Another Reason to Plant a Garden This Year

Consumers may pay more for spring lettuce and summer melons in grocery stores across the country now that California farmers have started abandoning their fields in response to a crippling drought.

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This reminds me of Kunstler’s rant about the ‘3,000-mile salad.’   We rely on areas like California’s Central Valley for fruits & vegetables more than most Americans realize.  Economies of scale are great when they work in our favor, but the flip side is that when these huge farms fail to deliver the crops we expect from them, we have few other options to explore.

This is also starting to bring water resource conflicts to the front of the news as well:

With such a grim outlook, many California farmers including Giacone are investing millions to drill down hundreds of feet in search of new water sources.

Depending on how much it rains this winter, federal water supplies could be slashed down to nothing this year, forcing farmers to rely solely on brackish well water. But the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation won’t make an official decision until late February, said Ron Milligan, the agency’s Central Valley operations manager.

Since it isn’t raining, farmers that are trying to stay in business are drilling further and further down to find & drain underground reservoirs.   For those that may not know, the term ‘brackish’ indicates that there’s more salt in the water than in normal freshwater, which means that in order to survive, the farmers are increasing the salinity in their fields by irrigating from this source… extracting perhaps more yields over the next few years but drastically reducing the long-term fertility of the fields.

It’s been a cold winter here, but one of the things I’m thankful for is that I live in a state with abundant fresh water… assuming we can stop polluting it.

Holding Back the Dam

I’ve added Jesse’s Cafe Americain to the blogroll… another excellent site for in-depth financial commentary that you’d have a hard time finding in the mainstream media.

The latest post is quite good, in which the author describes his increasing belief that there will be a hyperinflation event in the USA at some point.

A choice quote:

That has now changed. The dollar is a Ponzi scheme, the waters of debt are overflowing the dam of artificial support, and only a few countries, two of them somewhat unstable, are holding back the deluge.

If this comes to pass, we may all pay off our credit card bills and mortgages in record time yet still have trouble paying for food.

For a picture of what a hyperinflation might look like, check out these pictures from Zimbabwe covering the last year or so.

If something like this comes to pass, having basic sustainable living skills like gardening, mending clothing, etc. will become more valuable than ever.  As Steve Solomon states in his book, being able to grow one’s own vegetables can be the difference between barely surviving and maintaining good health.   I for one plan to make it a goal to get a few square foot gardens in this spring, and to start learning how to save seeds.