I guess it depends on where you're standing. The costs of unsustainable chemical growing and confined animal operations are increasing daily, and those are just the visible costs. The hidden costs are even more astronomical.

But if/when this country crashes, who can afford to pay for all those chemicals? The 1000-acre farmers who are living on the edge now, heavily dependent on their government (taxpayer-paid) subsidies? I don't think so. And the soil on those farms is dead, it's just something to hold down the roots so the plants don't fall over. If you think that all those farms can go organic overnight, think again.

And what about delivery? Do you know where your food comes from, if it even comes from somewhere in the U.S.?

Let's just look at some staple foods that keep at least relatively well:

Dried beans come mostly from ND, MI, NE, MN, ID, CA, CO.

Potatoes mostly come from ID, WA, WI, ND

Wheat comes from KS, ND, MT, OK, WA, TX, SD

Rice comes from AR (by far), CA, LA, MS, TX , MO

Squash and sweet potatoes mostly come from the south: FL, GA, TX, NC, OK

Milk & Dairy products: CA (about 1.5 times WI), WI, NY,
PA, ID, MN

Apples: WA, NY, MI, PA, CA

How many of those things are grown near you? Does anyone notice a pattern of where most of the food comes from? Are you confident that even your most basic far-off, low-nutrient, chemically-tainted food is actually going to show up twice weekly in your grocery stores?

Okay, how about your local farms? How many don't depend on the petrochemical industry? Do you think they can feed everyone in your area?

At the time of the Great Depression, there were more than six million farms scattered over American. Today, there are less than two million, they're far more centralized, and only about 160,000 of them are producing a high percentage of our food. Too much rain? Not enough? Disease attack? Pest attack? Crop failure? Just too bad, I guess.

If there is a great crash (maybe we can call it the Greater Depression), it's going to interfere with everything that our food supply depends on: chemical fertilizers, fuel for harvesting, power for processing, fuel for delivery. If we lose power (even intermittently and in random places), that will disrupt the internet and the logistics of delivery. Power losses will cause spoilage.

Can you imagine today's spoiled brats (of all ages) dumped into the conditions of the 1930s?

Check into your local CSA (Community Sponsored Agriculture) and see if there's anything you can do to help. Learn to garden.

Frankly, the whole possible scenario scares the 'ell out of me!

Sue