things I no longer find growing, here. Maybe Uncle Sam will do something about higher food prices, (how do you stop a drought?), but I wouldn’t hold my breath, waiting on it.

Oh but they are up due to war, not just drought or climate change. Ukraine grows wheat and sunflowers. Russia sells oil and grows wheat.

 

[Franklinridgefarms]

We have around 30 hens currently, love having our own eggs, we try to sell some too, to help pay for the layer feed. Sometimes have more eggs than we can use or sell and give those away.
We are cattle farmers too, and raise our own beef and sometimes sell a beef to friends. Between the packers greed, and rising production costs it’s hard to keep going. I would love to see a movement away from the current supply chain system which obviously does not work well to more localized sales, and direct marketing from farmer to consumer.

 

[Iluveggers]

Big garden for the family , plus veggies on our small family farm that we sell roadside along with extra eggs and honey. Tapped our own maple syrup this year. Still working on the frozen venison from hunting season. Hatching out some extra eggs and convinced my FIL to raise layer chickens and eat whatever roosters I give him out of the straight-run bunch. Will be canning and preserving as much as possible for the winter. Also getting an apple tree from a friend with a local tree business, and possibly a pear tree as well.

Finally, growing a garden with my urban students, and they will each be taking a few plants home to start their own gardens, whether it’s pots on a patio or in the ground. Empowering the next generation to grow food hopefully will help for many years. Agriculture has been taken out of too many classrooms.

 

[Pickensandchigs]

Laugh it up treehugger.. They'll be tofu shortages as well.

 

[Franklinridgefarms]

Big garden for the family , plus veggies on our small family farm that we sell roadside along with extra eggs and honey. Tapped our own maple syrup this year. Still working on the frozen venison from hunting season. Hatching out some extra eggs and convinced my FIL to raise layer chickens and eat whatever roosters I give him out of the straight-run bunch. Will be canning and preserving as much as possible for the winter. Also getting an apple tree from a friend with a local tree business, and possibly a pear tree as well.

Finally, growing a garden with my urban students, and they will each be taking a few plants home to start their own gardens, whether it’s pots on a patio or in the ground. Empowering the next generation to grow food hopefully will help for many years. Agriculture has been taken out of too many classrooms.

That is great. So many people today are several generations removed from any kind agriculture and no idea about where there food comes from or how it is grown.

 

[Pickensandchigs]

That is great. So many people today are several generations removed from any kind agriculture and no idea about where there food comes from or how it is grown.

We should all make an effort to teach our babies where food comes from, and how hard it can be to make.

 

[high5]

Maybe the best we can all do is to get back to basics, asap. Grow/store what we can to be in a position to help our immediate family, friends and neighbours, and just wait for them to wake up to what's happening (in lockstep)... worldwide! And realise that things are never going to go back to normal!
Great post, but it isn't easy to help people and convince them about what's happening, at the same time!

 

[Rangergord]

I am growing a garden as usual. My three oldest hens are in a tractor on last years garden right next too this years garden and producing just enough eggs for us and consuming very little ration. I am raising 23 pullets to point of lay. I will be selling 15 of them to other families in August. I will then have more eggs than I can use and will sell some to pay for feed. I am growing enough potatoes to last till next year as usual. I have an orchard filled with apples, cherries, plums and berries as well as I run a backyard nursery for fruit and food bearing trees shrubs and perennials such as Asparagus. I am harvesting my second crop of asparagus before the annual veggies are ready. I don’t have much room to grow grain but there are many very large grain producers in the area. I need straw for the chickens and mulching my gardens so I will search out a local farmer to get some.

 

[Wolfie2]

Garden, chickens & goats. Plus I love to hunt & fish. So I take as little as possible off the store shelves. I guess I came from agriculture. I grew up on Grandma's farm. Basically a subsistance farm, didn't profit much from it. She gave each of her children an acre of land to build a house on and that's where I grew up. Raising all kinds of animals and huntin & fishin. It's payin off!

 

[IdyllwildAcres]

using the dreaded chicken wire.

So I just met a 10 year old chicken, her run is enclosed on all sides with chicken wire. We have coyotes, bobcats, mountain lions and raccoons around here and yet 10 years and she is still alive.

Now I would not take that risk, but I may be a bit easier on those that do.