Food Prices
If you are keeping up with national weather, you may be aware of how wet this winter has been especially for California. This is great news to alleviate drought issues, but can create other issues for areas that don’t deal with so much water over such short a time. I always say, you can add water but you can’t take it away. Thankfully for California, the nice snow packs will deliver a slow supply of water over the season. The unfortunate thing, they are ill prepared to deal with such heavy rains and much of it ends up in the Pacific instead of in their aquifers. All of this rain will surely make for difficulty for those broad scale tractor farms who rely on heavy equipment for every task on the farm.
A lot of water issues are due to there being no where for water go. So much of the land is paved, a lot of land is so compacted it is basically paved, soil that doesn’t see much rain tends to by hydrophobic, poor design leads to water being removed from site rather than sunk into the soil. It wouldn’t be difficult to create drainage systems that recharge the ground water instead of going into the sewer to be sent out to sea. Water percolating through the earth is the best way for it to be purified.
Along with all of the wet the country has seen, it has been quite the cold Spring. Much of the nation has been under average temperatures with projections through the month trending below average. The southwest is projected to be 30 degrees below average! These temperatures aren’t just annoying for us farmers with Spring fever itching to get to work, they are very bad for flowering fruit trees. With mild Winters and cold Springs come frozen and lost fruit blossoms. This will be a major issue especially in the Southeast.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Zkvn5bPw7A
Unfortunately, most of the farms in the country are giant monoculture operations relying heavily on imports of fertility to keep up with the high demand with minimum effort. Most of these imports of fertilizer are coming from Russia at a 224% price increase. Not only do they rely on imported fertilizers, but also on petrol based herbicides and insecticides. We all know the price of oil is constantly in flux, but now more than ever it seems resources are a major piece of the global chess board and anything can have catastrophic effects on economies everywhere. You will see mixed trajectories everywhere as life seems based solely on speculation, some say oil prices will drop under $80 (liars) others say the price could be over $100 a barrel by 2024. For references, the highest prices were 2022 at $123.70 a barrel.
Pardon me while I digress a moment, upon my brief research for this I found something of interest that I was aware of, but didn’t necessarily comprehend the seriousness… and that is how prevalent petroleum products are in foods we consume. Not just pesticide accumulation or packaging leeching, but actual ingredients made from oil. Here is a list from : https://www.petro-online.com/news/fuel-for-thought/13/breaking-news/what-foods-contain-petroleum/37415
“So where could petroleum be lurking in your pantry? Read on as we uncover some of the most common places the controversial ingredient hides:
Packaged baked goods often contain petroleum as a way of keeping them ‘fresh’ and mould free. While regular flour, water, egg, milk and sugar combinations go bad relatively quickly, mineral oil keeps them at their prime for weeks.
Some chocolates are made with petroleum by-products. You’ll see this labelled as food-grade paraffin wax.
Any product that contains Olestra is also a cause for concern. It’s an indigestible plastic with similar properties to mineral oil.
TBHQ aka “tert-Butylhydroquinone” is a major cause for concern as it’s found in a myriad of products. From frozen chicken nuggets and pizzas to rice crackers and cookies, supermarkets are brimming with TBHQ.
Petroleum derived products are commonly used in a kaleidoscope of food colourings. These are added to everything from corn chips to fresh apples.
They may not necessarily be classified as ‘edibles’ but painkillers and vitamins are often packed full of petrochemicals. They contain acetylsalicylic acid, the active ingredient in a multitude of over the counter painkillers such as aspirin.
Food additives can also be packed full of petroleum. Canned products are a particular concern as oil is used to extend their shelf lives.
While food manufacturers maintain that petroleum derived ingredients are perfectly safe, some health scientists insist that they’ve hugely dangerous. They’ve found links to cancer, ADHD in children and a plethora of other health problems”
My next blog will be about processed foods, grocery stores, and how they have impacted our health but I end my digression…
Where was I?… right. Everything impacts the cost of food, mostly because everything is derived from oil. Unless you are primitive or really have it together with some gnarly permaculture homestead I guarantee you’re using something that was transported by truck, if not imported by means of many transportation systems. Large farms that produce most of the food, especially that in processed foods, rely on tractors for everything from field preparation, planting, and harvesting onto conveyor belts. Those tractors were out spraying for weeds and bugs, they lay down plastic mulch, then they bring it all to the next truck it goes on. The laboratories where they splice the genes for the GMO cultures they raise out somewhere are chemical plants. They produce the chemicals in these plants by synthesizing chemicals from oil.
The best thing people can do is become producers. The small scale of individual producers is much less impactful on the environment and much less demanding of resources. Taking pressure off of the greater production system would be the best way too mitigate negative effects from the greater cycle. To run a globalized world, we will become more and more dependent on foreign resources at the expense of other places and people. It is time we decentralize the means of production, distribution, and governance. I believe it to be pandering when any large corporation or political entity tells you they have your interest in mind. We need to take control of our own lives and take responsibility for ourselves. Once we become responsible adults, maybe then we can help others to be responsible too and we won’t all need baby sitters or a global economy of centralized powers using natural resources and human lives as collateral for furthering the interests of an elite club we aren’t part of.