I have recently started to grow bananas. Well, bananas don't naturally form into an "edible" type of fruit here and have to be overwintered. But I was surprised to learn that they are a staple food in parts of the world. They are more commonly used than the beloved Orange. I should go back to the word "edible", even if the banana fruit/berry is not edible here, the stem and flower of a banana is technically edible. Ideally, I would like to breed a cross of a musa basjoo and a Blue Java Banana-alternatively I could try to tissue culture a pup of the blue java and try to give it a codA gene so it can be more cold hardy-but there may be more barriers than just the coda gene. Or I could see about turning a musa basjoo into a tetraploidal banana through
Colchicine, and see if it produces edible fruit. But I'll probably move away far before I even get a start on any of those ideas.
If the idea of lab grown meats freaks you out, you should probably be aware of lab grown vegetables...everywhere
source: Nina Zidack
They do that for bananas too, and probably anything that can grow from a rhizome(root piece) or a cutlet. Certainly a lot different than digging trenches with a shovel and inserting potatoes, or taking a shovel to a pup, but still none the less applications of cloning. For those of you angry/vomiting at the idea of taking a shovel to a pup; when a banana's corm [root] sends up a new shoot it is called a pup; A grower is expected to remove the pup [especially on one grown for fruit], which it can grow as a new banana.
It's seems difficult to query what is a staple food in America, I am not sure that the search engine Gods focused on multiculturalism want us to really know. Growing up, I think it was reported as corn[or grains], potatoes, and steak. And a 2011ish a report found Americans ate 1996 pounds of food a year, although it sounds possible they were double counting-and I am not sure about so called food waste. https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2011/12/31/144478009/the-average-american-ate-literally-a-ton-this-year
One thing the globalist pushed in the 1990s was the competitive advantages ( https://hbr.org/1990/03/the-competitive-advantage-of-nations ) between states; Letting each produce and sell what they can do the best. The idea may have sounded good at the time in paper, but such a system effectively required the cooperation of states and stability in the supply chain. The united states has to have their wars, and try to force it's economic influence throughout the world. This year, it was Russia who pulled a power play and effectively removed Ukraine from the supply chain. The USA [and Europe] rather than letting the government of the Ukraine collapse decided to engage in a proxy war, meaning rather than a quick transition of power we are seeing cities reduced to rubble, civilian killed by the thousands, and farmers missing their growing season. This has lead to Russia also refusing to export fertilizers. I don't agree with Russia invading the Ukraine, but truly supporting the people of the Ukraine [and the world] meant a quick and peaceful transition of power to Russia. The world effectively became too weak, and too dependent on Russia and the Ukraine, and the "help" we are offering is doing more harm than good. Uninvolved countries may very well starve as a result, and Malthusian based wars and immigration may commence. Mind you, this is mostly over energy, grain, and fertilizers.
The more grain costs, the more it costs to raise an animal for food. From the chart above it doesn't look like we eat too much meat, but we love all kinds of dairy-way too much. So what do you think will become of the price of milk, butter, ice cream, cheese, dogfood? [bloomberg says let your pets die, https://www.breitbart.com/economy/2022/03/20/bloomberg-news-let-your-pets-die-to-fight-inflation/ ] ]In addition, Animal live stock are down as well as the supply of frozen meats. https://www.iceagefarmer.com/2021/03/27/criminalization-of-raising-animals-dutch-sell-pig-rights/ . The nederlands are paying farmers 700k to sell away their rights to raise pigs. California is considering paying farmers not to grow food in an effort to conserve water. https://modernfarmer.com/2022/03/california-drought-pay-farmers/ . The USA is using PCR test to find bird flu everywhere to cull chickens. https://t.me/iceagefarmer/2728 . There are also no shortages of fires or other catastrophic events at food processing facilities across the country. Biden wants to increase ethanol usage. https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2022/04/12/gas-prices-biden-expand-ethanol-availability-ease-pain-pump/7283707001/ . And what part of the corn plant is used for ethanol production? The kernel. https://www.e-education.psu.edu/egee439/node/672
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One might have thought the USA grows enough feed corn to offset much of the world wheat shortage; Feed corn could be used to ground into corn flour, but nope, with much uncertainty about the food supply our President thinks it should be used in our gas tanks subsidized with our tax dollars rather than maybe trying to make peace to the middle east or having a food surplus at home.
At least one country has taken the threat of a global famine seriously. China was buying up 70% of the world grain supply a year prior to this Ukrainian incident. https://asia.nikkei.com/Spotlight/Datawatch/China-hoards-over-half-the-world-s-grain-pushing-up-global-prices . Could they have known in advance? And if so, who else knew. If there is a global famine ahead, china has the proverbial gun to out head telling us our money or our lives.
It would of course been nice to see leadership in this country. Instead, everytime I look, the US government is sending hundreds of millions of dollaar in arms to Ukraine-if not billions [and worse re-enacting the globalist vawa to stifle political discourse]. Hmm, what did I say about the neocons endorsing Biden in 2020? Our corn surpluses will likely go up in a puff of smoke. Unlike China, we as a nation are not taking steps to increase food security. As we allow some 200000 immigrants in from Latin and south America each month at a time when housing is already unaffordable, and most people can't find a place to rent, what could possible go wrong.
How could things get worse?
Globally, the vegetative food staples are essentially grains, soy beans, tubers, and the banana. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Staple_food Again, at the present moment, the greatest problem with grains is the conflict in the Ukraine, hoarding by China (and possibly soon other countries), and loosing our grains to ethanol. This of course hurts the affordability of meats too. Luckily with most grains, they produce new grains the following year with subtle changes in DNA.
That is not o much the case with tubers and Bananas; they are mostly produced through clones. The bananas we buy at the store are polyploidal and cannot produce seeds. There are cases of polyploidal bananas that can cross with other bananas to made seeds, but the germination rates are low. The Gros Michel's (AAA) banana was nearly driven to extinction through the panama disease, and the Cavendish (AAA) is subject to heavy fungicide applications and other means to keep the disease at bay. https://time.com/5730790/banana-panama-disease/ . Without genetic engineering, and without the ability for bananas to propagate, for commercial purposes, with genetic diversity, the panama disease will inevitably prevail.
At the present moment, potatoes [and dried mashed potatoes can be used to make breads, donuts, etc] are vulnerable to the colorado potato bugs. Small gardeners like me can pluck them off and give them a new home far far away, other small farmers pluck them off and drown them in soap water. Some use neem oil, but I am not sure if neem oil is used commercially. The adults are not too harmful to the plant, but they are prolific breeders, and their instars have a voracious appetite that can easily ruin a crop. They can also adapt to most pesticides quickly.
https://www.uvm.edu/news/story/discovery-how-colorado-potato-beetles-beat-pesticides . They have even become immune to BT. see https://academic.oup.com/jee/article/86/2/226/2215916. Commercially, the only thing I know of keeping them at bay is a type of pesticides known as neonicinoids. Potatoes make up a huge amount of the veggies we eat.
The Soybean is a food that I try to avoid; it has gender changing attributes, and it's oils are found in just about every food product. I mean, if society were to start recognizing the transgendered people as victims of corporations as they effectively place estrogens through societies veins, the corporate food companies, big pharma, and plastic companies they would probably panic in the fear of law suits. The inability to have kids is a legally recognized disability, and if soy in our food products, or the estrogens in our water, is causing people to have gender affirming surgeries, I imagine the liability could be in the tens or hundreds of billions...More if it causes cancer. Still, soy is a staple food. In America, one of the major pest is the aphid. But the aphid has to survive off of two food crops, otherwise it cannot survive the winter. However, asian varieties of the aphids no longer need to lay eggs to overwinter. https://content.ces.ncsu.edu/soybean-aphid-in-soybean . Should our aphids develop this trait, or theirs gets imported here, we will need to develop better control mechanisms.
Also in the USA, if a farmer grows wheat, he is subject to taxes if he grows too much-even if it is for his own use. I am not sure what the standards are now, but in the 1940's the SCOTUS abusively expanded the interstate commerce clause. https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/317/111/#tab-opinion-1937493 There are also two main types of traditional wheat grown in the USA. Spring and winter wheat, northern exceptions aside, this somewhat determines when the crops should be planted. A winter crop (winter wheat, garlic, etc) needs to effectively be subjected to the cold in order to produce food[, hence put them in the ground before winter]. There are may be other nuances, such as growing crops (i.e beans) for cover to help fertilize the wheat between seasons and possibly protect against animals. I am testing that last year on a small maybe 7-10'x7-10' plot for this years winter wheat experiment, but otherwise have no experience in cover crops. I don't think the practice of cover crops is that wide spread [but I am not a commercial farmer], which may be why we [as a nation] been so reliant upon fertilizers. But if cover crops are common practice, it's not simply a matter of growing more wheat-but growing cover crops as well.
One of the more famous lines in Jurassic Park is "life finds a way". I tend to also think, "death finds a way" is true also. If you think about it, whether the panama disease becomes more aggressive, or the colorado potato beetle develops greater tolerance to pesticides, or the soybean aphids adapts, it is still life finding a way.
I am not saying America is in dire shape, we've always grown far more than enough for our own needs. Countries like Egypt may experience war or famine over a grain shortage. It is possible that certain elitist may decide to send our food surplus to other countries in the name of equity leaving us with, or vulnerable to, food shortages, or that our true masters send our food to mainland china. While these may be speculative or hyperbole, I also believe in Murphy's law: "Anything that can go wrong will go wrong." Even if our leaders think we can stand on our own with our domestic corn, grain, and potato production. What happens if the Colorado Potato beetle wins this year, leading to a national crop failure and substantial doubts about future production. What happens with immigration if the panama disease ultimately destroys Cavendish crops around the globe.
our media and national policy is too focused on Ukraine, and blaming inflation on Putin rather that years of economic bumbling the puppets of the global elitist sitting as prime ministers and presidents. There is some potential that china might have been given a heads up; but that might have been their response to Covid. Putin took advantage of their green energy failures, and all the west can really do is blame him for their own policy failures. To try to make the fall out instantaneously less painful, we open up the strategic oil reserve [with reports of giving that to Europe], and we turn our future food potential into an ethanol-gas mix. Zelenski says he can fight off the Russians for 10 years. I doubt that; but how long will we keep tossing our resources into a fruitless cause instead of preparing for our own future. Many places have just planted their seeds, some have yet to sow them. Heaven forbid if the corn belt experiences a drought, or a flooding, or an otherwise what I would call "death finds a way".
Cui bono in sustaining the ukrainian government? If the Ukrainian cities are leveled in disrepair, millions of civilians killed in the cross fire, if Malthusian wars break out across the world due to famine, is that really worth the price of Joe and Hunter Biden breathing a sigh of relief that they won't be going to federal prison?
At least we have plenty of bird food. Oh wait, are we being asked to conserve on that too in ways not to instill panic?
https://www.freep.com/story/news/local/michigan/2022/04/20/bird-flu-feeders-michigan-dnr-avian-2022/7382441001/
ok, hyperbole again. But how is culling birds going to provide future birds immunity to the bird flu? Wild birds will have it, and spread it, and the flu will continue to evolve. Culling domestic birds to prevent an outbreak seems like the same mistake of cloning. It's almost like the global leaders would prefer a mass culling than for living animals to develop a natural immunity to a pandemic; Hurray for "vaccines" against covid. [a dark joke if the reader can't tell].
Onward to 2030 where we will be eating bug protein....just like Fido is doing now, and what Nemo, Babe, and Henrietta will be doing in 2024. https://www.agriculture.com/livestock/hogs/will-insects-be-the-new-ingredient-in-your-animal-feed .
Anyways, before the s___ hits the fan, buy food now. plant a few trees, start a victory garden. The last time I said this was before the pandemic, and a few months later the shelves were bare from panic buying; toilet paper was $20 a roll online, people couldn't find antibacterial soaps, etc. You can't trust anyone to help you. And if a year from now, if there was no food shortage, no inflation, no hyperinflation, and you still have a year's worth of pasta then it should still be good.
The cost of feed definitely has gone up. We have chickens and cows and we have noticed that it is getting more expensive to feed them. Thankfully we are able to sell milk to pay for the feed. Our chickens are sitting on eggs and hatching out chicks, which also gives us more hens for eggs or roosters for food. This is a great post. Definitely worth paying attention to - "buy food now, plant a few trees, start a victory garden." Too true!! We recently bought a lot of pastas. Thankfully we live in the "breadbasket of Panama" where most of the produce for the country is grown, but we also believe there may be a shortage soon.
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ice age farmer reports that Iowan farmers are having a late crop due to extreme cold and rain. There might still be time to get a crop in, but frost and precipitation do their own things.
https://www.agriculture.com/crops/corn/don-t-panic-about-planting
I am not sure how dangerous crown rust disease is to oat crops. I been looking into crown rust resistant oats because it is supposed to have a redox effect (most minerals are more bio-available to plants in a redox state than an oxidized state) on the soil. But the fungal disease evolves rather rapidly to new resistance.