Seeds for Harvest

I apologize for being late this week. I’ve had some end of the semester stuff I’ve had to focus in on and now that my students are well on their way to taking their exam and finishing the semester. I think I can focus in here and give you some information.

This is the first part is kind of the introduction to a series of smaller blogs that I will be dropping in over the week that will deep dive into topics covered here.

I want to make this blog about food and things we should be paying attention to around food shortages, disruptions, and what could be available over the next four years. If tariffs are put in place and our farm workers get thrown out of the country. We will have a lot of financial and economic issues around food and the distribution of food. This is a touchy subject because there are some people who are really attached to their diet and how they want to eat. There is a a privilege in that. Especially, those who only want to eat organic, pure or clean food. They will be in for a rude awakening when they find out that everything is not always accessible even if you have the money to buy it. So without it evolving into total “prepper” dried meals in a 5 gallon bucket, I think it’s just important to remember that we’re going to have to rethink on what you might consider as good food or nutritionally dense food. As well as how you want to grow, distribute and share with the community, your family and others.

If the next administration decides to dismantle the government a lot of things we take for granted such as inspections and labeling, etc., is going be thrown out the window. And unless you know and can trust the source, you’re getting things like meat, fish, and dairy from it might be very difficult to find that are safe to eat. This can even be a consideration too when one thinks of fresh vegetables. Over the last few years with inspections we have had E. coli and salmonella out breaks on farms that are often not checked enough to prevent these from getting into the public sector. It’s not that we should be paranoid about these things, but we have to just realize that if they do in fact, destroy the government and it becomes law less, we know that big corporations are never good at policing themselves. The unintended consequences of even smaller farms that you get vegetables from, their checks and oversight might not be catching things before they hit the market. There will also be the decrease in food products/production because of disruptions and shortages. During the first Trump term I was crossing the country after they had gotten rid of a lot of the migrant workers and the immigrants that were working in the fields. And I saw mountains and mountains of soy beans, tomatoes rotting in the fields all over the country. This is all edible food, potatoes, all stuff that could not be harvested. So it’s unfortunate that we use a population of people that we pay a substandard wage too. It’s also important for us to remember that when that workforce is not there there is nobody to step in and take its place. That harms farmers and us over the long run.

I can’t stress enough how important it is to start gathering food supplies now before Trump takes over. This is because he will create a wash of disruptions within his first 100 days that is gonna make food very difficult to acquire if he gets everything he wants. Again I can’t stress it enough don’t be paranoid also. Don’t be a hoarder think about what you need and then begin to plan how you’re going to acquire those things for a long period of time. Using myself for an example, I began to wean off of meat now I’m not going to go vegan or vegetarian. I am still an “Opportunivor”. I know that in the future, if there is an inconsistency in the quality and the condition of the meat I can get (even if I buy it at my co-op or I can get it organically, etc) I know that eating meat is a risk. It is a risk of salmonella or getting sick and I don’t wanna take that risk. I began to wean off of meat and start eating plant based proteins. This consists of beans, textured vegetable protein (TVP), legumes , etc. and having these on hand. They’re are inexpensive. They have a long shelf life. You can make them taste like anything, so they’re actually quite good and they are nutritious. Our body will absorb them well and give us the nutrients we need. The other thing I’ve been storing up on are dry goods such as seeds and sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds and dried beans, rice, etc. I’m an urban forger so I know even if all I have is dry goods in my kitchen, I can forage for some of the wild stuff such as dark green leafy vegetables, fungi and things I can forge for if you’re not a forger, you might consider drying things like kale and spinach and other fruits and berries. You can dry greens ahead of time for long storage and reconstitute in water or put soup…. or anything else. Another thing to keep on hand is things like bouillon; vegetable, chicken, beef, fish, etc…I can add flavor to things, but it’s also has a long shelf life and it will give you something nutritious in case it does get to be a very dire situation.

Let’s talk about growing plants, gathering seeds, and wild foraging. There are lots of things you can buy now and collect the seeds from to grow in the spring, such as winter squash, peppers, tomatoes, things like that. You can take your dried beans (if they’re organic) and set some aside to grow in the spring. These are all things you can do ahead of time now and prepare for garden. You can do your own garden space to grow food and this can be done with little land or soil to grow enough food for one person to eat or even a small family to eat in a season. Think about where you live and what you have. It might be just a few containers or your back yard…

The next thing to do is, if you can take a class on foraging do it. I can tell you as an urban forger, I find about 25% of my food in the summer just by foraging in my small town in empty lots walking in the woods, etc. Eveything from leafy greens to mushrooms, but it takes sometimes a little bit of learning in order to do it safely and I highly recommend it. It’s also important as a community to maybe begin to look at creating community gardens so that people have a collective resource of food available to them. Because not everyone’s gonna be able to grow a garden. We all might collectively have enough seeds to grow a lot of food for everybody in our neighborhood so it’s also important to look at your resources. Maybe there’s an empty lots in your neighborhood. Maybe there’s someone with a large backyard maybe you can persuade the a public entity to allow you to grow a public garden. This ensures that there is an availability of food that is free and accessible. This is all about planning. This is all about thinking about what you and others need thinking about what you can do not necessarily spending lots of money to hoard stuff but being strategic in how you plan your food sources. This build community and unites us.

If you’re someone who has allergies or food sensitivities, you really need to plan ahead, you might not be able to get your gluten-free bread or your certain kind of food that you can eat so think about what you need and what you need to do to acquire them. A lot of the specialty foods might not have a long shelf life, These are things you want to be thinking about now before disruptions begin.

If you’re not familiar with growing a garden and you just want a simple book that works “Square-Foot Gardening” is a really good resource. It’s based on a PBS program that came out many years ago, but it has a good breakdown on how to grow a small garden that produces a large amount of food.

I also suggest creating community seed banks or seed arks where everybody pulls their seeds together and maybe divide them out. This kind of distribution things can help with having a diversity of vegetable crops every season.

In this conversation water is kind of important. It is directly related to growing. We also have to remember that with all of government disruptions we could be facing, water could be another in the crazy world we could be living in. Water is more valuable than gold, and we know that a lot of places governments will disrupt the flow of water as a control tactic. So one of the things to do is to maybe set up rain barrels or ways to catch water and store water so that you can grow a garden or for other uses

And I just like to end this blog post by saying gardening is a great way to get to know your neighbors . Work with people work in the soil and create an independence that we all might need as we anticipate the breakdown of government, resources and protections. Gardening can help us get to know our communities, especially those that might be in need of assistance, the elderly disabled, those who might not have the means or the ability to grow garden or nuance the disruptions of food and supply chains. As scary as it could be, this might be the opportunity. We need to cultivate our kindness and compassion as we face a world that has a lot of uncertainty.