Mar 5, 2022·edited Mar 5, 2022Liked by Edward Slavsquat
Thank you for this excellent analysis.
Sounds like a great time to be investing time/energy in heirloom seeds, good soil and decentralized food production skills/knowledge.
Hopefully many will look to the elders who learned the lesson (the hard way) about what happens when we depend on fragile centralized food production/distribution systems, so they can offer us some wisdom on how we might weather the storm ahead.
Monsanto sells hybrid seed to Russia and the world. I have my Heirloom seeds and buying more. Freeze drying my food for emergency for the last 5 years. Stocked up on grains, legumes, sugar, etc. A year's supply will not be enough.
Indeed, and while Bayer and other pharmaceutical/biotech/petro-fascist interests are hyper-consolidating ownership of seed companies (both transgenic and heirloom) Gates is hyper-consolidating ownership of farm land. It seems they will aim to starve people out and/or force them to eat their genetically contaminated patented "food".
That is wise to be prepared as you have chosen to, I only go as far as a couple years of food for our system, but if we were situated in a more isolated location I might do as you have done.
With regards to freeze dryers. I see the huge practical benefits of freeze dryers but I feel I would be remiss if I did not also caution about the risks of depending (solely) on technology such as that for preserving food.
Unless one is capable of gathering all the electricity they need to run their home (and their freeze drying machine) off grid and unless one has back up components for both the energy generation/accumulation systems and the freeze dryer itself stored in some kind of Faraday cage, situations could arise where that technology could become totally unusable.
This is one of the reasons that I am trying to publish some material that can help empower individuals to preserve seasonal abundances of food (whether foraged or cultivated) using low tech methods without the need for specialized equipment. Lacto-fermentation is one versatile method that any gardener or forager should become accustomed with as you do not need anything other than salt, water and random containers (such as mason jars etc) to be able to preserve food for up to a year.
Now that being said, I also own a freeze dryer. Getting one was no small decision as they are very expensive machines and I am not wealthy. The motivating factor for my wanting a freeze dryer can be boiled down to a combination of how I want to treat this vehicle (my body) and the amount of land I have to grow food. For the time being, we have an urban suburban lot and so I have carefully selected some of the most nutrient dense (and antioxidant/polyphenol diverse) crops so that we can give our bodies the absolute best quality food and medicine we can trust . Sometimes we have large seasonal abundances where even through lactic acid fermentation I reach my capacity for storage (or have crops that do not ferment well or easily) meaning I have to freeze, dehydrate or pickle (cook with vinegar). The last three methods of crop preservation mean significant losses in the nutritional content (and often flavor) of food. One of the reasons I got a freeze dryer is because of the technology's uncanny ability to preserve the nutritional content (as well as the flavor, texture and color) of food. Tests show that (aside from some very minor vitamin c loss in certain crops) freeze drying retains around 97% of the nutrients of the fresh / raw food for at least 20 years! Dehydration on the other hand, (while much more energy efficient and still very useful) tends to result in the loss of Vitamins A and C, thiamine, riboflavin and niacin (averaging around 50% – 60% of the original nutrients being left over from the raw / fresh item).
While that is still a significant amount and I still plan on dehydrating a fair bit, I can't ignore the impressive differences in shelf life, nutrition retention, and texture retention of freeze drying vs dehydrating. So for us (and our priorities) getting a freeze drying unit that can preserve food which can be be relied upon for years to come was imperative.
If I had more land I might have considered just coping with the inevitable nutrient loss and go 100% "back to basics" for my crop preservation, but for now we do not have a lot of growing space, so every Goji berry, medicinal herb/fungi, Purple sweet potato, Black tomato, Golden beet, Moringa leaf, Tumeric rhizome, Ginger rhizome and Blueberry we grow counts and I need to keep all their goodness intact in order to feel I am properly caring for our bodies (and utilizing the growing space we have to its greatest potential).
With regards to emergency preparedness side of this device, in the event of a total collapse of modern civilization I am capable of using a combination of available conventionally stored garden crops, foraging, and improvising (even if it were to happen in the dead of winter) to survive (and care for my loved ones at home). So, for us, a freeze dryer is not about survival in the case of extreme emergencies, and more about comfort, wanting to be in optimal health in any situation, having portable/versatile food stores that can be grabbed on the go (should the need arise to leave in a hurry) and it is about my want to maximize my ability to preserve our most nutrient dense crops in peak condition (considering how much time and love I put into growing top quality.) So that is my take on freeze dryers in relation to emergency preparedness.
Thank you for the comment Lance, if you are interested perhaps we could do an heirloom seed swap sometime in the future :)
Freeze drying is a luxury that I used to build my 1 year supply. I am also supplementing that with grains, legumes, sugar, etc.. I bought some heirloom seeds that are germinating now for planting in the spring that is coming up. All total I have calculated we have 3.2 years in long term storage between freeze dried and dry staples. I also can foods for storage and dehydrate as well as I prefer this for jerky and fruit leathers. I also recently purchased 10 3.3 lb cans of Neste KLIM whole milk and repacked it in mylar bags with O2 absorbers. From what I am hearing it will last for at least 5 years if temp is controlled for storage. As a life long hunter, I am prepared to hunt and raise livestock and poultry, If it gets bad, I have a location to go to on 360 acres that has power generation off grid.
I like your rational approach that utilizes many forms of sourcing and preparedness! I have the Foxfire series of books that are fantastic regarding the old ways. I spent over 20 years in the army as a combat leader and have put together plans for food, medical, and emergency plans to defend what we do have and relocate to our pre determined rural location. The way I see it, I react to the developing situation that helps determine my phased timeline regarding the actions we would need to take such as moving supplies if staying in our residential home becomes untenable due to developing threats.
I bought our freeze drier rather than spend the money on commercial freeze dried products. As you know there is a huge advantage regarding quality of one's own freeze dried foods in comparison. Another thing we are stocking up on are spices in bulk. Other skills we are glad we learned are rotating our inventory, making cheeses, meat preservation, distillation, and did a review of my college chemistry. Did our first tinctures last year and am pleased with the results so far;)
Things we do not know, we have found that resources are everywhere on the internet and the local community;)
A year late but... this is probably climate dependent, but in our moderate west coast of Canada climate, a lot of my and my husband's food comes from self-seeded volunteers - potatoes (more than we can cope with - we give them away to the local farm co-op), tomatoes, squash, kale, parsley, chives. We do cover the beds with spoiled hay from a local farm - all year as mulch, but especially deep in the winter. This keeps both the root crops and the cabbages fresh in the ground over the winter. I was able to do a bit of this back when living in much colder Montreal too (50 years ago). Paying a bit more attention, I could be collecting seeds and replanting, but there's that local farm co-op that needs support too. We don't have a huge garden, but we do have a good community.
The global food crisis certainly has not been averted (if anything, it is more precarious now than a year ago) so your comment is not late at all, it is appreciated and relevant. :)
Self seeded gardens are a great way to produce lots of food with minimal work. I do that (in our garden here in southern Ontario) with a couple of our raised beds with Amaranth, Kale, Cilantro, Tulsi, Dill, Radishes, Heirloom Soy Beans, horseradish, goji berries, current tomatoes, Chiltepin peppers and nettle. I explain how I do that (create self sowing beds) with our heirloom Amarnath and how I simultaneously save seeds for eating and sharing in this article https://gavinmounsey.substack.com/p/amazing-amaranth
Have you ever tried growing amaranth before?
What is your favorite variety of tomato and why?
Thanks for the comment Veronica, wishing you many bountiful harvests :)
Your garden sounds amazing. We have some shallow raised beds on our deck over the garage, and some deep ones (modified hugelkultur) where there's more sun. The Amaranth (which I haven't grown before but will definitely try, thanks to your extremely informative substack) might do well in the deeper beds. As we are also subject to serious drought in the summer and fall, getting it established in the spring so it can survive later sounds useful.
My favourite tomatoes are the ones that grow themselves... Generally a collection of whatever has been traded around, mostly cherry type and a few each of the standard sized red, yellow and orange varieties. They've probably cross pollinated now, so who knows what they are.
What grows best in my patches is Yukon Gold potatoes. They are prolific to the point of plague. They self-seed in the oddest places. I transplanted an large overgrown patch of chrysanthemums last fall, only to discover a huge colony of extraordinarily large, healthy Yukons underneath.
My enthusiasm for less work has grown exponentially with advancing age :-)
Thank you for the good wishes, which are heartily returned.
And I wish for our Russian friends a continuation of their long culture of kitchen gardens wherever there's a corner for them. Maybe not downtown urban, but anywhere else they can. We loved our visit there in 2019 and will never forget the kindness we were shown.
I did an experiment and collected the seeds from some fresh and some freeze dried Carolina Reaper peppers and set to germinating them and found the freeze dried seeds did germinate nicely. The ones from fresh did not. Both lots were seeds stored and protected from light and high temp for two years. I always wondered if freeze dried seeds would work and now I know;)
Excellent! I have had similar results. I have freeze dried a couple different types of heirloom seeds (Goji berry, Tomato, Beans and Hemp and Peppers, all harvested fresh from the plants in the garden and then freeze dried inside the fruit/berries/flowers and then separated after). I got about 90% germination rate on the seeds i`ve tried so far. Theoretically, freeze dried seeds could remain viable for a lot longer than 20 years (as archeologists have found super desiccated seeds in old pottery containers in caves and burial sites that were sealed for centuries and still managed to get some of the seeds to sprout, "Anasazi beans" being one such example). Could be a great way to set up a seed vault to protect rare heirlooms and/or give your descendants a one up on the other survivors of the collapse of modern civilization we appear to be headed towards.
If you are not planting vegetable gardens this spring from seed you germinate, you will be victims to the crisis due to your misplaced faith in the government to save you. EVERYONE needs to plant victory gardens. EVERYONE must be able to store what they grow and process what they hunt for meat. Those are critical skills to survive what is coming very quickly. Then you must be prepared to defend it.
Unfortunately, I think you may be right about a large majority of the global population.
Learning to cultivate, forage and/or hunt for food and preserve it is indeed extremely important. Though I think it would be wise to point out that while hunting may be a necessary stop gap measure for surviving in certain situations/bio-regions, if millions (or billions) of people were to turn to hunting to get their meat after the collapse of major centralized food systems, this would quickly result in the extinction of choice species of wild game.
Since the 1970-s humans have eradicated over 60% of all wild mammals on the planet. If one wishes to hunt for animals to eat meat as part of their diet and they wish for their children and grandchildren to be able to appreciate the same biodiversity we have been able to in our lifetime, it would be wise for us to set some strict (self-imposed) ground rules when it comes to killing wild animals for food. There are some ancient cultures that had developed guidelines for their hunters as wild game was a major part of their diet. One such set of principles is called the way of The Honorable Harvest. It can apply to foraging for plants as well as hunting animals for food and is equally important for both. Here is a video with some info on that concept: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lz1vgfZ3etE&t
Thanks for the link;) I will check it out as I like the idea.
Regarding hunting, during a famine or shortage of food, you are right about the wild game population being severely impacted. I am an ethical hunter and I absolutely support sustainable game management harvest plans. In Germany, we count the wild game in an area and these inputs are used to determine the game management harvest limits each year. Unfortunately, desperate people that are hungry could care less.
Regarding desperation and the horrors of war and conflict I present the following to sober people up to do everything in their power to avoid conflict:
Here is the survival account of one that lived through and survived the Bosnian conflict. It is long, but very instructive. I had an engineer from Bosnia that told a very similar story, but it was more horrific as their town was under siege for over a year resulting in mass starvation and death due to disease and battles between the hungry within the town. Once the population was sufficiently weak, the enemy forces surrounding the town would only then enter and execute the remaining resistance which were the worst of the worst that murdered their neighbors by forming powerful gangs that would then fight each other till only one gang was left and they would then start killing off the weaker members as supplies grew scarce. This is a very long story, but it answers many questions. I can confirm that this is what we too witnessed when I was deployed there on the UN multinational peacekeeping force:
Like many deployed combat soldiers, I have witnessed the most horrific things that humans do to each other. Our enemy loved creating videos of their barbaric torture of those they captured. I will not go into detail as there are no words to describe it nor should it be other than to say there is evil out there and if we lose, it will have it's way with us. Most people break and succumb to the evil side of human nature. We are a family of faith and will not be reduced to animals as this life is but a fleeting microsecond of eternity and existence beyond this current physical existence. The ability to plan, prepare, and be ready will hopefully ensure we do not need to be faced with that decision.
I am glad to hear you apply an ethical compass when considering how often and what you hunt for food.
With regards to the horrors of war and the artificially induced states of scarcity/desperation it (as well as what certain forms of intentional economic warfare) produce; I acknowledge the reality of these things but I personally do not see the type of behavior you describe as 'a side of human nature'. Rather, I see these types of behaviors as being learned through a lifetime of conditioning that covers up and inhibits true human nature from shining and being the motivating force in our lives on Earth.
I feel that violence, ambition, competition and fear act as a type of fog or veil which obscures and inhibits the innate love each of us is born with from unfolding into greater levels of potency (resulting in states of fear and lack of love that motivate individuals to engage in all sorts of apathetic and even nefarious activities aka "evil"). I do not see "evil" or darkness as a substance, but rather, the lack of a substance. In a room that is pitch black, you cannot measure the darkness, but once you bring light into that room, you can measure the light, in a similar sense, those behaviors that we judge as "evil" are not the result of the presence of some "substance" or "thing" that is inherent to the being choosing the behaviors, rather, those behaviors of the result of the lack of the substance called love. Thus, while I whole heartedly endorse becoming prepared for emergencies (whether it be through cultivating, foraging and preserving food or gaining wilderness survival skills, or even self defense skills) I also see embodying love and helping to nurture that light in others as being an important part of the equation as we seek to survive what is in front of us while working to create a future without war, suffering and starvation. I see that as true in peaceful and everyday life situations in our local communities, and also as especially true in survival or desperate conflict situations. No matter how far gone down the path of fear and lack a human being is, there is always the potential for them to make a new choice, begin to shed the layers of programming and let their innate light inside to shine brighter making the darkness flee.
Through my time spent in stillness exploring inwardly, I have come to understand that at the core of each conscious being is an eternal spark of love. It is the most innate and permanent aspect of Self. It is a spark that can only be dimmed and obscured.. never extinguished, for it is eternal. The spark (no matter how apparently dim and faded) can always be fanned and nurtured to become a radiant glowing source of light again. We are born living from that innate essence naturally, effortlessly and without fear.. and then slowly over time we are programmed by the backwards ideas that have been peddled for millennia on Earth, we are taught to forget who and what we are and take on the role of "john smith" or "jane smith" the human being, we are told we are in need of saving and/or that we must follow "leaders", we are taught degenerative concepts like "survival of the fittest" and "emotion is weakness", "patriotism is admirable" and last but not least we are indoctrinated into a society driven by fear and ego which tells us that our purpose in life is to gather money and physical things. These delusions (pushed onto the souls arriving on the Earth by humans already present here that has also been indoctrinated into these degenerative delusions) serve to allow a small group of especially delusional and mentally ill human beings to exert control and dominance over the rest of those currently on the Earth. These delusional and psychotic would be controllers fear love as they have no way to control it (as it is a measurable energy field that emanates from those operating in their innate and natural state expanding in all directions exponentially, permeating all things and shifting the consciousness of others at a distance back into alignment with their innate state of Love). This is one of the reasons that the peaceful protestors embodying love and courage in Ottawa terrified the plutocrats and provoked them to unleash unprecedented militarized police forces to crush them before their message could spread any further.
Thus, while it is true that the above mentioned ego/lack manifestations such as fear, competition, violence etc are prevalent here (which serve to obscure and dampen the love within and around us to the point where some totally forget it exists) it is nevertheless also true that love perpetually present and capable of becoming the light that makes the darkness disappear if we nurture it vigilantly and courageously. That inner light is beyond the 'jurisdiction' and reach of the influence of the plutocrats and their puppets in governments, for it is the fabric of our eternal spark that makes us more than just a physical body and brain. It is the glow that allows our heart to know intuitive guidance and it is present at the core of each and every being (no matter how crusted over, shadowy and distorted ones exterior and human mind have become). We can choose to become beacons of this innate light and radiate it outwardly to help others remember who and what they are. This can be achieved through many methods, but all of them are rooted in stillness of the mind, humility, gratitude, courage, acceptance and grace. If we engage on such a path while also cultivating skills for caring for our body as well as the body of the Earth we are doing what some might call "walking the mystical path with practical feet".
It only takes a single candle to light up an entire room filled with darkness but you cannot take any amount of darkness and effect a well lit room at all.
This is why in order to create permanent changes to our world the real work begins within each of us. No amount of saviors, priests, military actions, gurus nor leaders of any kind can heal the world. We are the the ones we have been waiting for.
“Moral courage is a rarer commodity than bravery in battle or great intelligence. Yet it is the one essential, vital quality for those who seek to change a world that yields most painfully to change.”
Yes, there will inevitably be some blood, sweat and tears involved on the path to learning to grow one's own food.
I found, however, that there are some tricks for minimizing the pain and maximizing the gain. I like to use Hügelkulturs and Sheet Mulching for building soil so the bulk of the work is done the first year (and long term fertility can be achieved without the need for synthetic inputs). I enjoy the approach of inviting nature to share the workload help minimize the physical labor that is required (in the long haul) and increasing resilience of crops in the garden. Once I stopped tilling the soil and started leaning into the Perennial food crops more than the typical Mediterranean/subtropical annuals (which are often the mainstay in modern conventional gardens here in Canada) I was doing a lot less work each year. When combined with self-seeding heirloom annuals and biennial food crops (about 75% perennial to 25% annual/biennial) I found it allows for the cycles of nature to carry a lot of the momentum and workload.
Red Russian Kale is one of my favorites for this. It is 11th generation (self-sowing) in our garden now. It keeps getting tougher each year (more acclimatized to our growing conditions) and because it produces prolific amounts of seeds in the second year, the only real work I have to do at this point to maintain that crop is thin out the hundreds (to thousands) of seedlings that start themselves each spring (through snacking or making salads) until I have the amount of properly spaced adult plants I desire.
before we had water rationing risk in Southern California I grew almost everything...
from a ‘yummy favorite’ standpoint home grown tomatoes can’t be replicated... one year got really into tomato mania and grew over 50 different kinds ... will never forget a variety called ‘Florida Pink’ it was the size of a large grapefruit... unfortunately i didn’t save any seeds (it was a heirloom) and searched (before internet) but never found it again...
from an ‘easy peasy favorite’ standpoint it would be zucchini... was just looking at the seeds last week... also nice to harvest super tender baby zucchini with olive oil...
also great cool season is mesculan mix greens that you can cut the leaves for a salad and then they grow back.... like oak leaf lettuce
also fun to harvest root crops like carrots, turnips and potatoes because it’s always a surprise what’s beneath the soil
also liked alpine strawberries that grew in pots... real delicacy
...thinking maybe i should do a post on my ‘free to everyone newsletter’ since there’s a lot of talk about victory gardens🐱🙏🐱
50 different kinds! Wow and I thought my ten or so varieties was a lot :) I have not heard of that tomato variety, sounds lovely.
Yes, sadly many heirlooms are disappearing. This is why I feel initiatives like Vandana Shiva's "Seed Satyagraha" are so important now and I strive to do my own small part in gathering heirlooms that are resilient, delicious, unique and have ancient cultural roots and sharing them to preserve our sacred inheritance. Have you ever grown any of the varieties produced by Brad at Wild Boar Farms? I am a big fan of his Indigo Apple and Black Beauty varieties. The high anthocyanin content in the skin of those tomatoes seems to increase their resistance to fungal diseases which are prevalent when growing tomatoes in our high humidity Great Lakes region.
I also love zucchini. I have yet to try oak leaf lettuce, I will add that one to my list now :)
Root crops are among my favorites too, I especially love sweet potatoes because the foliage is also edible so you get two crops from one plant.
Sounds like a great idea, you are most welcome. I will subscribe to your page. I look forward to reading it!
sounds like you have a great local specialty source... you’re right, there are different varieties more suitable to cool / hot / humid / dry summer climates, so it’s good to get local advice on the best varieties ...
... haven’t looked into it lately but there used to be seed savers exchanges / seed banks way back when... basically the only way heirlooms survive is with a devoted fan club...
tomato seeds are viable for a long time if you rinse them and thoroughly & completely dry out & store in cool / dry place (or ziplock in refrigerator) ... save for a few years
lately just grown cherry tomatoes in pots... there is this tiny yellow pear shaped one I call shmoo after the cartoon character ... it’s sweeter, less acidic...
i have clay soil also so nematodes are a problem, damaging the root system so the soil needs to be amended & refreshed / crop rotation for best results
uhoh ... a lot to talk about... maybe will have to be in multiple newsletter posts about the veggies... it is nice to see more young people interested in growing ... would be great to encourage it!
If you already have a garden think of this as a list of 23 reasons why you should re-double your gardening efforts by expanding, honing and sharing your garden abundance/knowledge.
Please share the article linked above with anyone you feel would be receptive so they can take steps to help themselves and become capable of weathering the storm ahead of us.
In closing, I will quote a comment from a Corbett Report subscriber which pertains to the imperative of taking steps to create decentralized food production systems at home.
The comment was posted by “ccuthbert2001” under the 2022 Year in Review episode.
"Much of this is usually shipped through the Black Sea ports of Odesa, or Kherson." I wonder how much of anything is getting through Kherson, scene of heavy fighting recently. Birthplace of my paternal grandfather, FWIW.
Thanks once again for excellent analysis. Stuff everyone needs to hear.
Fascinating analysis, and this is a twist on things I haven't read about until now. Russia grows a great deal of wheat, but have to buy the seeds abroad. And problems with farming machinery. Check and checkmate. Woe is everyone if the idiots everywhere who are so eternally focused on killing and destroying don't figure this out. The current track leads nowhere good for anyone.
Gavin Mounsey: "There will come a time when only those who know how to plant will be eating". - Chief Oren Lyons.
Not necessarily! I beg to differ!
Obviously You do not understand system of government power at all!
Chief Oren Lyons is a native Iroquois. His native system of Indian demi-anarchy no longer exists in modern Canada!
Do you know what happened to the farmers in the Soviet Union? In China under Mao? In Cambodia under Polpot?
Do you know what has happening to the Indian farmers in today India right now?
I know what happened to both my paternal and maternal grand parents during the "land reform" under Ho Chi Minh regime (1953-1956!)
Millions of Vietnamese and I personally experienced starvation after the Communists took over the whole nation in 1975, although we, all farmers, still had piece of land which had used to produce plenty of foods!
As long as people are being "governed", everything you produce can be taken away or even destroyed at anytime if your are allowed to do so at all! You need permission to produce even at your own garden! And that "permission" can be revoked anytime!
Don't ever tell me that such thing will never happen in "Western democracy!" or "That won't and can't happen here!" I have lived in different Western democracies since I fled Vietnam! Anyway, I digress.
At any rate, we, the human race, are worse than the boiling frog. For at least the "boiling frog" is neither aware of the coming heat nor understanding how the boiling spot works. We, the human race, do know and understand this government's murder plan in details! From the chemical GM foods, chemical poisons disguised as "medicine" to slow killer injection called vaccine, and the coming government made famine.... In one word, we knew that Governments have been deliberately murdering us. It's pure democide!
But not a single person, especially the so-called intellectuals, dare to utter the words REVOLT.
Yet, every year on the day 14 July, we commemorate and celebrate the spirit of the pitchfork revolution: the "Bastille" (14 July 1789)
We, right now, know very well that Governments are doing every thing to murder us... But we would not even dare to think of overthrowing them!
And when some people like Kazakhstans courageously did overthrow them. "We" hysterically, fearfully disapproved and condemned the Kazakhstans as being too violent and being "color revolution" ... just to cover our own cowardice IMHO (and Slav Squat of course) anyway.
How "civilized" we have been trained to be! We all have forgotten our self-preservation instinct!
I don't often agree with Paul Craig Roberts. However in this case I cannot help but agree with his remarks "this human race is so stupid to survive!"
As Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn regretted "We didn't love freedom enough. And even more – we had no awareness of the real situation.... We purely and simply deserved everything that happened afterward.” The Gulag Archipelago 1918-1956
Also, on an interesting side note. I too admire some of the resilient inhabitants of Kazakhstan, though in the case of my rebellious project, not the same inhabitants you mentioned (nor for the same reasons).
I am actually growing some apple trees (which I grew from seed) that were collected from the wild apple trees growing in the Tien Shan Mountain range. The wild apple trees that grow there are full of vast genetic diversity (no two apple trees produce fruit that is exactly the same) and they are very resistant to disease and challenging weather conditions. The reason I bring this up, is that tough food producing trees like the wild apple trees of Kazakhstan are prime candidates for being integrated into an unconventional type of food cultivation/horticulture system called "Forest Gardening", "agroforestry" or cultivating a "Food Forest".
These ancient horticultural systems were utilized by some Native American and First Nation peoples (as well as others on different continents) and they are ways of cultivating which can offer us an effective method to create resilient food/medicine production systems that are less likely to be raided by degenerates, mercenaries, government thugs or brainwashed soldiers as they are by the very nature of their design, 'camouflaged' to the untrained eye. These "Food Forests" become permanent gardens that require very little (if any) work to keep alive and producing once they are established. These systems contain a wide spectrum of species suitable for harvesting food, medicine, building material and other important resources. The mature Food Forest, looks like it sounds, and so because the modern eye has been trained to see food production systems as big fields, many would not recognize what they were looking at if they saw it and would ignore the forest garden as 'just another useless section of forest' and move on.
If we cultivate food forests like the ancient peoples that lived in what is now called Canada, the US, Morocco (and many other places where indigenous peoples created similar permanent food production systems that blended with existing ecology) we are building up food security and doing so in a way that is essentially 'invisible' to the ignorant. These systems provide habitat for diverse wildlife, replenish the water table, stabilize the soil and feed humans at the same time. It is likely most roaming thugs would not be able to recognize a food forest if they saw one and even if armed thugs were to kill those that tend the food forest, history teaches us the food forests gain their own momentum and continue to live on and feed others for many generations.
Therefore, I see this as a viable, honorable and practical path forward in these uncertain times. We can forge alliances with the more than human world through planting food forests all over, and in doing so provide not only for ourselves, but countless future generations in the process.
Thanks for taking the time to share your story and your thoughts on that quote with such passion and detail.
First of all, I can't even imagine how hard it must of been to go through what you describe, but I imagine it took courage, so I am glad you dug deep to summon that courage to get you to where you are today.
Could you elaborate on what you meant when you said "Indian demi-anarchy"?
I am not familiar with what happened to the farmers in the regions you listed in the past but I do have a close friend from Russia that told me the way his grandparents survived the collapse of the Soviet Union was to get out of the proximity of the city, get back to basics and provide for themselves through gardening and foraging.
I have not been keeping up on events in India either as here in Ontario, our corrupt government has been engaging in all kinds of shady activity (freezing people's bank accounts if they protest, police showing up at your house if you speak about protesting or about 'anti-government' ideas online and engaging in a range of other tyrannical shenanigans as well) so that has forced me to stay 'on my toes' and most of my attention focused on problem-solving locally.
Canada is a vast territory, so while they (oligarchs and their puppet government officials) may be able to brainwash a certain amount of police and perhaps military there is nowhere near enough personnel to effectively/systematically harass, steal from, violate or murder all the farmers/gardeners that are outside of major population centers here. People near cities and towns, maybe if things get really bad, but there are just not enough people to do a drag net type operation across the whole landscape here.
Even though I do see the potential for the worst case hypothetical you describe (overt government-sponsored genocide/violent oppression in high population centers) being possible in our future (regardless of geographic location) I also feel that focusing a lot of time and resources on weapons or planning for combat/revolting is not a solid way to prepare for that potential emergency, because in the end, if the oligarchs unleash their full arsenal in the open, we are talking about high powered LRADs and DEWs (microwave based, laser based and other directed energy weapons) that can be mounted on vehicles at a distance and we are talking about heavily armed drones (and those are just a few of the technologies we know about). Preparing to defend oneself against nasty individuals that may cross paths with you in a survival situation if need be is one thing, but attempting to wage war on the plutocrats and their armies of brainwashed soldiers that possess next level weapons tech and fire power is (to me) a bad idea for so many reasons.
The thing about taking steps to learn to grow and preserve one's own food is that it simultaneously serves the purpose of increasing one's emergency preparedness while also increasing the quality of one's life (even during the best of times). If one embarks on such a journey of learning and then a tyrannical government decides to use the threat of violence to take away one's land or home, the act of learning and enriching oneself via growing and preserving the food still remains valuable. If we choose to do things that help us align with natural localized cycles for providing our basic survival needs (like gardening, seed saving, foraging and preserving) we are increasing our emergency preparedness in a joyful and healthy way. There are likely a great many people that (if cut off from centralized economic/energy distribution systems) would freeze or starve to death, all while being surrounded in a forest full of food and building materials. I am not among them. While most people in our modern society do need property and/or a home/permanent dwelling to survive, I have been blessed to have been raised by two wilderness trail builders, also, I have taken several wilderness survival courses and spent many years honing my knowledge and skillsets relating to off grid survival situations. So, if the day comes when our government (and their corporate masters) go full on totalitarian fascist and begin sweeping through the land with a vicious army of imperialistic goons dispossessing people of their land and hard earned money (if they do not submit to the technocratic police state's mandates) my path to connect symbiotically with and learn from nature will prepare me to survive that as well and be able to care for my loved ones despite the extreme nature of such a hypothetical situation.
That is why I put my time and energy into preserving heirloom seeds, creating good soil, gardening skills, creating food forests, increasing foraging knowledge/experience, increased health/immunity, preserving experience, and that is why I put most of my time and energy into the symbiotic relationships and friendships I forge with neighbors and the broader community I am a part of (through sharing abundant harvests, seeds, knowledge and helping others to grow regenerative gardens and make medicines) as these are things that have innate value. These things will retain their value whether or not tyranny is commonplace. Thus, even given the possibility of our corrupt government freezing accounts or seizing property, I still whole heartedly believe that taking time to learn to grow, forage for, and preserve one's own food and medicine is a wise path forward in this uncertain times.
For those that live in areas of the world that are highly populated that do not have vast wilderness and open spaces to disappear into and be off grid (if need be in a SHTF situation) I would have to agree with you that gardening/farming by itself may not be enough to survive what is coming.
I understand your want to tear down this corrupt system of involuntary government and punish those responsible for the ongoing atrocities being perpetrated on innocents, as part of me feels that way as well.. I just don't think it would create permanent beneficial changes to our world (even if it was possible, which given the tech they possess, I doubt).
As much as I sometimes wish this corrupt system would be forced to come crashing down by an uprising and the punishing of those responsible for their crimes against humanity, the truth is violent uprisings/revolutions can be usurped, co-opted and managed by the plutocrats and have been all throughout human history. They know violence and turbulence well as they are some of the elite`s tools of choice.
Having observed the sociopaths that run our governments (and their subsidiary systems of oppression) on earth for a very long time I have come to understand the way to get rid of them is not by attempting to kill them. After all, even if someone did succeed at doing that, it would only be killing some people not ridding the world of a massive global parasitic empire which feeds on fear and violence. The people in the echelons of that system are merely those who have been indoctrinated into and contributed towards building/maintaining that empire, they are not the reason such a system can exist on earth. Therefore, killing the people would only create a vacuum within that empire, that would in time be filled by other humans suffering from the same ego dis-ease and mental instability that the original puppet masters suffered from. In order to permanently rid the world of this type of individual you have to create an environment where psychopathic and parasitic individuals and the systems which they create cannot flourish. The key is found not in openly attacking them with violence but rather in leaving them behind by rendering their parasitic systems obsolete and unable to draw strength from us.
I too believe it is time we moved past the era of followers and leaders, peasants and princes, worshipers and saviors, minions and tyrants, consumers and corporations to usher in the age of self-governed and self-reliant (consciously symbiotically connected) human beings which collaborate of their own free will to leave this world a little more beautiful than it was before. I just do not think violence is the most effective way to get us there.
Thanks again for taking the time to express your thoughts.
An arrangement will be made behind the scene, off-stage, as it turns out to be with oil and gas, exempted from sanctions. Wall Streets operators are said to be agresssively buying undervalued Russian assets. How can this even be allowed by Russian authorities. If Russia does not take back its sovereignty, including retaking control of financial operators and the bank of Russia, the 5th columnist will take over. On the other hand, a global crisis is what Klaus Schwab and the Davos globalist ring were praying for, isn't it. The empoverishing scenario seems to be benefiting the City, Wall Street and all their mafia drug-smuggling tax haven planetary network. The economy was bogged down, inflation skyrocketing, debt impayable, prices soaring, jobs disappering... Now they have the perfect scaping goat to blame their crimes on. After all, they know they are protected in the bunkerlike robocop ultra secured exclusive residential closed zones.
Key point mentioned is that Russia imports all of it's seeds. HYBRID SEEDS. Think Monsanto. This means possible global famines. Monsanto holds the key to the global supply of seed and Russia for fertilizers and soil amendments. I entertain the rational question that this is planned to reduce carbon, namely the carbon of human life. Nuclear war? That just reduces the carbon that much quicker. The bioweapons labs in the Ukraine are at critical risk of compromise by Russian weapons. A bioweapon is exponentially worse than nuclear war.. Just think: a virus released due to breach by Russian attack infects many in the Ukraine that then spread it through refugee resettlement all over the world. The 3rd Horseman is mounting his pale steed and will ride.
At the risk of being accused of "doomerism" I would like to point out another variable that I feel is pertinent to the discussion of global food security. It is more of a long term issue, but considering how systemically it impacted the Roman Empire, I think Soil Erosion is worth considering here as well.
According to recent studies, over 20 BILLION tons of soil a year is currently being lost due to deforestation, backwards thinking and the adversarial modern approach to farming (which wages war on microbiology, insects, plants and fungi) rather than symbiotically working in alignment with the web of life. Heavy tilling, prolific glyphosate and other types of toxic biocide usage, synthetic petroleum based NPK inputs and monocropping have desertified huge portions of once fertile land. If we continue on this path, history teaches us, that (even if we were not dealing with this current destabilization of economies/food supply chains documented in the article above and even if we weren't facing the rise of technocratic totalitarianism) Soil Erosion on its own (if left unchecked) will most certainly lead to the collapse of modern civilization and mass starvation for those that are dependent on centralized food systems.
Our best scientific minds estimate that if we continue with current conventional agricultural practices we have no more than 50 harvests left. This is obviously intrinsically linked to live stock farmer's ability to raise animals for meat production as well.
For some historical and scientific background on this issue, I suggest reading: "Dirt: The Erosion of Civilizations" by David Montgomery
"Dirt, soil, call it what you want—it's everywhere we go. It is the root of our existence, supporting our feet, our farms, our cities. This fascinating yet disquieting book finds, however, that we are running out of dirt, and it's no laughing matter. An engaging natural and cultural history of soil that sweeps from ancient civilizations to modern times, Dirt: The Erosion of Civilizations explores the compelling idea that we are—and have long been—using up Earth's soil. Once bare of protective vegetation and exposed to wind and rain, cultivated soils erode bit by bit, slowly enough to be ignored in a single lifetime but fast enough over centuries to limit the lifespan of civilizations. A rich mix of history, archaeology and geology, Dirt traces the role of soil use and abuse in the history of Mesopotamia, Ancient Greece, the Roman Empire, China, European colonialism, Central America, and the American push westward. We see how soil has shaped us and we have shaped soil—as society after society has risen, prospered, and plowed through a natural endowment of fertile dirt. David R. Montgomery sees in the recent rise of permaculture, forest gardening, organic and no-till farming the hope for a new agricultural revolution that might help us avoid the fate of previous civilizations."
I see many viable solutions to this manmade problem, but I highly doubt any of our corrupt governments are going to take action in a top down fashion (nor would I endorse or hope for such a thing considering that is not gonna provide a permanent solution, nor is it going to address the mentality that got us to where we are today).
In the end, I think it is gonna come down to the decisions made by everyday people that decide who survives and how much biodiversity survives the challenging times ahead of us.
Now is the time to reaffirm our alliances with the living Earth, to nurture new symbiotic relationships with the soil, people, plants and fungi in our local communities. We can create oasis’s of health, resilience, and abundance in each of our communities.. we can become the solution, break from dependence on centralized systems and help others to do the same. It begins with the soil and the seeds.. and it evolves into nurturing symbiotic connections with those we share our communities with. Each of us can embody the medicine the land and our communities need to survive and thrive through the tough times ahead.
Thank you for this excellent analysis.
Sounds like a great time to be investing time/energy in heirloom seeds, good soil and decentralized food production skills/knowledge.
Hopefully many will look to the elders who learned the lesson (the hard way) about what happens when we depend on fragile centralized food production/distribution systems, so they can offer us some wisdom on how we might weather the storm ahead.
Much love and respect from Canada
Monsanto sells hybrid seed to Russia and the world. I have my Heirloom seeds and buying more. Freeze drying my food for emergency for the last 5 years. Stocked up on grains, legumes, sugar, etc. A year's supply will not be enough.
Indeed, and while Bayer and other pharmaceutical/biotech/petro-fascist interests are hyper-consolidating ownership of seed companies (both transgenic and heirloom) Gates is hyper-consolidating ownership of farm land. It seems they will aim to starve people out and/or force them to eat their genetically contaminated patented "food".
That is wise to be prepared as you have chosen to, I only go as far as a couple years of food for our system, but if we were situated in a more isolated location I might do as you have done.
With regards to freeze dryers. I see the huge practical benefits of freeze dryers but I feel I would be remiss if I did not also caution about the risks of depending (solely) on technology such as that for preserving food.
Unless one is capable of gathering all the electricity they need to run their home (and their freeze drying machine) off grid and unless one has back up components for both the energy generation/accumulation systems and the freeze dryer itself stored in some kind of Faraday cage, situations could arise where that technology could become totally unusable.
This is one of the reasons that I am trying to publish some material that can help empower individuals to preserve seasonal abundances of food (whether foraged or cultivated) using low tech methods without the need for specialized equipment. Lacto-fermentation is one versatile method that any gardener or forager should become accustomed with as you do not need anything other than salt, water and random containers (such as mason jars etc) to be able to preserve food for up to a year.
Now that being said, I also own a freeze dryer. Getting one was no small decision as they are very expensive machines and I am not wealthy. The motivating factor for my wanting a freeze dryer can be boiled down to a combination of how I want to treat this vehicle (my body) and the amount of land I have to grow food. For the time being, we have an urban suburban lot and so I have carefully selected some of the most nutrient dense (and antioxidant/polyphenol diverse) crops so that we can give our bodies the absolute best quality food and medicine we can trust . Sometimes we have large seasonal abundances where even through lactic acid fermentation I reach my capacity for storage (or have crops that do not ferment well or easily) meaning I have to freeze, dehydrate or pickle (cook with vinegar). The last three methods of crop preservation mean significant losses in the nutritional content (and often flavor) of food. One of the reasons I got a freeze dryer is because of the technology's uncanny ability to preserve the nutritional content (as well as the flavor, texture and color) of food. Tests show that (aside from some very minor vitamin c loss in certain crops) freeze drying retains around 97% of the nutrients of the fresh / raw food for at least 20 years! Dehydration on the other hand, (while much more energy efficient and still very useful) tends to result in the loss of Vitamins A and C, thiamine, riboflavin and niacin (averaging around 50% – 60% of the original nutrients being left over from the raw / fresh item).
While that is still a significant amount and I still plan on dehydrating a fair bit, I can't ignore the impressive differences in shelf life, nutrition retention, and texture retention of freeze drying vs dehydrating. So for us (and our priorities) getting a freeze drying unit that can preserve food which can be be relied upon for years to come was imperative.
If I had more land I might have considered just coping with the inevitable nutrient loss and go 100% "back to basics" for my crop preservation, but for now we do not have a lot of growing space, so every Goji berry, medicinal herb/fungi, Purple sweet potato, Black tomato, Golden beet, Moringa leaf, Tumeric rhizome, Ginger rhizome and Blueberry we grow counts and I need to keep all their goodness intact in order to feel I am properly caring for our bodies (and utilizing the growing space we have to its greatest potential).
With regards to emergency preparedness side of this device, in the event of a total collapse of modern civilization I am capable of using a combination of available conventionally stored garden crops, foraging, and improvising (even if it were to happen in the dead of winter) to survive (and care for my loved ones at home). So, for us, a freeze dryer is not about survival in the case of extreme emergencies, and more about comfort, wanting to be in optimal health in any situation, having portable/versatile food stores that can be grabbed on the go (should the need arise to leave in a hurry) and it is about my want to maximize my ability to preserve our most nutrient dense crops in peak condition (considering how much time and love I put into growing top quality.) So that is my take on freeze dryers in relation to emergency preparedness.
Thank you for the comment Lance, if you are interested perhaps we could do an heirloom seed swap sometime in the future :)
Freeze drying is a luxury that I used to build my 1 year supply. I am also supplementing that with grains, legumes, sugar, etc.. I bought some heirloom seeds that are germinating now for planting in the spring that is coming up. All total I have calculated we have 3.2 years in long term storage between freeze dried and dry staples. I also can foods for storage and dehydrate as well as I prefer this for jerky and fruit leathers. I also recently purchased 10 3.3 lb cans of Neste KLIM whole milk and repacked it in mylar bags with O2 absorbers. From what I am hearing it will last for at least 5 years if temp is controlled for storage. As a life long hunter, I am prepared to hunt and raise livestock and poultry, If it gets bad, I have a location to go to on 360 acres that has power generation off grid.
I like your rational approach that utilizes many forms of sourcing and preparedness! I have the Foxfire series of books that are fantastic regarding the old ways. I spent over 20 years in the army as a combat leader and have put together plans for food, medical, and emergency plans to defend what we do have and relocate to our pre determined rural location. The way I see it, I react to the developing situation that helps determine my phased timeline regarding the actions we would need to take such as moving supplies if staying in our residential home becomes untenable due to developing threats.
I bought our freeze drier rather than spend the money on commercial freeze dried products. As you know there is a huge advantage regarding quality of one's own freeze dried foods in comparison. Another thing we are stocking up on are spices in bulk. Other skills we are glad we learned are rotating our inventory, making cheeses, meat preservation, distillation, and did a review of my college chemistry. Did our first tinctures last year and am pleased with the results so far;)
Things we do not know, we have found that resources are everywhere on the internet and the local community;)
Here are some seed sites if anyone needs anything
Look for heirloom and open-pollinated seeds (OP) and avoid hybrids (F1)
USA
I've ordered from these sites and can recommend
https://www.anniesheirloomseeds.com/
https://www.rareseeds.com/
https://www.marysheirloomseeds.com/
https://hudsonvalleyseed.com/
https://www.hrseeds.com/
https://www.trueleafmarket.com/
https://www.victoryseeds.com/
https://www.snakeriverseeds.com/
https://sowtrueseed.com/
https://www.seedsavers.org/
https://www.johnnyseeds.com/ (avoid hybrids)
Https://www.kitchengardenseeds.com (avoid hybrids)
https://www.tradewindsfruit.com/
https://www.edenbrothers.com/ (avoid hybrids)
https://www.reimerseeds.com/ (avoid hybrids)
Not ordered but these sites look good
https://www.superseeds.com/collections/heirloom-seeds
https://www.botanicalinterests.com/
https://www.edibleacres.org/permaculture-nurseries
https://bcfnursery.com/
https://www.allianceofnativeseedkeepers.com/
https://www.fruitionseeds.com
https://www.vegetableseedwarehouse.com/
https://ohioheirloomseeds.com/
Canada
https://heirloom-seeds.ca/
https://heirloomseedvault.com/
https://www.walkerland.ca/canadian-heirloom-seed-suppliers/
Thanks! I made a list of good seed companies which I shared in this post https://gavinmounsey.substack.com/p/seed-saving-to-save-the-future as well if you are looking for additional options. Happy seed starting! :)
A year late but... this is probably climate dependent, but in our moderate west coast of Canada climate, a lot of my and my husband's food comes from self-seeded volunteers - potatoes (more than we can cope with - we give them away to the local farm co-op), tomatoes, squash, kale, parsley, chives. We do cover the beds with spoiled hay from a local farm - all year as mulch, but especially deep in the winter. This keeps both the root crops and the cabbages fresh in the ground over the winter. I was able to do a bit of this back when living in much colder Montreal too (50 years ago). Paying a bit more attention, I could be collecting seeds and replanting, but there's that local farm co-op that needs support too. We don't have a huge garden, but we do have a good community.
I join in sending love and respect from Canada.
The global food crisis certainly has not been averted (if anything, it is more precarious now than a year ago) so your comment is not late at all, it is appreciated and relevant. :)
Self seeded gardens are a great way to produce lots of food with minimal work. I do that (in our garden here in southern Ontario) with a couple of our raised beds with Amaranth, Kale, Cilantro, Tulsi, Dill, Radishes, Heirloom Soy Beans, horseradish, goji berries, current tomatoes, Chiltepin peppers and nettle. I explain how I do that (create self sowing beds) with our heirloom Amarnath and how I simultaneously save seeds for eating and sharing in this article https://gavinmounsey.substack.com/p/amazing-amaranth
Have you ever tried growing amaranth before?
What is your favorite variety of tomato and why?
Thanks for the comment Veronica, wishing you many bountiful harvests :)
Your garden sounds amazing. We have some shallow raised beds on our deck over the garage, and some deep ones (modified hugelkultur) where there's more sun. The Amaranth (which I haven't grown before but will definitely try, thanks to your extremely informative substack) might do well in the deeper beds. As we are also subject to serious drought in the summer and fall, getting it established in the spring so it can survive later sounds useful.
My favourite tomatoes are the ones that grow themselves... Generally a collection of whatever has been traded around, mostly cherry type and a few each of the standard sized red, yellow and orange varieties. They've probably cross pollinated now, so who knows what they are.
What grows best in my patches is Yukon Gold potatoes. They are prolific to the point of plague. They self-seed in the oddest places. I transplanted an large overgrown patch of chrysanthemums last fall, only to discover a huge colony of extraordinarily large, healthy Yukons underneath.
My enthusiasm for less work has grown exponentially with advancing age :-)
Thank you for the good wishes, which are heartily returned.
And I wish for our Russian friends a continuation of their long culture of kitchen gardens wherever there's a corner for them. Maybe not downtown urban, but anywhere else they can. We loved our visit there in 2019 and will never forget the kindness we were shown.
"There will come a time when only those who know how to plant will be eating". - Chief Oren Lyons.
I did an experiment and collected the seeds from some fresh and some freeze dried Carolina Reaper peppers and set to germinating them and found the freeze dried seeds did germinate nicely. The ones from fresh did not. Both lots were seeds stored and protected from light and high temp for two years. I always wondered if freeze dried seeds would work and now I know;)
Excellent! I have had similar results. I have freeze dried a couple different types of heirloom seeds (Goji berry, Tomato, Beans and Hemp and Peppers, all harvested fresh from the plants in the garden and then freeze dried inside the fruit/berries/flowers and then separated after). I got about 90% germination rate on the seeds i`ve tried so far. Theoretically, freeze dried seeds could remain viable for a lot longer than 20 years (as archeologists have found super desiccated seeds in old pottery containers in caves and burial sites that were sealed for centuries and still managed to get some of the seeds to sprout, "Anasazi beans" being one such example). Could be a great way to set up a seed vault to protect rare heirlooms and/or give your descendants a one up on the other survivors of the collapse of modern civilization we appear to be headed towards.
If you are not planting vegetable gardens this spring from seed you germinate, you will be victims to the crisis due to your misplaced faith in the government to save you. EVERYONE needs to plant victory gardens. EVERYONE must be able to store what they grow and process what they hunt for meat. Those are critical skills to survive what is coming very quickly. Then you must be prepared to defend it.
Unfortunately, I think you may be right about a large majority of the global population.
Learning to cultivate, forage and/or hunt for food and preserve it is indeed extremely important. Though I think it would be wise to point out that while hunting may be a necessary stop gap measure for surviving in certain situations/bio-regions, if millions (or billions) of people were to turn to hunting to get their meat after the collapse of major centralized food systems, this would quickly result in the extinction of choice species of wild game.
Since the 1970-s humans have eradicated over 60% of all wild mammals on the planet. If one wishes to hunt for animals to eat meat as part of their diet and they wish for their children and grandchildren to be able to appreciate the same biodiversity we have been able to in our lifetime, it would be wise for us to set some strict (self-imposed) ground rules when it comes to killing wild animals for food. There are some ancient cultures that had developed guidelines for their hunters as wild game was a major part of their diet. One such set of principles is called the way of The Honorable Harvest. It can apply to foraging for plants as well as hunting animals for food and is equally important for both. Here is a video with some info on that concept: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lz1vgfZ3etE&t
Thank you for the comment.
Thanks for the link;) I will check it out as I like the idea.
Regarding hunting, during a famine or shortage of food, you are right about the wild game population being severely impacted. I am an ethical hunter and I absolutely support sustainable game management harvest plans. In Germany, we count the wild game in an area and these inputs are used to determine the game management harvest limits each year. Unfortunately, desperate people that are hungry could care less.
Regarding desperation and the horrors of war and conflict I present the following to sober people up to do everything in their power to avoid conflict:
Here is the survival account of one that lived through and survived the Bosnian conflict. It is long, but very instructive. I had an engineer from Bosnia that told a very similar story, but it was more horrific as their town was under siege for over a year resulting in mass starvation and death due to disease and battles between the hungry within the town. Once the population was sufficiently weak, the enemy forces surrounding the town would only then enter and execute the remaining resistance which were the worst of the worst that murdered their neighbors by forming powerful gangs that would then fight each other till only one gang was left and they would then start killing off the weaker members as supplies grew scarce. This is a very long story, but it answers many questions. I can confirm that this is what we too witnessed when I was deployed there on the UN multinational peacekeeping force:
https://lulz.com/surviving-a-year-of-shtf-in-90s-bosnia-war-selco-forum-thread/
Like many deployed combat soldiers, I have witnessed the most horrific things that humans do to each other. Our enemy loved creating videos of their barbaric torture of those they captured. I will not go into detail as there are no words to describe it nor should it be other than to say there is evil out there and if we lose, it will have it's way with us. Most people break and succumb to the evil side of human nature. We are a family of faith and will not be reduced to animals as this life is but a fleeting microsecond of eternity and existence beyond this current physical existence. The ability to plan, prepare, and be ready will hopefully ensure we do not need to be faced with that decision.
Thanks for your in depth response Lance.
I am glad to hear you apply an ethical compass when considering how often and what you hunt for food.
With regards to the horrors of war and the artificially induced states of scarcity/desperation it (as well as what certain forms of intentional economic warfare) produce; I acknowledge the reality of these things but I personally do not see the type of behavior you describe as 'a side of human nature'. Rather, I see these types of behaviors as being learned through a lifetime of conditioning that covers up and inhibits true human nature from shining and being the motivating force in our lives on Earth.
I feel that violence, ambition, competition and fear act as a type of fog or veil which obscures and inhibits the innate love each of us is born with from unfolding into greater levels of potency (resulting in states of fear and lack of love that motivate individuals to engage in all sorts of apathetic and even nefarious activities aka "evil"). I do not see "evil" or darkness as a substance, but rather, the lack of a substance. In a room that is pitch black, you cannot measure the darkness, but once you bring light into that room, you can measure the light, in a similar sense, those behaviors that we judge as "evil" are not the result of the presence of some "substance" or "thing" that is inherent to the being choosing the behaviors, rather, those behaviors of the result of the lack of the substance called love. Thus, while I whole heartedly endorse becoming prepared for emergencies (whether it be through cultivating, foraging and preserving food or gaining wilderness survival skills, or even self defense skills) I also see embodying love and helping to nurture that light in others as being an important part of the equation as we seek to survive what is in front of us while working to create a future without war, suffering and starvation. I see that as true in peaceful and everyday life situations in our local communities, and also as especially true in survival or desperate conflict situations. No matter how far gone down the path of fear and lack a human being is, there is always the potential for them to make a new choice, begin to shed the layers of programming and let their innate light inside to shine brighter making the darkness flee.
Through my time spent in stillness exploring inwardly, I have come to understand that at the core of each conscious being is an eternal spark of love. It is the most innate and permanent aspect of Self. It is a spark that can only be dimmed and obscured.. never extinguished, for it is eternal. The spark (no matter how apparently dim and faded) can always be fanned and nurtured to become a radiant glowing source of light again. We are born living from that innate essence naturally, effortlessly and without fear.. and then slowly over time we are programmed by the backwards ideas that have been peddled for millennia on Earth, we are taught to forget who and what we are and take on the role of "john smith" or "jane smith" the human being, we are told we are in need of saving and/or that we must follow "leaders", we are taught degenerative concepts like "survival of the fittest" and "emotion is weakness", "patriotism is admirable" and last but not least we are indoctrinated into a society driven by fear and ego which tells us that our purpose in life is to gather money and physical things. These delusions (pushed onto the souls arriving on the Earth by humans already present here that has also been indoctrinated into these degenerative delusions) serve to allow a small group of especially delusional and mentally ill human beings to exert control and dominance over the rest of those currently on the Earth. These delusional and psychotic would be controllers fear love as they have no way to control it (as it is a measurable energy field that emanates from those operating in their innate and natural state expanding in all directions exponentially, permeating all things and shifting the consciousness of others at a distance back into alignment with their innate state of Love). This is one of the reasons that the peaceful protestors embodying love and courage in Ottawa terrified the plutocrats and provoked them to unleash unprecedented militarized police forces to crush them before their message could spread any further.
Thus, while it is true that the above mentioned ego/lack manifestations such as fear, competition, violence etc are prevalent here (which serve to obscure and dampen the love within and around us to the point where some totally forget it exists) it is nevertheless also true that love perpetually present and capable of becoming the light that makes the darkness disappear if we nurture it vigilantly and courageously. That inner light is beyond the 'jurisdiction' and reach of the influence of the plutocrats and their puppets in governments, for it is the fabric of our eternal spark that makes us more than just a physical body and brain. It is the glow that allows our heart to know intuitive guidance and it is present at the core of each and every being (no matter how crusted over, shadowy and distorted ones exterior and human mind have become). We can choose to become beacons of this innate light and radiate it outwardly to help others remember who and what they are. This can be achieved through many methods, but all of them are rooted in stillness of the mind, humility, gratitude, courage, acceptance and grace. If we engage on such a path while also cultivating skills for caring for our body as well as the body of the Earth we are doing what some might call "walking the mystical path with practical feet".
It only takes a single candle to light up an entire room filled with darkness but you cannot take any amount of darkness and effect a well lit room at all.
This is why in order to create permanent changes to our world the real work begins within each of us. No amount of saviors, priests, military actions, gurus nor leaders of any kind can heal the world. We are the the ones we have been waiting for.
“Moral courage is a rarer commodity than bravery in battle or great intelligence. Yet it is the one essential, vital quality for those who seek to change a world that yields most painfully to change.”
― Robert F. Kennedy
it’s a lot harder than it looks... live it.
Yes, there will inevitably be some blood, sweat and tears involved on the path to learning to grow one's own food.
I found, however, that there are some tricks for minimizing the pain and maximizing the gain. I like to use Hügelkulturs and Sheet Mulching for building soil so the bulk of the work is done the first year (and long term fertility can be achieved without the need for synthetic inputs). I enjoy the approach of inviting nature to share the workload help minimize the physical labor that is required (in the long haul) and increasing resilience of crops in the garden. Once I stopped tilling the soil and started leaning into the Perennial food crops more than the typical Mediterranean/subtropical annuals (which are often the mainstay in modern conventional gardens here in Canada) I was doing a lot less work each year. When combined with self-seeding heirloom annuals and biennial food crops (about 75% perennial to 25% annual/biennial) I found it allows for the cycles of nature to carry a lot of the momentum and workload.
Red Russian Kale is one of my favorites for this. It is 11th generation (self-sowing) in our garden now. It keeps getting tougher each year (more acclimatized to our growing conditions) and because it produces prolific amounts of seeds in the second year, the only real work I have to do at this point to maintain that crop is thin out the hundreds (to thousands) of seedlings that start themselves each spring (through snacking or making salads) until I have the amount of properly spaced adult plants I desire.
What is your favorite garden crop? and why? :)
before we had water rationing risk in Southern California I grew almost everything...
from a ‘yummy favorite’ standpoint home grown tomatoes can’t be replicated... one year got really into tomato mania and grew over 50 different kinds ... will never forget a variety called ‘Florida Pink’ it was the size of a large grapefruit... unfortunately i didn’t save any seeds (it was a heirloom) and searched (before internet) but never found it again...
from an ‘easy peasy favorite’ standpoint it would be zucchini... was just looking at the seeds last week... also nice to harvest super tender baby zucchini with olive oil...
also great cool season is mesculan mix greens that you can cut the leaves for a salad and then they grow back.... like oak leaf lettuce
also fun to harvest root crops like carrots, turnips and potatoes because it’s always a surprise what’s beneath the soil
also liked alpine strawberries that grew in pots... real delicacy
...thinking maybe i should do a post on my ‘free to everyone newsletter’ since there’s a lot of talk about victory gardens🐱🙏🐱
... thanks for the idea!
50 different kinds! Wow and I thought my ten or so varieties was a lot :) I have not heard of that tomato variety, sounds lovely.
Yes, sadly many heirlooms are disappearing. This is why I feel initiatives like Vandana Shiva's "Seed Satyagraha" are so important now and I strive to do my own small part in gathering heirlooms that are resilient, delicious, unique and have ancient cultural roots and sharing them to preserve our sacred inheritance. Have you ever grown any of the varieties produced by Brad at Wild Boar Farms? I am a big fan of his Indigo Apple and Black Beauty varieties. The high anthocyanin content in the skin of those tomatoes seems to increase their resistance to fungal diseases which are prevalent when growing tomatoes in our high humidity Great Lakes region.
I also love zucchini. I have yet to try oak leaf lettuce, I will add that one to my list now :)
Root crops are among my favorites too, I especially love sweet potatoes because the foliage is also edible so you get two crops from one plant.
Sounds like a great idea, you are most welcome. I will subscribe to your page. I look forward to reading it!
sounds like you have a great local specialty source... you’re right, there are different varieties more suitable to cool / hot / humid / dry summer climates, so it’s good to get local advice on the best varieties ...
... haven’t looked into it lately but there used to be seed savers exchanges / seed banks way back when... basically the only way heirlooms survive is with a devoted fan club...
tomato seeds are viable for a long time if you rinse them and thoroughly & completely dry out & store in cool / dry place (or ziplock in refrigerator) ... save for a few years
lately just grown cherry tomatoes in pots... there is this tiny yellow pear shaped one I call shmoo after the cartoon character ... it’s sweeter, less acidic...
i have clay soil also so nematodes are a problem, damaging the root system so the soil needs to be amended & refreshed / crop rotation for best results
uhoh ... a lot to talk about... maybe will have to be in multiple newsletter posts about the veggies... it is nice to see more young people interested in growing ... would be great to encourage it!
...🐱...
Have you ever tried growing Goji berries? :)
I put together this article https://gavinmounsey.substack.com/p/the-many-gifts-of-the-goji that explores their many virtues in the garden and in the kitchen for if you want to learn more
yes kale is great perennial🐱
I will now an article that explores the long list of reasons why starting/expanding a garden is the most important thing you can possibly do in 2023.
𝟮𝟯 𝗥𝗲𝗮𝘀𝗼𝗻𝘀 𝗬𝗼𝘂 𝗦𝗵𝗼𝘂𝗹𝗱 𝗦𝘁𝗮𝗿𝘁 𝗮 𝗚𝗮𝗿𝗱𝗲𝗻 𝗶𝗻 𝟮𝟬𝟮𝟯 :
https://gavinmounsey.substack.com/p/23-reasons-to-start-a-garden-in-2023
If you already have a garden think of this as a list of 23 reasons why you should re-double your gardening efforts by expanding, honing and sharing your garden abundance/knowledge.
Please share the article linked above with anyone you feel would be receptive so they can take steps to help themselves and become capable of weathering the storm ahead of us.
𝗠𝗮𝘆 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝘀𝗲𝗲𝗱𝘀 𝘆𝗼𝘂 𝗽𝗹𝗮𝗻𝘁 𝘄𝗶𝘁𝗵 𝘆𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗵𝗮𝗻𝗱𝘀, 𝘆𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝘁𝗵𝗼𝘂𝗴𝗵𝘁𝘀, 𝘆𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗹𝗼𝘃𝗲, 𝘆𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗰𝗼𝘂𝗿𝗮𝗴𝗲, 𝘆𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗳𝗮𝗶𝘁𝗵 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝘆𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗴𝗿𝗮𝘁𝗶𝘁𝘂𝗱𝗲 𝘀𝗲𝘁 𝗱𝗼𝘄𝗻 𝗿𝗼𝗼𝘁𝘀 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗯𝗲𝗰𝗼𝗺𝗲 𝗮 𝗯𝗲𝗮𝘂𝘁𝗶𝗳𝘂𝗹 𝗴𝗮𝗿𝗱𝗲𝗻 𝘁𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗶𝗻𝗰𝗿𝗲𝗮𝘀𝗲𝘀 𝘆𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗿𝗲𝘀𝗶𝗹𝗶𝗲𝗻𝗰𝗲 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗻𝗼𝘂𝗿𝗶𝘀𝗵𝗲𝘀 𝘆𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗯𝗼𝗱𝘆, 𝗺𝗶𝗻𝗱 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝘀𝗼𝘂𝗹 𝗼𝗻 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗽𝗮𝘁𝗵 𝗮𝗵𝗲𝗮𝗱.
In closing, I will quote a comment from a Corbett Report subscriber which pertains to the imperative of taking steps to create decentralized food production systems at home.
The comment was posted by “ccuthbert2001” under the 2022 Year in Review episode.
“𝗦𝘁𝗮𝗿𝘁 𝘆𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗴𝗮𝗿𝗱𝗲𝗻 𝘁𝗵𝗶𝘀 𝘆𝗲𝗮𝗿. 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗳𝗮𝗿𝘁𝗵𝗲𝗿 𝗮𝗹𝗼𝗻𝗴 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗹𝗲𝗮𝗿𝗻𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗰𝘂𝗿𝘃𝗲 𝘆𝗼𝘂 𝗰𝗮𝗻 𝘁𝗿𝗮𝘃𝗲𝗹 𝗯𝗲𝗳𝗼𝗿𝗲 𝘁𝗽𝘁𝗯 𝗶𝗺𝗽𝗹𝗲𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁 𝘁𝗵𝗲𝗶𝗿 𝗽𝗹𝗮𝗻 𝘁𝗼 𝘀𝘁𝗮𝗿𝘃𝗲 𝘂𝘀 𝗮𝗹𝗹 𝘁𝗼 𝗱𝗲𝗮𝘁𝗵, 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗯𝗲𝘁𝘁𝗲𝗿 𝗼𝗳𝗳 𝘆𝗼𝘂’𝗹𝗹 𝗯𝗲. 𝗗𝗼𝗻’𝘁 𝘄𝗼𝗿𝗿𝘆 𝗮𝗯𝗼𝘂𝘁 𝗶𝘁 𝗯𝗲𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘁𝗼𝗼 𝗹𝗮𝘁𝗲, 𝗼𝗿 𝘁𝗼𝗼 𝗺𝘂𝗰𝗵 𝘄𝗼𝗿𝗸, 𝗼𝗿 𝘆𝗼𝘂 𝗱𝗼𝗻’𝘁 𝗹𝗶𝗸𝗲 𝗶𝘁. 𝗗𝗼𝗻’𝘁 𝗺𝗮𝗸𝗲 𝗲𝘅𝗰𝘂𝘀𝗲𝘀, 𝗝𝗨𝗦𝗧 𝗗𝗢 𝗜𝗧. 𝗬𝗼𝘂 𝘄𝗼𝗻’𝘁 𝗿𝗲𝗴𝗿𝗲𝘁 𝗶𝘁.”
"Happy Hunger Games! And may the odds be ever in your favour!"
Let them eat dopamine.
i was planning on losing weight before the summer, might just hold off, gonna need the reserves
Chubby people will be in fashion again.
Not as food, I hope!
ive never been out of fashion even when i was thin
"Much of this is usually shipped through the Black Sea ports of Odesa, or Kherson." I wonder how much of anything is getting through Kherson, scene of heavy fighting recently. Birthplace of my paternal grandfather, FWIW.
Thanks once again for excellent analysis. Stuff everyone needs to hear.
Fascinating analysis, and this is a twist on things I haven't read about until now. Russia grows a great deal of wheat, but have to buy the seeds abroad. And problems with farming machinery. Check and checkmate. Woe is everyone if the idiots everywhere who are so eternally focused on killing and destroying don't figure this out. The current track leads nowhere good for anyone.
This was sobering. After reading this article, open your King James Bible to Revelation chapter 6 and read it carefully.
Edward Slavsquat's dispatch reads like an account of the chess pieces being arranged for what is to come.
Bible = 🎯
Cue the self immolators in Tunisia and Egypt.
Egypt was once one of the foodbaskets of the Roman Empire. The other being Ukraine.
Gavin Mounsey: "There will come a time when only those who know how to plant will be eating". - Chief Oren Lyons.
Not necessarily! I beg to differ!
Obviously You do not understand system of government power at all!
Chief Oren Lyons is a native Iroquois. His native system of Indian demi-anarchy no longer exists in modern Canada!
Do you know what happened to the farmers in the Soviet Union? In China under Mao? In Cambodia under Polpot?
Do you know what has happening to the Indian farmers in today India right now?
I know what happened to both my paternal and maternal grand parents during the "land reform" under Ho Chi Minh regime (1953-1956!)
Millions of Vietnamese and I personally experienced starvation after the Communists took over the whole nation in 1975, although we, all farmers, still had piece of land which had used to produce plenty of foods!
As long as people are being "governed", everything you produce can be taken away or even destroyed at anytime if your are allowed to do so at all! You need permission to produce even at your own garden! And that "permission" can be revoked anytime!
Don't ever tell me that such thing will never happen in "Western democracy!" or "That won't and can't happen here!" I have lived in different Western democracies since I fled Vietnam! Anyway, I digress.
At any rate, we, the human race, are worse than the boiling frog. For at least the "boiling frog" is neither aware of the coming heat nor understanding how the boiling spot works. We, the human race, do know and understand this government's murder plan in details! From the chemical GM foods, chemical poisons disguised as "medicine" to slow killer injection called vaccine, and the coming government made famine.... In one word, we knew that Governments have been deliberately murdering us. It's pure democide!
But not a single person, especially the so-called intellectuals, dare to utter the words REVOLT.
Yet, every year on the day 14 July, we commemorate and celebrate the spirit of the pitchfork revolution: the "Bastille" (14 July 1789)
We, right now, know very well that Governments are doing every thing to murder us... But we would not even dare to think of overthrowing them!
And when some people like Kazakhstans courageously did overthrow them. "We" hysterically, fearfully disapproved and condemned the Kazakhstans as being too violent and being "color revolution" ... just to cover our own cowardice IMHO (and Slav Squat of course) anyway.
How "civilized" we have been trained to be! We all have forgotten our self-preservation instinct!
I don't often agree with Paul Craig Roberts. However in this case I cannot help but agree with his remarks "this human race is so stupid to survive!"
As Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn regretted "We didn't love freedom enough. And even more – we had no awareness of the real situation.... We purely and simply deserved everything that happened afterward.” The Gulag Archipelago 1918-1956
Also, on an interesting side note. I too admire some of the resilient inhabitants of Kazakhstan, though in the case of my rebellious project, not the same inhabitants you mentioned (nor for the same reasons).
I am actually growing some apple trees (which I grew from seed) that were collected from the wild apple trees growing in the Tien Shan Mountain range. The wild apple trees that grow there are full of vast genetic diversity (no two apple trees produce fruit that is exactly the same) and they are very resistant to disease and challenging weather conditions. The reason I bring this up, is that tough food producing trees like the wild apple trees of Kazakhstan are prime candidates for being integrated into an unconventional type of food cultivation/horticulture system called "Forest Gardening", "agroforestry" or cultivating a "Food Forest".
These ancient horticultural systems were utilized by some Native American and First Nation peoples (as well as others on different continents) and they are ways of cultivating which can offer us an effective method to create resilient food/medicine production systems that are less likely to be raided by degenerates, mercenaries, government thugs or brainwashed soldiers as they are by the very nature of their design, 'camouflaged' to the untrained eye. These "Food Forests" become permanent gardens that require very little (if any) work to keep alive and producing once they are established. These systems contain a wide spectrum of species suitable for harvesting food, medicine, building material and other important resources. The mature Food Forest, looks like it sounds, and so because the modern eye has been trained to see food production systems as big fields, many would not recognize what they were looking at if they saw it and would ignore the forest garden as 'just another useless section of forest' and move on.
I will share links to a few examples below so you can see what I am talking about. https://nationalpost.com/news/canada/ancient-indigenous-forest-gardens-still-yield-bounty-150-years-later-study
http://www.daviesand.com/Papers/Tree_Crops/Indian_Agroforestry/index.html
https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/what-is-permaculture-food-forests?fbclid=IwAR0xQQGjfgvRgpI8BFw5YcYzJfRbiX1Ao7mv9z0KgQAQ2mK4J8gamh5C05A
https://returntonow.net/2018/08/01/the-amazon-is-a-man-made-food-forest-researchers-discover/?fbclid=IwAR0-XsOZCldwRzlMG_mkBxxqqYAeZ90TAVEsO4nB-noboHGqX1TZS_nn0xo
https://www.sdvforest.com/agroforestry/the-fascinating-story-of-human-made-forests?fbclid=IwAR3OVHhCywwzOiCSBMWyk6_Bdy_q-GRRN2N7-525iqdnYmc_BqtKeyu6Wz4
https://www.ecologyandsociety.org/vol26/iss2/art6/
https://canadianfeedthechildren.ca/what/food-security-projects/indigenous-food-forests/
If we cultivate food forests like the ancient peoples that lived in what is now called Canada, the US, Morocco (and many other places where indigenous peoples created similar permanent food production systems that blended with existing ecology) we are building up food security and doing so in a way that is essentially 'invisible' to the ignorant. These systems provide habitat for diverse wildlife, replenish the water table, stabilize the soil and feed humans at the same time. It is likely most roaming thugs would not be able to recognize a food forest if they saw one and even if armed thugs were to kill those that tend the food forest, history teaches us the food forests gain their own momentum and continue to live on and feed others for many generations.
Therefore, I see this as a viable, honorable and practical path forward in these uncertain times. We can forge alliances with the more than human world through planting food forests all over, and in doing so provide not only for ourselves, but countless future generations in the process.
Wow, much appreciated
Time will tell. For now , just agree to disagree. I have heard and seen enough No more talk needed!
very interesting idea
Thanks for taking the time to share your story and your thoughts on that quote with such passion and detail.
First of all, I can't even imagine how hard it must of been to go through what you describe, but I imagine it took courage, so I am glad you dug deep to summon that courage to get you to where you are today.
Could you elaborate on what you meant when you said "Indian demi-anarchy"?
I am not familiar with what happened to the farmers in the regions you listed in the past but I do have a close friend from Russia that told me the way his grandparents survived the collapse of the Soviet Union was to get out of the proximity of the city, get back to basics and provide for themselves through gardening and foraging.
I have not been keeping up on events in India either as here in Ontario, our corrupt government has been engaging in all kinds of shady activity (freezing people's bank accounts if they protest, police showing up at your house if you speak about protesting or about 'anti-government' ideas online and engaging in a range of other tyrannical shenanigans as well) so that has forced me to stay 'on my toes' and most of my attention focused on problem-solving locally.
Canada is a vast territory, so while they (oligarchs and their puppet government officials) may be able to brainwash a certain amount of police and perhaps military there is nowhere near enough personnel to effectively/systematically harass, steal from, violate or murder all the farmers/gardeners that are outside of major population centers here. People near cities and towns, maybe if things get really bad, but there are just not enough people to do a drag net type operation across the whole landscape here.
Even though I do see the potential for the worst case hypothetical you describe (overt government-sponsored genocide/violent oppression in high population centers) being possible in our future (regardless of geographic location) I also feel that focusing a lot of time and resources on weapons or planning for combat/revolting is not a solid way to prepare for that potential emergency, because in the end, if the oligarchs unleash their full arsenal in the open, we are talking about high powered LRADs and DEWs (microwave based, laser based and other directed energy weapons) that can be mounted on vehicles at a distance and we are talking about heavily armed drones (and those are just a few of the technologies we know about). Preparing to defend oneself against nasty individuals that may cross paths with you in a survival situation if need be is one thing, but attempting to wage war on the plutocrats and their armies of brainwashed soldiers that possess next level weapons tech and fire power is (to me) a bad idea for so many reasons.
The thing about taking steps to learn to grow and preserve one's own food is that it simultaneously serves the purpose of increasing one's emergency preparedness while also increasing the quality of one's life (even during the best of times). If one embarks on such a journey of learning and then a tyrannical government decides to use the threat of violence to take away one's land or home, the act of learning and enriching oneself via growing and preserving the food still remains valuable. If we choose to do things that help us align with natural localized cycles for providing our basic survival needs (like gardening, seed saving, foraging and preserving) we are increasing our emergency preparedness in a joyful and healthy way. There are likely a great many people that (if cut off from centralized economic/energy distribution systems) would freeze or starve to death, all while being surrounded in a forest full of food and building materials. I am not among them. While most people in our modern society do need property and/or a home/permanent dwelling to survive, I have been blessed to have been raised by two wilderness trail builders, also, I have taken several wilderness survival courses and spent many years honing my knowledge and skillsets relating to off grid survival situations. So, if the day comes when our government (and their corporate masters) go full on totalitarian fascist and begin sweeping through the land with a vicious army of imperialistic goons dispossessing people of their land and hard earned money (if they do not submit to the technocratic police state's mandates) my path to connect symbiotically with and learn from nature will prepare me to survive that as well and be able to care for my loved ones despite the extreme nature of such a hypothetical situation.
That is why I put my time and energy into preserving heirloom seeds, creating good soil, gardening skills, creating food forests, increasing foraging knowledge/experience, increased health/immunity, preserving experience, and that is why I put most of my time and energy into the symbiotic relationships and friendships I forge with neighbors and the broader community I am a part of (through sharing abundant harvests, seeds, knowledge and helping others to grow regenerative gardens and make medicines) as these are things that have innate value. These things will retain their value whether or not tyranny is commonplace. Thus, even given the possibility of our corrupt government freezing accounts or seizing property, I still whole heartedly believe that taking time to learn to grow, forage for, and preserve one's own food and medicine is a wise path forward in this uncertain times.
For those that live in areas of the world that are highly populated that do not have vast wilderness and open spaces to disappear into and be off grid (if need be in a SHTF situation) I would have to agree with you that gardening/farming by itself may not be enough to survive what is coming.
I understand your want to tear down this corrupt system of involuntary government and punish those responsible for the ongoing atrocities being perpetrated on innocents, as part of me feels that way as well.. I just don't think it would create permanent beneficial changes to our world (even if it was possible, which given the tech they possess, I doubt).
As much as I sometimes wish this corrupt system would be forced to come crashing down by an uprising and the punishing of those responsible for their crimes against humanity, the truth is violent uprisings/revolutions can be usurped, co-opted and managed by the plutocrats and have been all throughout human history. They know violence and turbulence well as they are some of the elite`s tools of choice.
Having observed the sociopaths that run our governments (and their subsidiary systems of oppression) on earth for a very long time I have come to understand the way to get rid of them is not by attempting to kill them. After all, even if someone did succeed at doing that, it would only be killing some people not ridding the world of a massive global parasitic empire which feeds on fear and violence. The people in the echelons of that system are merely those who have been indoctrinated into and contributed towards building/maintaining that empire, they are not the reason such a system can exist on earth. Therefore, killing the people would only create a vacuum within that empire, that would in time be filled by other humans suffering from the same ego dis-ease and mental instability that the original puppet masters suffered from. In order to permanently rid the world of this type of individual you have to create an environment where psychopathic and parasitic individuals and the systems which they create cannot flourish. The key is found not in openly attacking them with violence but rather in leaving them behind by rendering their parasitic systems obsolete and unable to draw strength from us.
I too believe it is time we moved past the era of followers and leaders, peasants and princes, worshipers and saviors, minions and tyrants, consumers and corporations to usher in the age of self-governed and self-reliant (consciously symbiotically connected) human beings which collaborate of their own free will to leave this world a little more beautiful than it was before. I just do not think violence is the most effective way to get us there.
Thanks again for taking the time to express your thoughts.
Much love and respect from Canada
An arrangement will be made behind the scene, off-stage, as it turns out to be with oil and gas, exempted from sanctions. Wall Streets operators are said to be agresssively buying undervalued Russian assets. How can this even be allowed by Russian authorities. If Russia does not take back its sovereignty, including retaking control of financial operators and the bank of Russia, the 5th columnist will take over. On the other hand, a global crisis is what Klaus Schwab and the Davos globalist ring were praying for, isn't it. The empoverishing scenario seems to be benefiting the City, Wall Street and all their mafia drug-smuggling tax haven planetary network. The economy was bogged down, inflation skyrocketing, debt impayable, prices soaring, jobs disappering... Now they have the perfect scaping goat to blame their crimes on. After all, they know they are protected in the bunkerlike robocop ultra secured exclusive residential closed zones.
Its looking bad. The West smells blood in the water. They think they can crush Russia now. Not looking forward to this.
Here are some seed sites if anyone needs anything
Look for heirloom and open-pollinated seeds (OP) and avoid hybrids (F1)
USA
I've ordered from these sites and can recommend
https://www.anniesheirloomseeds.com/
https://www.rareseeds.com/
https://www.marysheirloomseeds.com/
https://hudsonvalleyseed.com/
https://www.hrseeds.com/
https://www.trueleafmarket.com/
https://www.victoryseeds.com/
https://www.snakeriverseeds.com/
https://sowtrueseed.com/
https://www.seedsavers.org/
https://www.johnnyseeds.com/ (avoid hybrids)
Https://www.kitchengardenseeds.com (avoid hybrids)
https://www.tradewindsfruit.com/
https://www.edenbrothers.com/ (avoid hybrids)
https://www.reimerseeds.com/ (avoid hybrids)
Not ordered but these sites look good
https://www.superseeds.com/collections/heirloom-seeds
https://www.botanicalinterests.com/
https://www.edibleacres.org/permaculture-nurseries
https://bcfnursery.com/
https://www.allianceofnativeseedkeepers.com/
https://www.fruitionseeds.com
https://www.vegetableseedwarehouse.com/
https://ohioheirloomseeds.com/
Canada
https://heirloom-seeds.ca/
https://heirloomseedvault.com/
https://www.walkerland.ca/canadian-heirloom-seed-suppliers/
Thanks for putting that list together. I like strictlymedicinalseeds.com as well.
Look on the bright side! Joe Biden will be able to claim victory over obesity next year.....
Key point mentioned is that Russia imports all of it's seeds. HYBRID SEEDS. Think Monsanto. This means possible global famines. Monsanto holds the key to the global supply of seed and Russia for fertilizers and soil amendments. I entertain the rational question that this is planned to reduce carbon, namely the carbon of human life. Nuclear war? That just reduces the carbon that much quicker. The bioweapons labs in the Ukraine are at critical risk of compromise by Russian weapons. A bioweapon is exponentially worse than nuclear war.. Just think: a virus released due to breach by Russian attack infects many in the Ukraine that then spread it through refugee resettlement all over the world. The 3rd Horseman is mounting his pale steed and will ride.
At the risk of being accused of "doomerism" I would like to point out another variable that I feel is pertinent to the discussion of global food security. It is more of a long term issue, but considering how systemically it impacted the Roman Empire, I think Soil Erosion is worth considering here as well.
According to recent studies, over 20 BILLION tons of soil a year is currently being lost due to deforestation, backwards thinking and the adversarial modern approach to farming (which wages war on microbiology, insects, plants and fungi) rather than symbiotically working in alignment with the web of life. Heavy tilling, prolific glyphosate and other types of toxic biocide usage, synthetic petroleum based NPK inputs and monocropping have desertified huge portions of once fertile land. If we continue on this path, history teaches us, that (even if we were not dealing with this current destabilization of economies/food supply chains documented in the article above and even if we weren't facing the rise of technocratic totalitarianism) Soil Erosion on its own (if left unchecked) will most certainly lead to the collapse of modern civilization and mass starvation for those that are dependent on centralized food systems.
Our best scientific minds estimate that if we continue with current conventional agricultural practices we have no more than 50 harvests left. This is obviously intrinsically linked to live stock farmer's ability to raise animals for meat production as well.
For some historical and scientific background on this issue, I suggest reading: "Dirt: The Erosion of Civilizations" by David Montgomery
https://www.pdfdrive.com/dirt-the-erosion-of-civilizations-e185700369.html
https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520272903/dirt
"Dirt, soil, call it what you want—it's everywhere we go. It is the root of our existence, supporting our feet, our farms, our cities. This fascinating yet disquieting book finds, however, that we are running out of dirt, and it's no laughing matter. An engaging natural and cultural history of soil that sweeps from ancient civilizations to modern times, Dirt: The Erosion of Civilizations explores the compelling idea that we are—and have long been—using up Earth's soil. Once bare of protective vegetation and exposed to wind and rain, cultivated soils erode bit by bit, slowly enough to be ignored in a single lifetime but fast enough over centuries to limit the lifespan of civilizations. A rich mix of history, archaeology and geology, Dirt traces the role of soil use and abuse in the history of Mesopotamia, Ancient Greece, the Roman Empire, China, European colonialism, Central America, and the American push westward. We see how soil has shaped us and we have shaped soil—as society after society has risen, prospered, and plowed through a natural endowment of fertile dirt. David R. Montgomery sees in the recent rise of permaculture, forest gardening, organic and no-till farming the hope for a new agricultural revolution that might help us avoid the fate of previous civilizations."
I see many viable solutions to this manmade problem, but I highly doubt any of our corrupt governments are going to take action in a top down fashion (nor would I endorse or hope for such a thing considering that is not gonna provide a permanent solution, nor is it going to address the mentality that got us to where we are today).
In the end, I think it is gonna come down to the decisions made by everyday people that decide who survives and how much biodiversity survives the challenging times ahead of us.
Now is the time to reaffirm our alliances with the living Earth, to nurture new symbiotic relationships with the soil, people, plants and fungi in our local communities. We can create oasis’s of health, resilience, and abundance in each of our communities.. we can become the solution, break from dependence on centralized systems and help others to do the same. It begins with the soil and the seeds.. and it evolves into nurturing symbiotic connections with those we share our communities with. Each of us can embody the medicine the land and our communities need to survive and thrive through the tough times ahead.