Famine does not appear to be likely

greenspun.com : LUSENET : TimeBomb 2000 (Y2000) : One Thread

To start off, here are a few links to food information for the US.

recipes and nutrition facts for wheat

http://www.wheatfoods.org/

This gives the calories and so forth for about every bulk storable food you could want - these are the ones sent to the school lunch program.

http://www.usda.gov//fcs/commodities/intro.htm#Select a topic

Grain Genes - genetic database of grains (just interesting)

http://wheat.pw.usda.gov/

Soybean info and recipes from Canada

http://www.soybean.on.ca/

Nutritional info to your hearts content - where I finally found data on soy flour.

http://www.nal.usda.gov/fnic/cgi-bin/nut_search.pl

Wheat production stats and facts

http://www.idahograin.org/10swht.htm

http://www.idahograin.org/bushelwt.htm

You should make it a point to note from the above that whole wheat flour results in much more flour per bushel than white flour.

HORRIBLY boring, but gives actual tonnages of grain moved over the last 18 or so years, and how they were moved. By this means, you can cut out grain produced for local farm (fodder) usage.

http://www.ams.usda.gov/tmd/modal/modal4.html

The last link on the list gives the tonnages of grain moved each year from 78 to 95. Looking at the list we find that in 1995 we moved/produced 217,515,000 metric tons of corn (Indian maize to you folks outside the US), 64,583,000 metric tons of wheat (bad year for wheat) and 70,492,000 metric tons of soybeans. I am not going to figure in barley, rye, oats or sorghum. I think most of the barley and rye wind up in beer or whiskey or exported, and the oats are not a large factor in US grain production.

Now, from the above, lets do some figures. Lets assume the average person under stress needs 2800 calories per day. (Not a low figure, I am counting children here.) With 250 million people (rounded) that gives 700 billion calories per day for the US total caloric consumption. BTW, I did not fudge that figure to make it come out even, it just happened that way. :)

Now, lets look at grits. 5 lbs, 4 oz of grits provides 7300 calories, converting to tons gives a bit over 3 million calories per metric ton of grits. Assume a 20% loss in processing, and we find that we have 760 days worth of calories just in the corn harvest in the US in one year. Most is used for animal fodder, but if we were in a starvation situation that would change pretty quickly.

A bushel of wheat is 60 pounds of wheat, and will mill out to 42 lbs of white flour, quite a bit more whole wheat flour. So a metric ton (2200 lbs) will mill out 1540 lbs of white flour. At 99 calories per ounce, 16 ounces to the pound, we find about 2.5 million calories per ton or enough calories for 225 days of US consumption. (Wheat is lower calorie because it has little oil in the grain.)

Soybeans work out to 441 calories (kcal) per 100 grams for roasted beans milled to flour. Of course this gives 4.4 million calories per metric ton. Applying my 20% loss figure and multiplying by the production and dividing by the caloric consumption per day gives 355 days of caloric consumption in just soy flour.

So, summing the above gives us 1340 days of calories produced in the US in 1995 in just the three big grain crops - better than three and a half years worth! And the choices I made involve minimal milling and preparation. And eating a diet of mostly grain is pretty good for you in most ways - as long as you manage to get your vitamins you will be OK for a very long time. Even in a situation where your diet is not balanced re. vitamins you can get by for a long time - check out any history book that discusses the diet of the early pioneers in the Western US.

And grain production is spread out over most of the US - virtually all of us live near some grain milling or storage facilities. If you want I will post a list of the big ones - but I don't think it really is needed. Any country that produces and stores (storage facilities fill up in October and November, and are still loaded in December - it takes a long time to clear out the ports) this much food is not likely to starve.

And I haven't even talked about potatoes or other storable tubers, nor meat processing, not even the production of fruits - this country is bursting at the seams with food!



-- Paul Davis (davisp1953@yahoo.com), March 03, 1999

Answers

Excellent post, Paul. I agree with your conclusions but only for those who take advantage of the current surpluses and stockpile now. Stockpiling food such as whole grains during such times of abundance and low prices is NOT hoarding. It is highly practical advice and it helps our growers sell what they have.

-- Arnie Rimmer (arnie_rimmer@usa.net), March 03, 1999.

Paul,

Often in famine situations the problem is not the AVAILABILITY of food but its DISTRIBUTION. The people who need it, can't get to it. And quite often the problems with distribution are, ummmm, politically influenced, shall we say.

If you want to control nations, control fuel. If you want to control people, control food.

I'm still adding to the pantry, thanks.

-- nobody (nobody@home.org), March 03, 1999.


Paul,

As Nobody just stated, most famines this century are cause by political despots and/or civil war. A major tool used on the African Continent for political military control has been starvation of the people. Not droughts or blight - although they do contribute to the problem of famine.

Distribution is key. Not to mention obtaining hybrid seed crop that is mostly germinated and grown in South America, where it is transported to U.S. farmers through distributors. Read the Senate report to find out what Chris Dodd and Robert Bennet think about South America's Y2K remediation efforts to it's infrastructure.

So it doesn't matter how much tonnage of food we produce and grow here in the states TODAY - - it's what may happen 303 days from now and beyond that gives me the willies.

Our infrastructure is so fragile, it will scare you.

Research it.

Then try to sleep nights.

-- INVAR (gundark@aol.com), March 03, 1999.


WiLL You enjOY YOur timE staNdinG in THe goVERNMent FOod lineS WItH ALL Of the OTher idIOts????? HUH?????? diEter wiLL AVOid tHAt by bUyinG NOW!!!!!! DIeter is NOT FOoLish!!!!!

-- Dieter (questions@toask.com), March 03, 1999.

Sorry Paul you've got it totally wrong again as usual.

Here's why. Read these two articles.

(I could go into JIT delivery, the average length of the supply cahin being x thousand miles in the USA (think it was 3,000 from memory), the likelyhood of an oil freeze, the cascading domino effect on food production/distribution/ etc. etc.)

Article One. Geri Guidetti. Can be heard on realaudio on the Jeff Rense show.

"It's crunch time. Here comes 1999, and it promises to be a dilly. Not since the days when guns replaced sharpened hunting sticks, and grain mills replaced crude, hand-hewn mortars and pestles, has a year's rollover meant more to the question of whether or not there will be enough food for the future. Simply put, what we do"as nations, states, businesses, families and individuals"in the next twelve months, may well determine what, when, and if we will eat in the year 2000 and beyond.

Over the past three years, I have been sounding an alarm that our food supply is much less safe and secure than any of us can imagine, largely due to vulnerabilities wrought by the same technology that has brought us so much food. We've created a monster, and the monster's about to get sick. If you come to the same conclusion, it will raise your anxiety level. Most of us don't need anymore anxiety in our lives, yet the flip side of that is that it is better to know, when you might be able to do something about it, than not to know and be helpless to change the outcome. It is with some apprehension that I offer some thoughts about the bigger food supply picture for 1999 and prospects for Y2K.

We will redefine food in the year 2000. It may take a little while, but that must-have-super-size-fried-double-whopper-with-bacon-and- cheese-with-cherries-ga rcia-and-big-gulp-chasers will be metamorphosed into a grateful-to-have-bowl-of-vegetable-soup-with- homemade-bread-with-water-chaser. And remember, if you are not part of the solution, you are part of the problem.

Despite the calm reassurances and optimistic projections of elected leaders, appointed agency heads and corporate CEOs, the ugly truth about our collective, global impotence to purge our infrastructure of the so-called Millennium Bug is leaking, seeping, oozing out. The Millennium Bug is the Ebola of our technology based existence. There is no cure for Ebola, and it will infect the computer-dependent food supply monster in the year 2000. Unless we hear and see proof, in the next few months, that the complex production, processing, distribution and sales limbs of the beast are fixed"or that effective contingency plans are in place"increasing public awareness and the resulting panic will make it sick well before the close of 1999.

Let's look at some prospects for disease prevention. The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) now has a web site offering called, "Facts About the Y2K Problem and the Food Supply Sector." You can find it at http://www.fsis.usda.gov/OM/y2kfact2.htm. It is here that you will find Secretary of Agriculture, Dan Glickman's, public statement on the problem. He observes that it takes the work of "tens of thousands of people" to produce a meal for an American family. He then says:

"I must confess, however, that until recently I hadn't thought very much about the connection between food on our tables and computers. But, as a new millennium approaches, that link is becoming all too clear....We are facing the potential of serious disruption because of this problem...."

Interesting. In July of 1997 I published an Update citing data in one of the USDA's own reports on the extent of computers in all aspects of agriculture and posed the questions, at that time, concerning potential impacts on our food supply. Had Mr. Glickman even seen that USDA report? Had he thought about its implications for our nation's food in Y2K? In his current statement, he goes on to say,

"That's why USDA, along with the rest of the Administration, is hard at work to make sure our internal systems are Y2K compliant. We are also working with our partners in state and local governments who help deliver federal programs to make sure our computers continue to talk to each other and perform the work they are programmed to do. Now, through the President's Council on Year 2000 Conversion, the federal government has undertaken a massive outreach effort to heighten awareness of the Y2K problem.

"The Council has asked USDA, working with the Departments of Defense, Health and Human Services, State, and the Commodities Futures Trading Commission, to lead the government's awareness campaign to the food supply sector."

Let's get this straight. First, Dan Glickman, the head of the federal agency that oversees food production for the U.S. and much of the rest of the world, just recently became aware of the connection between computers and food? Next, the newly formed President's Council on Year 2000 Conversion has asked the USDA to work with The Departments of Defense, Health and Human Services, and State to lead the government's awareness campaign on Y2K to the food industry ?

The Department of Defense? On November 23rd, the Department of Defense was given a D-minus on the House of Representative's quarterly report card on its Y2K progress on mission critical systems. Mission CRITICAL systems only. On November 27th, the Defense Department's own Inspector General accused the Pentagon of falsifying Y2K compliance reports released by its Special Weapons Agency, the agency"are you sitting down?--that manages our nuclear weapons stockpile. (Falsifying reports. Isn't that the same thing as lying?) The Special Weapons Agency admits that it did, indeed, certify computer systems as Y2K compliant without completing testing on them, and the Pentagon admits to having no explanation for its agency's misrepresentation. In fact, only 25 percent of systems reported by the Defense Department as being compliant actually were, according to a report released by the Inspector General in July. THIS is the department that has been asked to lead, with USDA, food supply industry awareness.

USDA's second, assigned leader in this "massive outreach effort to heighten awareness..." is the Department of Health and Human Services, November 23rd recipient of an F grade on their Y2K report card. It seems this department which is responsible for administering the nations Medicare program has only fixed 7 of their 100 mission critical systems. Given the potentially catastrophic consequences of a failed Medicare system in 2000, how much of their staff and budget do you think they will assign to a food supply awareness campaign?

The Department of State, the third assigned leader, is yet another rated F agency. ( If you still have some question about whether we are in good hands, overall, with our federal agencies, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) received an F as well. It seems their recently purchased computer system is not Y2K compliant. Rep. Stephen Horn said, "They receive the dunce of the year award.")

Back to Secretary Glickman's official Y2K statement:

"The best way we can do that (lead the government's awareness campaign to the food supply sector) is by forming a partnership with industry groups whose members are involved in food production and distribution. Our goal: to make sure everyone involved in food supply production, processing, distribution, and sales is aware of their potential Y2K problems, understands the importance of acting now to check their systems, and knows where they can go for help."

I do pray that even a quarter of "everyone involved" in food supply has not waited until now for this leadership in awareness, understanding, and "checking their systems." If so, the party's over because there will be no food served.

A MESSAGE TO EVERYONE INVOLVED IN PRODUCTION, PROCESSING, DISTRIBUTION AND SALES OF FOOD IN THE U.S.: According to several of the nation's top, most respected senior programmers"the men and women working in the belly of this sick Y2K beast"it is already too late for awareness, understanding and checking. It is too late to write a plan of action. It is too late to expect to find and keep programmers to repair all of your systems. It is too late. If you are to remain in business after 1999, if you are to become part of the solution, if you are to be there for the rebuilding of our infrastructure in the next century, it is time for contingency planning. It's not too late for that.

If Americans and, for that matter, the rest of the technology- dependent world, are not to panic about year 2000 food supplies in 1999, please answer honestly"and PUBLISH WIDELY"responses to the following: How are you working now to ensure us that you can deliver the goods if your mission critical computers collapse? If your suppliers' and vendors' computers collapse? Farmers--if your tractors don't work? If the Global Positioning Satellite system some of you use to farm doesn't get fixed? If you can't get fuel for your farm equipment? If your combines can't harvest? What seed will you plant in Y2K if your spring seed shipments don't arrive in February and March 2000? How will you produce food and seed for 2001 if you miss the year 2000 planting? If the multinational hybrid seed producers can't produce seed for you? How will you plant if there's no gas or diesel at your local supplier for your equipment in 2000? If you can't get fertilizers, herbicides, pesticides? Are you stocking up now? CAN you stock up given your current financial condition?

Supermarket chains: How are you planning now to stock your stores so folks can have food on hand to see them through at least a few months of 2000, if necessary? Are you increasing your stocks now to ensure us that there will be enough? We read that whole cities only have 72 hours of food in their pipelines. That the U.S. only has 3 months worth within its borders. Have you communicated that to emergency services and civil defense organizations in your city? What are your alternatives to just-in-time inventory management? Can you find/build space for longer term food product storage? How are you planning to sell food when your check-out scanners fail--if the power goes out in Y2K? How will you total cash orders"hand-held solar calculators? Have you bought them?

Food Processors: How are you working to assure us that those canned beans will be processed long enough to kill botulism bacteria? Are there manual overrides for your conveyor belts and heat/pressure canning operations? Have you talked to your suppliers about alternative methods of getting the beans to put into those cans? How will you get the huge amounts of water you need to process food if the municipal water systems go down? If the water is insufficiently processed and contaminated? Conversely, if it contains dangerously high levels of chlorine? Have you thought this through?

Food distribution centers: How will you know which store needs what if the scanners and computer calculations go haywire in Y2K? How will you get product to ship if railway shipments are delayed or non- existent. If some/many/most of your truckers are not able to deliver product for you? Is there a basic list of products that you will ship to each and every store if there is no computer communication between you? Can you do it by telephone? What if there are no telephones?

Food industry leaders: Have you done the "big picture thinking" about your industry if a worst case scenario is realized in Y2K? Are you aware of what a worst case scenario would be like? Have you done the "dominoes thinking?" What proportion of the industry is now devoted to production of highly-processed, energy and computer dependent foods? Have you talked among yourselves about rethinking food product needs in a national emergency? With rolling blackouts and intermittent refrigeration? Can a portion of your factories be retooled to produce foods with high, concentrated nutrition and a long shelf-life"no refrigeration needed. Now ?

Enough questions. I encourage readers to share them and your own food supply questions with anyone involved in food production or supply in your area; your supermarket manager; your mom and pop grocer; with emergency preparedness groups; with clergy; your city council president; your mayor; your state representatives; your boss; your mother-in-law; whomever. Remember: if we're not part of the solution, we're part of the problem. The first part of doing contingency planning will be to raise the volume on the questions we have and to persistently insist on answers. When we have answers we think we can trust, we can then make the personal and community decisions necessary for survival. REAL leadership is obviously not going to come from the top on this. It's going to come from the bottom"grass roots. From you"all of you.

If the senior programmers are right"if it's too late to fix even the mission critical systems"then food and water will prove to be our most critical national concern in mid- to late 1999. Electrical failures and fuel supply interruptions will make them obsessions in 2000.

Our entire human food supply is based on plants and plant seeds. Seed for farmers may be in short supply in 2000. New, hybrid and non- hybrid seeds produced in 1999 for the year 2000 crop may not reach all who need it due to transportation and distribution breakdowns. Those commercial farmers who didn't stock two years worth of fertilizers, herbicides and pesticides in 1999 may be out of luck in 2000. Most of these inputs are petrochemical based, and the refineries and chemical companies may be plagued by their embedded chip problems. (A horrifying post by a refinery worker recently claimed that refineries will NOT be functional when the clock strikes twelve on January 1, 2000. He claims they can't even find all of the embedded chips to test unless they break down and rebuild all of the refineries. There's no time for that. Guess we won't know if refineries and fuels will make it until January 1st.)

If international and national oil, gas and electricity are not in good shape, several of the multinational seed and chemical giants will run into serious Y2K difficulties. This scenario WOULD affect the food supply for the year 2000 and 2001. Distribution of diesel fuel and gasoline supplies to run farm machinery may be undependable. Seasonal planting deadlines would be missed. Seeds or no seeds, many crops would not get planted, and that would prove deadly for 2001. That year would be worse than 2000. Those with a cache of non-hybrid seeds and some land to grow it on should at least be able to eat come summer and fall. Those who learn how to multiply and save that seed for 2001 and beyond would no longer be part of the problem, but part of the solution. They'd be less likely to go hungry.

Unless we get some fast, honest ,complete answers, AND encouraging ones as well, 1999 will be a year of food panic. Like your withdrawals from your bank account, what you take out of the store will be limited. Rice: $7.29 for a 10 pound bag, reads the ad. Limit, one. Coming to a store near you. Soon.

You have to be part of the solution. We have a year to reach more people, to push for serious contingency planning, to help one another. Think village. Think community. Grow a non-hybrid seed garden THIS summer. Multiply the seed. Give some away. Learn to can and dry food. Teach others to do the same. Teach your family members, too, in case anything happens to you. Be part of the solution.

Ebola kills its host by infecting host cells with its "bad code", corrupting and commandeering host DNA, forcing it to spew out bad, instead of normal data, replicating the virus, over and over again, until the whole host body is one seething bag of bad virus. Though there have been a couple of reports of successful treatment with antibodies against this monster, aggressive support of progressively failing host systems is the only treatment available to date. There is, at this time, no hope of going into every cell in every host and excising or fixing the bad code. There is no magic bullet.

By a combination of arrogance, ignorance, greed and denial, we have infected the global "host" with a technological Ebola. It is now systemic. If the senior programmers are right, in 1999, we will begin to bleed. In 2000, we will hemorrhage. Our focus must now shift from expecting to cure it to contingency planning for critical, life systems support. Electricity. Food. Water. Telecommunications. Fuel. Medicine. From these, with newly found humility, we will rebuild.....Geri Guidetti, The Ark Institute ___________________

Article Two. Ed Yardeni. Apologies if the formatting gets screwed.

"Senate Committee On Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry Hearing on the Year 2000 Problem and Agriculture Prepared Testimony of Dr. Edward Yardeni Chief Economist & Managing Director Deutsche Bank Securities Wednesday, July 22, 1998 Full Text of Testimony I would like to thank Chairman Richard G. Lugar and the Distinguished Members of this committee for the opportunity to testify today. My name is Ed Yardeni. I am the Chief Economist, Global Investment Strategist, and a managing director of Deutsche Bank Securities, a global investment banking firm. The subject of my testimony today is "The Impact ofthe Year 2000 Problem on the Global Food Chain: We Need Answers Now." Today, Iwould like to raise a vitally important issue, which has been mostly ignored in the discussions of the Year 2000 Problem (Y2K). I am concerned that no one on this planet is assessing the potential negative impact of Y2K on the global food supply. There is much that we don't know about Y2K. However, we do know that most computer systems must be fixed to recognize that "00" in the widely- used two-digit year field is 2000, not 1900. We know that if they are not fixed in time, computer malfunctions would greatly disrupt our businesses and governments. So there is a great deal at risk. We also know that we are running out of time. On August 19, 1998, many of us around the world are planning events to promote Global Y2K Action Day. On that day, there will be only 500 days until January 1, 2000. I will be hosting a live, all-day Internet "Countdown 2000 Conference," featuring some of the world's top Y2K experts. I believe that with so little time left, it is very unlikely that all mission-critical systems will be properly fixed in time. I am an alarmist in this respect. I believe that only nave optimists can assume that there won'tbe any significant malfunctions, and consequently major disruptions to our global economy. It is important to understand that whatever systems are doomed tofail will all do so at exactly the same time, i.e., at the start of the new millennium. These failures are likely to have a domino effect on systems that are Y2K complaint. Consequently, I believe there is a 70% chance of a global recession in 2000 that could be at least as severe as the global economic downturn in1973 and 1974. I am amazed by the lack of alarm about Y2K, especially among our global policy makers. I will be the first to admit that there is a great deal that I don't know about the problem. What disturbs me is that I am not sure that our business and government leaders know much more than I do. The only organization in the world providing regular public progress reports about Y2K remediation efforts is the U.S. federal government. The latest oneis not very encouraging, though the administration is putting a great deal of pressure on the federal agencies to have their systems fixed and ready for testing by the end of March 1999. The fact is no one knows how much progress is occurring among state and local governments, private business firms, foreign businesses, and foreign governments. No one can say with any certainty that the following systemswon't fail to some degree during 2000: nuclear missile systems, electric powergrids, oil and gas distribution, telecommunications, air traffic control, transportation, shipping, manufacturing, distribution, banking, finance, and government services. I suppose, we can be nave optimists and conclude that all will be wellbecause the consequences of failure are so terrible. This blind approach is unacceptable, in my opinion. We need more answers about Y2K so we can assess the risks and prepare contingency and disaster recovery plans. There will be a recovery from the Year 2000 recession. It will start sooner if we enter the new millennium with our eyes open. We are especially blind about the possible problems that will hit the global food supply in 2000. This must be a top concern for all of us. Today, there is virtually no starvation on the planet earth thanks to theimpact of new technologies. I suspect that the Y2K technological problem could significantly disrupt the food supply chain. All I can do is ask thequestions, hoping that the responsible business and government leaders have the accurate answers: 1) Will farmers have access to the information, the seeds, the fertilizer, the feed, and the credit they will need to feed our global population in 2000? 2) Will disruptions in our energy supply chains (electric, oil, and gas) hamper the ability of farmers to grow their crops and feed their livestock? 3) Will the distribution channels operate without any serious risk of delays that might spoil food products before they get to market? 4) Will just-in-time inventory systems function properly so that food retailers will have ample supplies on the shelves? 5) Can our food supply chain cope with a wave of panic buying late in 1999, similar to what always happens during localized natural disasters? 6) Is there a risk that fertilizer plants might fail as a result of problems with embedded chip systems? 7) How might disruptions in natural gas distribution depress fertilizer production? 8) Should farmers be encouraged to stockpile the basic inputs they need to produce food in 2000? 9) Will the railroads be able to operate at full capacity to transport grains, livestock, and finished-food products to their customers. 10) Will ships move freely in and out of ports to deliver the imported and exported foods that are so important in global trade. 11) Should we be ready to provide food assistance to nations overseas thathave major Y2K-related problems with their food supplies? The entire Asian region is in a recession, perhaps even a depression. The situation is so bad that President B.J. Habibie of Indonesia urged his people recently to fast twice a week during daylight hours to save three million tons of rice, roughly the amount that the country has had to import this year. This shocking development may be just a warm-up act for the kinds of problems that many more countries may face in 2000. Asians have a Year 1998 Problem, which is distracting them from fixing Y2K. Many other countries around the world are not moving fast enough to fix their computers. A recent survey of thousands of companies around the world, conducted by Merrill Lynch, suggested that there is a high probability that the phone system might not work in Brazil in 2000. This nation is one of the biggestgrain producers and food exporters in the world. If the phones don't work, whatmight be the impact of food production, distribution, and exports? Again, all I can do is ask the questions? Clearly, we need answers! What is the United States doing about the Y2K problem overseas? Not much, and certainly not enough. In the past, our foreign policy leaders have rarelyshied from projecting our power to defend and pursue our national strategic, political, and economic interests. Yet, the administration has adopted an arms-length approach to the Y2K problem overseas, even though it could have a very deleterious impact on many of our national interests. Our recently-announced contribution to the World Bank's efforts to increasethe Y2K efforts of emerging nations is puny. I believe we need a Y2K MarshallPlan to help these nations fix the Y2K problem as much as possible in the limited time available. Such a plan must also help them prepare contingency anddisaster recovery plans. Mr. Chairman, I have read your bill S.2116, which would authorize severalbadly needed reforms in the Department of Agriculture and streamline the information technology operation. It distresses me that it is even necessary because it clearly reflects the fact that the Department is in disarray when it comes to fixing the Year 2000 Problem. The General Accounting Office has been especially critical of the slowprogress and institutional hurdles with respect to Y2K remediation in this vitally important agency. I support your bill and your efforts to accelerate the paceof progress. Thank you."



-- Andy (2000EOD@prodigy.net), March 03, 1999.



Hi! I think I read somewhere that there are 3 days supply of food kept in the gocery stores. Also that there are 3 months supply in the U.S. total. That is not good particularly if panic sets in (which is probably why the government has an anti-panic campaign going). So, ah, anyway, if you are not hoarding now, you won't be able to hoard when everyone else is trying to do so. Also, if economic devastation slowly sets in, and people start loosing jobs, they won't have money to buy the stuff. In the great depression in California, the farmers burned the crops rather than give them to the desperately starving peniless workers camped outside their farms. Disgusting. Other ideas -- if you're not amongst the wealthy and politically influential, you may not get first shot at new food coming into the stores. And you may get mugged as you try to carry it home. Or distribution is not done fairly. There are just too many variables, so as the LDS are doing here in Utah where I live, and I bet Bennett is too, stockpile with a vengeance. Sincerely, Apple

-- Apple (villarta@itsnet.com), March 03, 1999.

Paul-y-anna Davis, you always miss the point. How much food EXISTS now is related, kind of, to what is coming, but is well overshadowed by what is coming. You know, the Y2K problem, ever hear of it???

It doesnt matter HOW MUCH there is if IT CAN'T GET THERE. It WON'T GET THERE because the things that MOVE IT THERE WON'T BE WORKING. They won't be working BECAUSE OF THE Y2K PROBLEM.

I swear you must dream up these paulyanna spiels on the back of cocktail napkins, no obviously intelligent person could possibly come up with this and not be under the influence.

-- King of Spain (madrid@aol.com), March 03, 1999.

I think the tuna schools are in fer some intense thinning...

As well as the herds of spam...... anybody ever seen one?

-- Lisa (lisa@hungry.broke), March 03, 1999.


Who is Paul Davis, anyway, and how does he come to the conclusions he comes to?

-- pshannon (pshannon@inch.com), March 03, 1999.

Paul Davis is the voice of the sane and calm voice of the American public.

-- Chris (catsy@pond.com), March 03, 1999.


Chris,

Thank you for forming that exact phrase in describing Paul.

It hepls me understand much better who I am.

-- Greybear, happy and proud to be just one of the voices of the INsane and PANICKED voices of the American public.

- Got Meds?

-- Greybear (greybear@home.com), March 03, 1999.


Well, I dunno about famine, but people going hungry seems to be a very real possibility to me, especially after watching the Y2K Food Supply hearings last month and perusing the available information on the Y2K report issued yesterday.

Assuming that none of your grain is destroyed by poor storage (due to glitches or power outages, for instance), vermin, theft and accident (fire, flood, windstorm, spontaneous combustion of grain dust [ventilation system out, no power], and subtracting that amount needed to sustain, for example, milk cows and work animals, even if not meat animals, how much grain is there then?

Your ideal scenario depends heavily on electricity, cheap oil for fueling transportation and farm vehicles, petro-chemicals (pesticides, herbicides), imported and/or manufactured materials used in fertilizers, uninterrupted artificial flow of water to fruit and veg producers in the Rio Grande Valley and in California (not to mention other irrigation in Florida and elsewhere), and power to keep storage facilities for seed at the right temperature and humidity. I'm sure there are other factors but I'm not an ag expert, just a humble home gardener. Again, according to your scenario, there won't be any meat processing (as you contradictorally suggest could add to the food supply in your last para) because all the grain for animal feed will go to feeding humans. That grain would better feed humans than animals gets no argument from me because I don't eat meat, poultry or fish--rest assured my problems with your summary do not arise from any carnivorous tendencies..

Now I'd like you to gice us another summary to explain your plans for the 8 million diabetics, 8 million hyperglycemics, hypoglycemics, those allergic to wheat and gluten, and millions more others who have to eat a special diet in order to survive.

Paul, your summary is analogous to the reports that insist there's umpty-ump acres of vacant land in this country, hence millions more people can be fed. What the reports don't say is that most of those areas are unfarmable--like mountain, desert, swamp, and so on. Please develop your sense of consequence.

-- Old Git (anon@spamproblems.com), March 03, 1999.


And as usual, you guys manage to miss my point entirely. At the end of December THIS YEAR the grain storage areas in the US will have over 1000 days worth of grain in them. Less than 1/3 will usually have been shipped by then. These grain storage areas are spread out all over the US (cripes - one is just down the street and roasting soybeans right now - smells like all the movie popcorn in the world outside). They are in every city - I have traveled a lot and have never been in a city where there was no grain storage. Look around you - they are easy to spot! Thousands of tons of food stored everywhere! There is no long transportation required. Milling does not have to be a heavy duty process - you can eat wheat after just boiling it for pity's sake. You can only get a 'three month supply' by looking only at processed or canned stuff - hard times would get us over that fallacy pretty quickly!

As for where I get my ideas - I deal in facts and numbers. I have no time for people who won't 'do the math'.

-- Paul Davis (davisp1953@yahoo.com), March 03, 1999.


Paul is funning us a little with this one. First of all, Paul, very interesting research. As I read your message, it says stock up heavily with this spring's wheat harvest, this summer's corn harvest, and this fall's soybean and potato harvest. Paul is showing us how assinine the government anti-stockpiling position is (heck, a lot of people here in North Carolina will have to empty their pantry on Dec. 31 if the govt. says you should only have a 72 hour supply, and that's not including y2k preps.) Paul is showing that only the most vulnerable should fail to partake from the cornucopia of nourishment produced by this country's bread basket.

Paul's message comes through loud and clear. Now why he chooses to couch his message in a somewhat annoying manner, I don't know. Probably for the amusement of Paul Davis. Possibly to generate some publicity for the thread and thereby disseminate the mesage better. Bottom line, it looks like great information, so get out there and do everybody a favor, stockpile food now.

-- Puddintame (dit@dot.com), March 03, 1999.


Paul, I'm only aware of soybean storage in Raleigh. That's at an elevator (I believe Cargill) just east of downtown. It would probably feed Wake County for about two days. I've been unable to find significant stores of corn or wheat within 50 miles of Raleigh. Isn't most of the big storage VA-NC-SC in the Norfolk area?

-- Puddintame (dit@dot.com), March 03, 1999.


Oy, vey!

Paul, that was a hell of a defensive response. I imagine your defensivness is based on the fact that some part of you is aware that what have presented here make no sense what-so-ever. You might be correct in your conclusion, but the way you get to it is non-sense.

Numbers can be completely meaningless. You may live down the road from a grain processing facility, but are the owners of it going to give you access to any of the grain? I live in New York City, what am I going to do, Paul, in a worst case scenario? Walk to Pennsylvania to collect all the grain I can carry? If the distribution of all those calories being stored completely breaks down, how will they be accessable?

C'mon, Paul! You're really not thinking clearly!

-- pshannon (pshannon@inch.com), March 03, 1999.


I did mean to compliment and thank you for the research, Paul.

(you left our rice!?)

-- Lisa (lisab@shallc.com), March 03, 1999.


Paul.........

Thanks for the excellent article....nice to see some balance around here once in a while.

Of course, I knew many of the regulars would pounce on you because you broke the #1 unwritten rule of this forum......Don't post any good news........only horrible nuclear-fallout Road Warrior stuff allowed.

Yeah, I'm a bit sarcastic today, but at times some of this stuff gets way out in left field. And it is true, you'll rarely get to post good news without being hounded.

-- Craig (craig@ccinet.ab.ca), March 03, 1999.


Paul...thank you for the urls on use of various grains. However......if FEMA were to give everyone a bag of wheat, a bag of corn (I am taliking 50# bags), a bag of oat meal, a bag of rice, a bag of potatoes, a gal of p-nut butter and a gal of honey, I can guarantee they would eat only the honey and p-nut butter. They would have no idea how to use any of the other raw commoditys. Most Americans would starve to death with a veggie garden and a fresh cow ready to be milked.

Got milk pail?

-- Taz (Tassie@aol.com), March 03, 1999.


But Craig,

There's no good news posted here! It's statistics. How can you make a logical conclusion that having ooodles of food stored makes "famine appear unlikely"? I don't see the connection. "Unlikely" for how long? "Famine," or simply belly-aching hunger? What about all the hybrids grown in South America?

Make some of the connections, for how all this food is going to be distributed, and I'll be glad to view it as good news. In the mean time, the disconnect is too large to ignore...

-- pshannon (pshannon@inch.com), March 03, 1999.


Oh, I get it. Paul said "Famine does not appear to be likely."

He means that there are enough grain calories stored throughout the US to feed every citizen for over 3 years. That in itself, IS good news.

Thank you Paul. Now would you please expand on this and tell us how the entire population would recieve those calories, were the transportation system, or the food distribution system fail? Or FEMA, National Guards and Red Cross encounter problems and/or become overwhelmed? Or that the local governments in major cities did not have adequate contengency plans? Those areas, according to the senate report are not likely to be completely ready, and that is what concerns and worries me.

-- Chris (catsy@pond.com), March 03, 1999.


Craig - head out of ass time - there are 280 million people to feed in this country. The machine in place that works now is in grave danger of collapse in 10 months. Many people already live below the poverty line. Many exist on welfare. Yep, they'all mosey down to the grain mill (nice walk from Harlem or East LA or Hunters' Point...) and pick up a bucket - the fact that these people have never seen a bucket of grain in their life does not appear on the Paul/Craig pollyanna radar... Paul/Craig - twins separated at birth. No vision. No appreciation of the dynamics of what is going to hit us.

Myopic idiots.

-- Andy (2000EOD@prodigy.net), March 03, 1999.


In defense of all us so-called pollyannas out here, I must say that it doesn't take much vision, as Andy puts it, to understand the consequences of infrastructure breakdowns. When you guys jump all over Paul for posts like this your arguments presuppose the total breakdown of the systems in question. It takes alot more vision to look for ways to avoid the breakdowns than it does to speculate about the consequences of a breakdown.

-- Buddy (buddy@bellatlantic.net), March 03, 1999.

I appreciate the effort that Paul has gone to. I hope that he's right about famine, although since famine is rarely about how much food and more about who has it, I'm not willing to risk it.

What does disappoint me is flaming. Agree or disagree without calling each other names, if you can. Agressive behavior really doesn't accomplish persuasion.

-- Tricia the Canuck (jayles@telusplanet.net), March 03, 1999.


...and much of the focus for "avoiding breakdowns" appears to include; lying to the public about the true state of affairs, companies hiding behind lawyerspeak to avoid litigation rather than sharing information, a disinformation campaign aimed to discredit the "messengers" by comparing them to fundamentalist and militia types, the banking industry hiring psychologists to talk about "anxiety disorders" to make people feel inferior if considering taking their money out of the bank, I don't even feel like continuing...

-- pshannon (pshannon@inch.com), March 03, 1999.

pshannon, the thing that give me the cold sweats is that without the internet it is very possible that I would still be out chewing my cud. I hope that I'm not that gullible, but the disinformation efforts are so superficially appealing that I can't say for sure where I would be if I depended on mass media.

-- Puddintame (dit@dot.com), March 03, 1999.

(Craig) Yeah, I'm a bit sarcastic today

Today? TODAY??? How about EVERY day?

-- a;lskjfd (las;kj@al;ks.a;lk), March 03, 1999.


Thanks for your research Paul.

Andy, you got there before me with this, "Yep, they'all mosey down to the grain mill (nice walk from Harlem or East LA or Hunters' Point...)"

Yep, I've been looking for a grain mill or a dairy farm or even any large farm inside L.A. County. I know there are some somewhere but I don't know where. Also, L.A. is looking at one hell of a problem with fresh water but that's a whole other story.

So, there might be enough food for much of the U.S. to eat for the next couple of years. What about Canada, Mexico, Central and South America, and every where else overseas?

No matter how much we are told we are an island in a sea of world turmoil one thing cannot be overlooked... tidal waves happen.

Do you think we would sit still all fat and healthy and let the rest of the world suffer and die from famine? Could you live with yourself if that was the case?

Even if the U.S. has enough to sustain itself for the next couple of years what would happen if the priority of an American's daily life is to find food for him/herself and their family? Simple, it's TEOTWAWKI.

What happens to our economy if we go humming along and yet there is no world to trade with? Simple, it's TEOTWAWKI.

Heck, how many people in this country even know how to prepare whole grain foods, etc?

Paul, like Nobody and others have said distribution is the key... there can be plenty of food available and still we could see millions of people dead.

But, thanks for trying to cheer me up.

Mike =================================================

-- Michael Taylor (mtdesign3@aol.com), March 03, 1999.


Paul, paul, paul...

When are you going to learn that these naive cultists have no desire for the truth? I know you are trying to help them, but unless somebody can convince them that their assumptions are just that... assumptions; they will never "get it".

-- Mutha Nachu (---@naughtylittleboyzngirls.com), March 03, 1999.


"The truth" being...what exactly?

-- pshannon (pshannon@inch.com), March 03, 1999.

Andy sounds like a programmer to me. He has an excellent understanding of a very complex system, and no concept whatever of a complex *adaptive* system. Complex computer systems have no ability to adapt - the code does what it does. If almost any little thing goes wrong, the entire system suffers serious, often fatal problems. If these problems somehow get passed to other complex but equally inflexible systems, the same thing happens. Modifying the program to handle each problem is a slow, expensive, error-prone process requiring specialized knowledge and skills.

Extrapolating the behavior of a non-adaptive system to apply to an adaptive system produces exactly the sort of expectations Andy cannot see any alternative to. A program has one way to do something. It either does it that way, or it doesn't do it at all. I can't help but get this vision of Andy learning that a street is under construction and impassible along the route he *always* takes, and concluding that his destination has become utterly unreachable. Or that he'd starve if food were a mile away and his car broke down, because he always drives there, and now he can't drive, so he can't eat.

Several people here appear to suffer from Andy Syndrome. Gee, there's food, and we're hungry, and the trains aren't running. I guess we all starve while the food rots! Even though several here have pointed out that famine has historically been hard to engineer, and takes real political (and military) power to maintain. Without this, people would quickly find some way to eat.

I recognize that one the whole, we're doing things in the most efficient ways we can dream up. (We're also dreaming up new ways to do everything all the time.) Given widespread or systemic breakdowns and inefficiencies, we'll *still* do things the most efficient way we can dream up. I expect it to be less efficient -- slower, clumsier, more expensive in time and effort. This doesn't mean impossible.

Our economy is highly adaptive. People are creative, and they find ways to do what they need to do. Indeed, programmers hate users because users are always doing unexpected, unintended things with the software. There are many many suboptimal but sufficient solutions to every problem. I expect a great deal of creative rule-bending.

Don't forget that for a program, there's a near-infinite number of wrong ways (for it to fail), and only one right way for it to work. In an economy, there's a near-infinite number of ways for things to go right as well as wrong. And every one of us will be looking for and trying out ways to get things to work, nobody (except maybe Andy) will simply accept that things aren't working and just give up.

-- Flint (flintc@mindspring.com), March 03, 1999.


For famine to happen, most of what we take for granted has to be gone. I'm a pretty creative person but I can't seem to think of a way that I can grow food in the middle of Minneapolis in January. Who's going to tell the storage facilities where the grain is needed without telecommunications? If the state gov. can't afford to run the snow plows all winter (how much do you think gas will cost if we lose our ability to import??) or there wasn't gas availible, how would supplies even get where they're supposed to go? There is a large area of this country that can't function without the snow plows running. Oddly enough this area, the middle west, is where most of the grain is produced and stored. If there is a lot of snow in 2000 there are going to some very big problems. Semi's don't move too well through several feet of snow...

-- d (d@usedtobedgi.old), March 03, 1999.

Excellent point Flint. My best input into this complex adaptive system, everybody panic now. Do you argue with that?

-- Puddintame (dit@dot.com), March 03, 1999.

Tricia - Craig and Paul should know better - this is a very serious subject and I would do myself and others a disservice if I didn't speak my mind. I've read their posts for a long time now and feel able to comment as such - they can do the same to me, they know my views by now. Craig comes swanning in with a couple of pithy sarcastic remarks - sorry Craig, not the time or place... Paul, sorry, but your research though well intentioned, as you both are incidentally, makes no sense in the real world. Yes on paper it all looks hunky dory. In practise food production and distribution is the epitome of this digital age. Without a perfectly functioning system, we are in deep MERDE.

280 MILLION people.

Flint.

"Andy sounds like a programmer to me. He has an excellent understanding of a very complex system, and no concept whatever of a complex *adaptive* system. Complex computer systems have no ability to adapt - the code does what it does. If almost any little thing goes wrong, the entire system suffers serious, often fatal problems. If these problems somehow get passed to other complex but equally inflexible systems, the same thing happens. Modifying the program to handle each problem is a slow, expensive, error-prone process requiring specialized knowledge and skills. Extrapolating the behavior of a non-adaptive system to apply to an adaptive system produces exactly the sort of expectations Andy cannot see any alternative to. A program has one way to do something. It either does it that way, or it doesn't do it at all. I can't help but get this vision of Andy learning that a street is under construction and impassible along the route he *always* takes, and concluding that his destination has become utterly unreachable. Or that he'd starve if food were a mile away and his car broke down, because he always drives there, and now he can't drive, so he can't eat.

####### Wrong Flint. I fully understand adaptive systems. I hope the country can adapt sufficiently quickly to avoid a calamity. I do not discount the power of flexible minds and teamwork. However, this is a unique situation, we are being bombarded daily with PR spin, some people are beginning to believe it, wishful thinking will not prevent a catasrophe. #######

Several people here appear to suffer from Andy Syndrome. Gee, there's food, and we're hungry, and the trains aren't running. I guess we all starve while the food rots! Even though several here have pointed out that famine has historically been hard to engineer, and takes real political (and military) power to maintain. Without this, people would quickly find some way to eat.

I recognize that on the whole, we're doing things in the most efficient ways we can dream up. (We're also dreaming up new ways to do everything all the time.) Given widespread or systemic breakdowns and inefficiencies, we'll *still* do things the most efficient way we can dream up. I expect it to be less efficient -- slower, clumsier, more expensive in time and effort. This doesn't mean impossible.

Our economy is highly adaptive. People are creative, and they find ways to do what they need to do. Indeed, programmers hate users because users are always doing unexpected, unintended things with the software. There are many many suboptimal but sufficient solutions to every problem. I expect a great deal of creative rule-bending.

Don't forget that for a program, there's a near-infinite number of wrong ways (for it to fail), and only one right way for it to work. In an economy, there's a near-infinite number of ways for things to go right as well as wrong. And every one of us will be looking for and trying out ways to get things to work, nobody (except maybe Andy) will simply accept that things aren't working and just give up.

####### I wish you would stop already with the programming analogy, because it really doesn't work in this context. As far as giving up, you don't know me pal, you have no clue, your views in the paragraphs above are very simplistic. I am simply pointing out the obvious - we have 10 months to go, things are not looking "good", the spin machine is in full swing, some people (Flint?) are perhaps letting their utopian views cloud their logical brain - OH! how I would like to run away with that sort of feelgood thinking - I just can't do it Flint, - I'm hoping for the best, expecting something other than that, and prepared to adapt at short notice to whatever this way comes. #######

-- Andy (2000EOD@prodigy.net), March 03, 1999.


maybe I missed it, but has anybody dealt with the problem that food has to look like what people expect food to look like? What I mean is that, even if delivery is possible all the grain in all the silos in America doesn't do any good at all, unless it is transformed into something that people can recognize as edible food.

Go into your local grocery store. get an estimate of the available shelf space given over to unmilled grain. Right. zero. well, okay, what if we somehow (remember the facillities to accomplish this do NOT exist) manage to provide everyone with oh say a pound of flour per person per day. Go to the aisle that has the flour, sugar, and other basic baking supplies. get an approximate idea of the shelf space taken up by these products. Now walk through the entire rest of the store and see how many times more shelf space is taken up by prettily packaged and processed variations of those few simple baking products.

do you see the problem yet? The majority of Americans have little or no practice baking bread, much less putting together an entire meal from scratch. Because of this lack of basic skills, raw materials such as soybeans and grain cannot be considered to be available food in and of themselves, unless and until one can be certain that the facillities exist to process those raw commodities into consumer food products.

sorry Paul, no sale.

Arlin

-- Arlin H. Adams (ahadams@ix.netcom.com), March 03, 1999.


Amazing! Some of you people can't accept any good news without criticism. Theres no wonder some of the newspapers are writing about y2k extremists. Just because there will be problems does not mean that everything stops functioning. Not all trucks, planes , trains, horses, boats and camels will grind to a halt come next year. And furthermore, if there is a reduction in service, the food will be shipped. Common sense says that Nintendo games and televisions and ornaments and so on may be held back. Why the stupid assumption that nothing will work. Even the Russians today, as bad as things are, are still eating.

This bulletin board is a lot like an extreme pentecostel church group. It starts with a broad range of opinions. But eventually the scary people with extreme ideas push out the more moderate and sensible by shouting them down. They are obsessed with everything and cannot understand that they dont have the monopoly on truth. The more balanced reasonable people get tired of it all and leave. This only gives the radicals more encouragement that they were right to begin with.

I've stood by and watched for too long. I'm going somewhere sane. You lunatics go and buy some more spam before its too late.

-- Mark (markulan@xmindspring.com), March 03, 1999.


Paul made a fairly important point which I did not see addressed by the rest of the posters to this thread, at least from a vegetarian point of view (which I'm not, btw):

"""""""Now, lets look at grits. 5 lbs, 4 oz of grits provides 7300 calories, converting to tons gives a bit over 3 million calories per metric ton of grits. Assume a 20% loss in processing, and we find that we have 760 days worth of calories just in the corn harvest in the US in one year. Most is used for animal fodder, but if we were in a starvation situation that would change pretty quickly. """"""

The great bulk of the corn harvest goes to agribiz feed lots to feed cattle. Very simple: 9 pounds of vegetable protein make 1 pound of beef protein. In a crisis situation as the doomers are fond of predicting, beef will obviously become a luxury good. Feed lots will become a thing of the past, and the ozone layer will no longer be threatened by cow farts.

Ah yes, I'm forgetting the total collapse of the transportation system. Silly me.

-- Morgan (morgan96@netscape.net), March 03, 1999.


Mark,

I'm sorry you're offended, but if you'd be kind enough to go up to the link concerning a real Russian nuclear problem, and then go to that Norwegian website, you'll find ample evidence in the articles on that site that a lot of Russians, at least in their military, are NOT being fed...

Arlin Adams

-- Arlin H. Adams (ahadams@ix.netcom.com), March 04, 1999.


Well heres some good news. :) Food shortages mean more Kate Dillion and less Kate Moss. (Of course this might not be good news to all...)

Just trying to add a bit of irreverence to this whole thing. :) BTW, in my humble opinion most of the people on here seem to be very level headed, well educated and intelligent people. They just don't want to have the truth sugar coated and are too skeptical to accept good news just because it makes them feel better.

For me, coming to grips with Y2K is a constant struggle. I don't have much interest in seeing the world colapse and expirencing the depth of pain I sence is on the horizon. I would love to have a credible source say to me, "it's not going to be bad at all" with tonnes of sources, and evidence. But with five people depending on my judgement I can't allow myself to slack when evaluating the good news.

I've done risk assessment on the situation and my evalution is this; preparing is less painfull then watching someone I love die, going hungry, or ending up in a shelter. It's as simple as that.

-- Jonathan Doyle (fearzone@home.com), March 04, 1999.


Well heres some good news.:) Food shortages mean more Kate Dillion and less Kate Moss. (Of course this might not be good news to all...)

Just trying to add a bit of irreverence to this whole thing. :) BTW, in my humble opinion most of the people on here seem to be very level headed, well educated and intelligent people. They just don't want to have the truth sugar coated and are too skeptical to accept good news just because it makes them feel better.

For me, coming to grips with Y2K is a constant struggle. I don't have much interest in seeing the world colapse and expirencing the depth of pain I sence is on the horizon. I would love to have a credible source say to me, "it's not going to be bad at all" with tonnes of sources, and evidence. But with five people depending on my judgement I can't allow myself to slack when evaluating the good news.

I've done risk assessment on the situation and my evalution is this; preparing is less painfull then watching someone I love die, going hungry, or ending up in a shelter. It's as simple as that.

-- Jonathan Doyle (fearzone@home.com), March 04, 1999.


As far as "adaptive systems" are concerned:

A HELL of a lot of the people that I know are NOT very adaptive. I'm talking about all those people who barely have an old jar of mustard in the refigerator. If you tell them that they can't go down to the local diner and get their eggs over easy, DON'T BREAK THE YOLK, or I'll send 'em back, what you mean you don't have whole wheat toast, only white or rye, I ASKED FOR WHOLE WHEAT, NOW GIVE ME WHOLE WHEAT - what the HELL are they going to do? A bucket of grain? who are we kidding here? Send 'em to the local school in January for a bowl of FEMA gruel? Can you hear the whining and bitching from where you sit?

Think...

-- pshannon (pshannon@inch.com), March 04, 1999.


PS, you're right, as you so often are. When Sweetie and I were on our honeymoon at Christmas in a small village in England some years ago, we decided to get some fresh pastries at the village bakery. It being Christmas Eve afternoon, there was a line of people out the door, waiting to get the freshest bread possible to last through the Christmas holiday. The baker and his wife were doing their best to keep the line moving but it seemed slow. I felt very impatient and frustrated, being used to walking into a supermarket, getting to the checkout and able to get through and out in a matter of a few minutes. Now replace the pretty village bakery in am 18th c. building, redolent with appetizing aromas and cheery people, with a Red Cross soup line composed of frightened, resentful, angry people and see how it plays. We really are very spoiled here and I don't think most people realize HOW spoiled. It may not come to that--but I'd rather have and not need than the other way around.

-- Old Git (anon@spamproblems.com), March 04, 1999.

I agree with the thought of an "adaptive" system and go further to say that the human race has always been an adaptive species.

However, the problem is that it may take an entire generation or more before new systems come online. That means that the diminished capacity of the current system caused by y2k disruptions will cause a whole lot of humans to die.

Arlin, I raised the point regarding whole grain and the fact that the majority of people don't know or have the ability to utilize whole grain. That goes directly to the argument regarding carrying capacity.

Bottom line is we live in a complex system where adapting to any major change is not easily managed nor easily accepted. As a whole, people in the U.S are comfortable and spoiled which is great when times are good and everything is working. People wont react very well if, and when, things change.

We may adapt but it will take time. To put that in perspective, have you ever been involved in or a victim of "road rage"? There just isn't a whole lot of patience out there these days.

Mike ======================================================

-- Michael Taylor (mtdesign3@aol.com), March 04, 1999.


Flint, my friend, a large part of The Problem is, in fact, that we have foolishly given it all over to The Almighty Computer, and have left no room for human creativity and resourcefulness to manuever. (The old Painted Into A Corner trick.) Not in the precious little time left, anyway.

At the same time, I will concede that if Y2K turns out to be half way managable (instead of the total TEOTWAWKI that I expect), it will in fact have been the very traits that you reference that will have pulled us through....

-- Jack (jsprat@eld.net), March 04, 1999.

pshannon- I almost fell out of my chair I laughed so hard! ONLY a die hard pessimist could make such a statement,

How can you make a logical conclusion that having ooodles of food stored makes "famine appear unlikely"? I don't see the connection.

Whhooooooah hah hah hah ha ha ha...heh heh heh!

stop, please...you're killin' me!

Rowland - same nonsense, different post. Typical D&G assumption and inuendo... "The Millennium Bug is the Ebola of our technology based existence. There is no cure for Ebola, and it will infect the computer-dependent food supply monster in the year 2000." lets see... Millennium bug=Ebola; Ebola=no cure. conclusion? no cure for millennium bug. What drivel.

Andy 'I wanna be like Ivan', can't see the forest for the trees. And he calls moderates "myopic"...heh heh heh!

Flint - the "Andy Syndrome" I LOVE IT! HAH HAH HAH ha ha ha... fits to a tee!

Mark - Good to know that there is hope for those who have bought the "insurance sales pitch"

Jack - less of the world is run by "the almighty computer" than you think. check into it. it might suprize you.

Paul Davis - Kick ass post, as usual... and ignored by the majority here because of the 'meme', as usual.

ta-ta

-- Mutha Nachu (---@budsswellinginspringtime.com), March 04, 1999.


Good thing Pharoah listened to Joseph and not you guys. I guess the concept of a country 'laying by in store' got passed over in your Sunday School or something.

-- Paul Davis (davisp1953@yahoo.com), March 04, 1999.

Wee doggies! you'uns is all worked up over food! Well that's one o my fav'rite subjects too.

Heck, round here we can hit enough deer with the truck to keep us fed without even meaning to...Lord knows how much we'd have if we ever went actually huntin' fer em. 'Course Ellie May'd not like it.

I can sure unnerstand how we might starve. I mean, all those Injuns didn't have all the tech stuff we have, and they all starved, didn't they? Ain't nary a one left. Gosh. Amazin they didn't all starve before Detective Columbo arived on our shores.

All us Amurricans are so stupid that if things break, we just sit raht there and look at it. Doesn't even cross out minds to get in gear and fix it. We're lost! I reckon we better move outta Beverly and head back for them hills. At least there we know we can survive. Unless all these city folks figger out where them hills are....then we're not safe anywhere....then we better all kill ourselves first...but there might be a shotgun shortage....oh woe!

(Uncle Jed, can you think of anything else I should worry about??)

-- Jethro Bodine (jed@clampett.org), March 05, 1999.


See "E. coli sighting!" thread of today's date. At the BBC site listed, there's a link to an article positing that a grain diet renders both animals and humans prone to (often fatal) extremely unpleasant E.coli infections.

-- Old Git (anon@spamproblems.com), March 05, 1999.

Jack said:

"At the same time, I will concede that if Y2K turns out to be half way managable (instead of the total TEOTWAWKI that I expect), it will in fact have been the very traits that you reference that will have pulled us through.... "

This is exactly where my optimism comes from.

-- Buddy (buddy@bellatlantic.net), March 05, 1999.


That ol' Jethro makes the most sense of the whole nutty bunch!! We won't fix it, we'll just sit and look at it.......LMAO!!!

Why do y'all think we won't be able to fix it (seriously)??

Miss Jane

-- Miss Jane (missjane@bh.com), March 05, 1999.


Because, Miss Jane, we will be without power, without food, without water, and without hope. (Unless, of course, you have a generator, stored food, a well, and a good sense of humor about these things.)

-- King of Spain (madrid@aol.com), March 05, 1999.

But King, the experts say the power outages should me minimal at worst (they won't even give me a 100 percent guarantee I'll have power when I get home this afternoon!). If that's the case, then there's food and water also. 'Without hope' sounds like a personal problem. So sorry you've lost hope.

Miss Jane

-- Miss Jane (missjane@bh.com), March 05, 1999.


Well, that is worrisome Miss Jane, just to know that Y2K could effect my electricity. And I just tend to think, gee, what if its longer than they think (72 hrs or whatever)? Seems like a big chance to take to not be prepared, like you say, your whole view of living large is pretty much dependent on the juice flowing. If it doesn't, especially if you live in a city, you are in some deep, uh, trouble.

Say, you sound cute. Do you speak any Spanish? Do you mudwrestle?

-- King of Spain (madrid@aol.com), March 05, 1999.

KingofSpam - you are walking on sacred ground my freind. I'd be very careful if I were you. Speak Spanish? No. Mudwrestle? Every Friday night of course!! There is a fee though......... Now you go back to the Queen before you get yourself in a heap of trouble young man!!

Miss Jane

-- Miss Jane (missjane@bh.com), March 05, 1999.


What a great thread! Thanks, Paul, for starting it. And thanks to Miss Jane and the rest of the hillbillies for bringing us a little more into reality.

The treacherous Troll Maria

-- Maria (anon@ymous.com), March 05, 1999.


Food will not need to look like food in order for truly hungry people to eat it. Take a pan of boiling water, add grain, continue heating until grain is soft. Wait for it to cool. Eat. I agree that distribution is at least as big a factor as production, but food preparation ignorance will be sufficiently overcome very quickly.

-- Steve Hartzler (s.hartzler@usa.net), March 08, 1999.

Puddintame,

Just because you are only aware of a single soybean elevator in Raleigh doesn't mean there's other storage. In fact, there's literally tons of food within 50 miles of Raleigh; the big farmer's market(s) and warehouses in the capitol area alone guarantee that.

Take a trip to Fuquay-Varina or Weldon sometime and look at the huge grain elevators.

-- Stephen M. Poole, CET (smpoole7@bellsouth.net), April 23, 1999.


I don't know what to think with you yokols yelling at everybody like yo-yos.

-- L.A.W. Man (adam.king@worldnet.att.net), June 29, 1999.

Update on the economic crisis in the ag sector: http://www.fb.com/views/focus/fo99/fo0628.html ________________________________________________ Farmers Need Something to be Optimistic About By: Stewart Truelsen

This could be a long, hot summer for the nation's farmers unless some optimism for the farm economy develops on the horizon. Right now, it's like waiting for a late afternoon thunderstorm to bring needed relief. The clouds thicken a little but nothing happens.

In Missouri, Farm Bureau held a series of meetings around the state to focus on the family farm situation. The turnout was good in west central Sedalia. Farmers gathered at the high school where a ham dinner was served. Judging from the size of the ham slices, they are trying to increase consumption to boost livestock prices.

"Normally this is a fun time to be in agriculture because you are active. You are doing things. You are growing a crop, you've got calves on the ground, and it is just an enjoyable time to be here. But if you treat farming as a way of life instead of a business, it probably won't be much of a business," said Brent Hampy, president of the Pettis County Farm Bureau.

It's the business of farming that has farmers concerned and anxious, not just in Missouri, but around the nation. "The outlook is not good and the general consensus at the coffee shop is 'why are we farming?'" said Hampy. The vice president of the county Farm Bureau, Larry Wilson, agreed. "This is going to be very serious before it's over. In my opinion this is not going to be short-term. We are looking at several years of low commodity prices," said Wilson.

Jerry Meyer, who farms at the edge of Pettis County, also knows about low commodity prices. "In our situation we built a new hog building and bought the feeder pigs just in time to catch that $8 hog market," said Meyer. Hog prices have improved since their disastrous lows, but not enough to help an independent producer like Meyer. He predicts there will be a lot more part-time farmers and contract feeders if the slump in the farm economy lasts as long as predicted.

Tough times are not anything new for farmers. The last major crisis was in the early 80s. What's different this time is that farmers are facing low commodity prices across the board and there is no turnaround in sight. "Most people that I've talked to do not remember a poorer time as far as prices," said Hampy.

There's also not as much public attention being paid to the current farm crisis. The rest of the economy has been robust. The economic news is about Internet stocks and E-commerce and the millions and billions of dollars being made on paper. It's not about the real money that farmers are losing while feeding us.

Farm Bureau is a problem-solving organization, so the farmers in Sedalia quickly finished the ham dinner and got to work. Farm Bureau soon will unveil a proposal that could give farmers something to be optimistic about.

Stewart Truelsen is the director of broadcast services for the American Farm Bureau Federation. ________________________________________

It is of interest to note that this season on the west coast has been unusually cold. Wheat crops have been negatively impacted and are late with low yields. Many crops were delayed, including apples and lettuce. Some were impacted by late season frost.

-- marsh (armstrng@sisqtel.net), June 29, 1999.


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