Weather Report: Economy, Serious Food Concerns and Gardening

ECONOMY: Today cnnmoney.com seems to have the three current topics of immediate interest in the U.S. economy and the prudent homes making up an increasing portion of that economy.

First: A year ago 56% of consumers thought that the economy was in good shape with 43% believing the economy to be in poor shape. Currently, 75% believe the economy is in poor shape while 25 % think it’s on good shape.

Second: Home prices have fallen an average of 15.4% year to date.

Third: An increasing number of economists are worried more about inflation than mortgage and credit market problems.

SERIOUS FOOD CONCERNS: SurvivalBlog.com has posted a two part article, August 23 & 24, by Richard Heinberg entitled “ What Will We Eat as the Oil Runs Out? “. Mr. Heinberg is an author and a research fellow of Post Carbon. Org.

The article discusses four major areas of concern in future food production: 1. “…direct impacts on agriculture of higher oil prices”, 2.”…indirect consequences of high oil prices-the increased demand for biofuels”, 3. “… the impacts of climate change and extreme weather events…” , and 4. “… the degradation or loss of basic natural resources (principally, topsoil and fresh water supplies) …”

Proposed solutions are discussed and provide a lot of food for thought.

Just a word here about SurvivalBlog.com: It is, in our opinion, an excellent source of high quality survival information and worthy of a daily read. It is presented by James Wesley Rawles, an author, former U.S. Army intelligence officer, and (by all accounts) a Christian gentleman.

GARDENING: There are at least four good reasons to garden:

1. Economic: the food you produce will be cheaper now and if you save the seeds from your open-pollinated production, it will be even cheaper in the future as you plant these next season.
2. Safety: the most recent, in a long line of food safety concerns, involved peppers imported from Mexico. A quick look the time required to determine the source of the contamination serves the point.
3. Food, like just about everything else in our economy, is controlled by a just-in-time inventory system. This translates into a roughly three day supply food in your grocery store under the best conditions. The prudent family can initially fall back on its stored foods to get by in the short run but then what?
4. Finally, Independence. Organic production of fruits, vegetables, and grains with it’s minimal dependence on fossil fuels, provides a key element in family security. Without food production there can be no long term food security.

Again, please take the time to read Richard Heinberg’s two part article at SurvivalBlog.com as mentioned above.

We really wanted to provide some specific sources for the family, gardening under space and climate restrictions today but felt that the SurvivalBlog.com article we mentioned above along with our rationale for gardening in general was more important. Friday, 8/29, we’ll try to cover more gardening specifics.

Until next week, keep your eyes on the horizon.