Drought>>Food Shortages>>Rationing>>Food Riots??

[kyratshooter]

I live in the country.

Guess what???

Country folk are no better prepared than city folk! Most rural people of today are not survivalists, preppers, or even "outdoorsmen".

Living in a rural area may offer more potential, but that potential exits in next years' production.

Most live on small plots and work a full time job in town just like everyone else. They do not have deep-shelf food supplies, they do not have a variety of small livestock and they are pushed just to keep the huge lawn mowed and trimmed on a weekly basis. Their homes have been built within the past 50 years and are just as dependent on modern technology as apartments in the city.

The people that are making a living on the farm are generally cash crop farmers growing something no one from the city would identify as food or know how to process into food. Most of those crops are only usable at one point in the year, a narrow window called harvest time.

Livestock? Most is now grown on feedlots, not in the back yard. Most of those feed lots are well removed from the city, for a good reason. The city folk do not want to smell them or be near them. The city folk want them far, far away. Those thousands of animals will eat through their food supply just as quickly as the masses of people eat through theirs and the lot managers will be forced to slaughter them in place or release them to go feral. My bet is for heaps of dead and rotting livestock in the feed lots. No one living around the feed lot will desire thousands of starving animals surging over their land.

What is raised on a small plots is usually more for 4-H pets than food. How many folk, country or city, know how to process a dead animal once it hits the ground??? Even my farmer friends that raise their own take their stock to market or to the slaughter house for processing.

(You recently saw the reaction of civilians to the government stealing cattle, imagine the reaction of a neighborhood to a mob stealing their livestock)

The "golden Horde" that roamed into my neck of the countryside would soon perish from starvation.

[Rick]

I think that's a pretty accurate and well written synopsis. Nice job.

[hunter63]

Plus one.....

[Grizz123]

I believe most city people would be in starvation mode with squirrels sitting next to them on the bench because they don't know they are edible or how to clean them

[kyratshooter]

Anybody know how to turn a soy bean into tofu?

[Wildthang]

Well Kyrat you have some very good points, but people in the country at least have the option of getting a few chickens, putting in a garden, and bartering with the other country people that have the needed resources. Where I live is farmland, and everybody raises corn, wheat, soy beans, chickens, and a few cattle. Yeah most farmers send thier beef to the meat processor but I bet they could butcher a cow if they had to.
I know a lot of rural areas that are much better prepared than most city folks. Most farmers I know have 6 foot freezers with beef, pork, and vegetables stacked to the lid. And some I know have lot's of canned items as well. They don't look at it as beng a survivalist, it is just what they do and how they get through the winter. Country folks just naturally store food and they do not tell everybody about it because it is just a way of life.
I know lot's of farmers here in Ohio and in Oklahoma and they are all better equiped to survive than almost anybody I know that lives in a city. I come from a family of farmers and they all store more food than the average city dweller.
Maybe the farmers I know are just unique to the farming community, but I kind of doubt it!

[kyratshooter]

I think the ones you know are unique, and they are still very much dependent on the power grid to keep those 6 foot long freezers going, their machinery running and their vehicles moving.

Our population only has 2% of its members engaged in agriculture at this point in time while 20% of the population is rural.

60% living in major metropolitan areas, 20% living in "population clusters" of less than 50,000 and 20% outside incorporated areas according to the last census.

That leaves a lot of non-farmers (18% of the total population) occupying the majority of the rural homes.

Yep, I have the chickens, the veggie patch and a fantastic view across the open fields, but I also know that my place is a hobby, and it would take me a year to turn it into a food producing unit to keep me alive. It has the potential to be a survival haven, but it will take a full growing season to do so.

Why do I not have the place in full production now? Because it is just not worth the effort at this point in time. It is way too much work for an old man in the non-emergency present reality.

That is why I have stored food. It gives me the time to get a season of planting in.

[Rick]

If it makes you feel any better, Randy, the city has far more grocery stores and restaurants to loot. I think all you country folks will be lined up at the one store arm wrestling to see who gets to loot it.

[Wildthang]

I think the ones you know are unique, and they are still very much dependent on the power grid to keep those 6 foot long freezers going, their machinery running and their vehicles moving.

Our population only has 2% of its members engaged in agriculture at this point in time while 20% of the population is rural.

60% living in major metropolitan areas, 20% living in "population clusters" of less than 50,000 and 20% outside incorporated areas according to the last census.

That leaves a lot of non-farmers (18% of the total population) occupying the majority of the rural homes.

Yep, I have the chickens, the veggie patch and a fantastic view across the open fields, but I also know that my place is a hobby, and it would take me a year to turn it into a food producing unit to keep me alive. It has the potential to be a survival haven, but it will take a full growing season to do so.

Why do I not have the place in full production now? Because it is just not worth the effort at this point in time. It is way too much work for an old man in the non-emergency present reality.

That is why I have stored food. It gives me the time to get a season of planting in.

Good points indeed Kyrat. But a lot of the farmers I know have 500 gallon fuel tanks for their equipment, and a generator for backup power. But I do agree that there is a lot of people in the country just live there much like they live in a town, those will be screwed as well.
I also keep a years worth of food for the exact same reason as you because I realize that if it happens in the fall, nothing is going to be harvested until summer.