Working in the food distribution industry, I came across this by accident. Interested in what it can mean for us, I did some research. I long held a common misconception about overpopulation. What I found online sums it up well:

Overpopulation does not depend only on the size or density of the population, but on the ratio of population to available sustainable resources. It also depends on the way resources are used and distributed throughout the population. Overpopulation can result from an increase in births, a decline in mortality rates due to medical advances, from an increase in immigration, or from an unsustainable biome and depletion of resources. It is possible for very sparsely populated areas to be overpopulated, as the area in question may have a meager or non-existent capability to sustain human life (e.g. a desert).

The resources to be considered when evaluating whether an ecological niche is overpopulated include clean water, clean air, food, shelter, warmth, and other resources necessary to sustain life. If the quality of human life is addressed, there may be additional resources considered, such as medical care, education, proper sewage treatment waste disposal and energy supplies. Overpopulation places competitive stress on the basic life sustaining resources,[9] leading to a diminished quality of life.[10] -- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overpopulation#Definition

Regarding the resource food in the quotation, during the drought we had this summer, we (those of us at my job) saw a decline in beef.

I trust everyone here is prepared to some degree. Some here have enough stored food to last a year and I would hope that as some supplies get old, they would be consumed rather thrown out. We talk about in the event of a manmade or natural disaster. What about a disaster that is not quite so dramatic? The infrastructure is completely intact but there simply may not be enough raw resources to feed everybody. Not everybody can stock up for the simple reason there is not enough to stock up.

I believe I am in a good position. Having inside information, I know what to stock up on when certain things start to run low. And yet, I also feel this is not enough.

This year I began to learn to improvise, use what is currently available. This skill will come in handy when certain supplies run low. Also, I have been going to the bakery outlet to buy day-old bread. Not only am I spending $0.80 on a loaf of bread, that loaf of bread may very well be one less loaf thrown out. Hence, this saves on resources.

Jeanette Isabelle

What is the question?

Sue

I'm sorry. My post was not a well organized.

What I was wanting to discuss are ways for preparing for long-term shortage of resources, food in this example, beyond stocking up:

I did mention a preventive measure, consume goods that would otherwise go bad. However, that would only get us so far.

I also mentioned am learning to make do with what we have so that I would know how to improvise when supplies run low.

Beyond simply stocking up, how do we prepare for a long-term shortage?

Jeanette Isabelle

Almost anything can be purchased if you have the money. Of course it helps to be wealthy, or a member of the political class, military elite, etc. Just look at the poorest countries in the world where the store shelves are bare, but the elite have access to anything they want.

Having said that, I doubt there will ever be shortages of core staples like beans, rice, wheat, olive oil, sugar, eggs, etc. Sure, the prices of certain foods may go up, and you may have to eat chicken instead of prime rib for example. But that just means you have to be creative.

To offset actual long-term shortages, homesteading or joining a local farming co-op are the only things I can think of.

you might check out "gardenpool.org"....a couple converted a swimming pool to tilapia pond/chicken coop/hydroponic garden/...and seem to have the system balanced...

Foraging edible wild plants.
Edible landscaping.
Eating bugs.
Guerrilla gardening.
Trapping.
Preserving meat.

-Blast

With the incidence of obesity in this country, I'm guessing most Americans could eat half as much and still be consuming more calories than most of the world's people. You make a good point, Jeanette, in that we waste an awful lot of food in this country. Way too much of what I buy ends up in the garbage.

Perhaps in a food emergency we would stop putting food in gasoline (corn ethanol).

With a modicum of restraint I could comfortably go for a couple months on what I have on hand. If there is ever a serious, prolonged (years-long) nationwide shortage of basic food items in this country then there would be political and civil unrest unlike anything we've seen before.

I will venture to guess that there is a lot of land in this country that could be cultivated for food -- small (yards) and big plots -- that is not currently.

For more info on stocking up at home, I recommend:

http://thesurvivalmom.com/

Yes, we are overfed, but we're also very undernourished. I remember in junior high school health class a long time ago, learning how serious alcoholics consume most of their calories from alcohol and can suffer from nutritional deficiencies, but most of us are not much better off. The SAD (Standard American Diet) is so highly processed and full of "empty calories" from high-fructose corn syrup and hydrogenated vegetable oils that many of us are not much better fed than that alcoholic. I have read studies of the diets of children and teens that show up to 40% of their calories coming from sugar. Frightening.

The SAD eating folks would also suffer from gross nutritional deficiencies if it weren't for the synthetic vitamins and minerals that we "fortify" our foods with that prevents the worst nutritional deficiencies like scurvy or beriberi from appearing. Even avoiding processed foods is not a total solution. Our Industrial Agriculture practices produce fruits and vegetables now that have fewer nutrients in them than what our parents ate in their youth, to say nothing of the taste difference. The meat situation is similarly degraded.

Peak Oil will lead to less food and a declining population. Essentially, the solar energy from millions of years of shining down on the Earth, converted and locked up in coal, oil or natural gas, is now converted into food calories by our Industrial Agriculture system. As the fossil fuels, particularly oil, begin to decline in output, so does the extra food that feeds billions of people. You need more energy input to create more energy output in the form of food. Simple physics.

One thing in addition to acquiring some precious metals, keep most of your liquid cash at home. If banks fail, you do not have any greenbacks that day,otherwise

Other advanced civilizations have run into the problem of shortage. During the dust bowl era, American children have died of malnutrition.


That goes along with what I said. I have already started to learn to improvise, use what is currently available rather than making a trip to the store.

Jeanette Isabelle