A PARTIAL RESPONSE TO GLOBAL FOOD SHORTAGES
Forward: Our weekly Garden Market has become more than a place to purchase organic produce, it is also a place to connect with neighbors, catch up on news, and exchange ideas. One of the main topics has always been food security, but lately there have been more lively discussions about it. Recognizing the urgency of this topic, two of our Resident Gardeners wrote an article about the unfolding food crisis.
If you’ve been following Carmelita Gardens at all, you know that our motto is “Independent Together.” We take a quiet pride in our organic community garden and our expanding community orchard. In addition to volunteering work in our community garden, or supporting it with their purchases, many of our full-time residents have their own organic gardens too. So, to the casual reader, it may seem that we have a “made in heaven” solution to any anticipated food shortages!
But solutions can come with a price that some may not be willing to pay.
To say we live in a time of high uncertainty is an all-time whopper of an understatement.
Without going into detail – which would take a complete book – I’d say the most serious obstacle facing the world right now is the loudly declared impending food shortages.
And make no mistake, they are clearly global.
The farm and food processing plant fires are becoming too numerous to count and are everywhere.
The lack of adequate fertilizer. Everywhere.
The cost of diesel fuel that’s disrupting trucking and the supply chain. Everywhere
“Control oil and you control nations;
control food and you control the people.”— Henry Kissinger
What to do?
But in just what form?
First what we’re not here at Carmelita Gardens:
- We are not preppers in the ordinary sense or common use of the word.
- We are not unneighborly, xenophobic or extreme individualists.
- We are not Socialists or collectivists of any stripe.
- We are not conspiracy theorists.
- We are not gun advocates
“The first supermarket supposedly appeared on the American landscape in 1946. That is not very long ago. Until then, where was all the food? Dear folks, the food was in homes, gardens, local fields, and forests. It was near kitchens, near tables, near bedsides. It was in the pantry, the cellar, the backyard.”
– Joel Salatin
So, who are we?
Mostly retired. Military, nursing, teaching, construction & contracting, IT work, healthcare. Whatever the career field we were in we worked to make it happen and all that experience showed us what and who works. And what doesn’t.
Perhaps there’s something else we were. Perhaps we were prescient. What we saw coming was not specifically food shortages or a pandemic or other tribulation, but we were clearly uncomfortable.
Of what? Once again it would take a book.
The answer? The advice?
Among all the current buzz words out there is this:
A GARDEN!
Teach him to garden and the whole neighborhood gets tomatoes. And squash. And cucumbers. And…
