"The Future of Food in Apocalyptic Scenarios" Topic

"Sure, the apocalypse has been nigh for a while now. But lately the thing feels especially nigh. In the parlance of our times: it's nigh AF.

We're inching ever-closer toward war (perhaps of the nuclear variety) with North Korea. The Chicago Cubs won the World Series…."
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Amicalement
Armand

Tango, you are on a roll this week in finding horribly written and poorly thought out articles.

In the Post Apocalyptic world your main source of meat would be.

Long Pork

But most individuals of today would not able to survive for a week yet alone years if we got thrown back into the Stone Age.

Like the movie "2012" great idea of loading the ships with the great works of art and Billionaires/Royalty.

Most would be dead within a year if not sooner.

The last thing you should be thinking about saving if a Post-Apocalyptic event was coming is saving works of art.

Seeds and building material are far more important.

It reminds me of a question someone asked after seeing "The Time Machine" with Rod Taylor. At the end of the film his character took one or two books with him back to the future, presumably to help him rebuild civilization.

But what books did he take from the shelf?

The Playboy Bar Guide?

Thrilling Cities by Ian Fleming?

Inquiring minds want to know!

I have a theory about doomsday preppers that some of you may not like, but here goes:

A couple of years ago the National Geographic channel hosted a weekly show called Doomsday Preppers. Each show featured several preppers and showed how they were preparing for the apocalypse. Some of them were hilarious; one guy installed a flame-thrower on the door of his doomsday bunker to repulse intruders and another shot his thumb off while trying to teach his daughter how to shoot.

But many of them were, to put it bluntly, old. They said they were preparing for whatever impending crisis they were concerned about, but I think a lot of them were subconsciously trying to deal with the reality of their own mortality, as if storing up food and ammo will actually prevent the inevitable.

I told you that you wouldn't like it!

I like it.

The regular people will die fast. The "preppers" will die slowly and painfully a year later in their self made mausoleums.

It's still a stupid article.

Actually, I would just be shooting the deer when they come into the front yard to eat the roses.

That or hang out at my brother's place and get them when they come into the yard to eat the apricots or apples…

(smile)

Amicalement
Armand

So when you and everyone else have killed off all the deer, then what?

How do you get through the winters? I'm with Tumbleweed. The "I can live off the land" Doomsday Preppers are deluded.

Btw, I have deer around my house too, and I own vintage bolt action rifles. Not much of a survival plan.

If you look at the 2001-2002 economic collapse that happened in Argentina, the cities were the first places that were brought back online and preppers that went out in the wilderness did poorly.

Probably not enough flame throwers.

In the Fallout Universe the whole nation were preppers. Corporations marketed long lasting foodstuffs, Vaults, weaponry etc. For a whole decade this happened . Not bad for a stretched-tech '50's fantasy.

West Virginia has many caves to provide shelter, but food would soon become an insurmountable problem. Hunter-gathering societies were able to survive long ago, but there weren't as many people back then, so there was enough game to go around.

In an apocalypse there could be too many survivors. If two-thirds of the people died in the U.S. from an unimaginable disaster, that would still leave 100 million people to compete for game in a post-apocalypse economy. With so many mouths to feed, you couldn't depend upon hunter-gathering.

As depressing as I found the film "The Road," I think it pointed out some of the realities of a post-apocalyptic world. That's not for me, no thanks.

If we were to suffer a nuclear war, I would pray that I would be at ground zero of a direct hit. That way I would die so fast that my nerve fibers wouldn't have the time to register pain.

that would still leave 100 million people to compete for game in a post-apocalypse economy. With so many mouths to feed, you couldn't depend upon hunter-gathering.

Which is why seeds would be the most important thing ever, along with books on farming.

Which is also why some individuals start to look at "Long Pork" as a food source.

But those 100 million survivors would not be all in one area and America is a very big area on land.

Oh and game would make a huge comeback as would the fish in the sea.

But unlike Martin example those individuals living in the major urban areas will be the first to start seeing "Long Pork" as something to eat.

Also those urban areas would be very dangerous places to travel in.

Food is no longer the hot issue of the modern world because we found fixes.

The bad news is that if the system breaks down agriculture is going to crash facefirst into the sharp corner of the table.

We have huge yields because of automation, and massive use of fertilizer. In our world most agricultural land is more or less depleted, from pretty serious to "this would be a desert if we didn't keep pouring water and nutrients on it"

Most agricultural land is positioned and done in such a way that it favours the use of machines for every task. If we want similar results you're going to need to move 90% of the population back to the land for some really labour-intensive farming.

The sore point being the fact that from one to three harvests later your yield is going to drop like a rock because the soil is little more than dirt.

Another problem is that current varieties of plants are not designed for old school farming, without massive use of chemicals to boost growth you end up with varieties that don't even reach maturity within a natural growth season, not without a boost.

Access to more traditional varieties is limited thanks to the overwhelming presence of the bio-agrarian industry. The majority of seeds are therefore unfit for post-apocalyptic use.

Same problem with animals. Some cows will not do well on traditional grazing land as they need extra fodder and nutrients, we can try to breed them back into more manageable types, but that will take at least a few decades if not longer.

We'll probably be able to restore some kind of food balance in the mid to long term, but short term expect a lot of deaths and problems.

Falling food production is going to be the first effect of climate change that people really pay attention to. Contrary to the common sense notion that 'warm temperatures are better for plant growth' the reality is that when it gets hot (mid 90s and higher) plants simply go dormant and stop growing.

When people in the tropics and sub tropics can't grow crops anymore and have to migrate, that's when it will really hit the fan.

As for the preppers, I saw an article about how some rich folks are preparing their doomsday fortresses. One fellow bragged about having a tough full-time security guard hired to protect him and his family. I wanted to ask him how long he thought he'd remain the boss after disaster struck?

Contrary to the common sense notion that 'warm temperatures are better for plant growth' the reality is that when it gets hot (mid 90s and higher) plants simply go dormant and stop growing.
When people in the tropics and sub tropics can't grow crops anymore and have to migrate, that's when it will really hit the fan.

This.

The other issue is plant migration. Many plants cannot "move" north or south successfully as they also depend on the diurnal cycles of sunlight of a narrow band of latitude. There are exceptions, of course, such as corn. But generally plants cannot "follow" the movement of people to more temperate climes.

I wanted to ask him how long he thought he'd remain the boss after disaster struck?

Hey Scott, on second thought that would make a good movie or book plot.

Rich guy builds a big underground compound with sufficient food, life supports system, water recycling, etc, etc. for his extended family.

He also has a small private security firm with armed guards watching his property and escorting the grand kids to and from kindergarten, escorting him on business trips, etc.

Then an apocalyptic event happens (doesn't matter what). Turns out it is the members of his armed and trained security force that are the biggest threat. Oh, they are still killing off unwanted stragglers and interlopers as it states in their job description, but that is only to save the compound for themselves.

I think that would trump what sort of seeds you have.

Actually the deer would just be until one struck a deal with the local ranchers – this is open grazing country.

Went to school with a number of the local landowners and get along well.

And the town is very small, so the only real worry would be the 'big' cities an hour and a half away.

That is where being available to help fend off unwanted visitors would be an additional meal ticket.