Being Prepared...you may also need to have a form of entertainment and exercise ready!

World economy 'more fragile than before 2007 crash'...BIS chief fears fresh Lehman from worldwide debt surge Jaime Caruana says investors are ignoring prospect of higher interest rates in the hunt for returns.

The world economy is just as vulnerable to a financial crisis as it was in 2007, with the added danger that debt ratios are now far higher and emerging markets have been drawn into the fire as well, the Bank for International Settlements has warned.

Jaime Caruana, head of the Swiss-based financial watchdog, said investors were ignoring the risk of monetary tightening in their voracious hunt for yield.

“Markets seem to be considering only a very narrow spectrum of potential outcomes. They have become convinced that monetary conditions will remain easy for a very long time, and may be taking more assurance than central banks wish to give,” he told The Telegraph.

Mr Caruana said the international system is in many ways more fragile than it was in the build-up to the Lehman crisis. Debt ratios in the developed economies have risen by 20 percentage points to 275pc of GDP since then.

Credit spreads have fallen to to wafer-thin levels. Companies are borrowing heavily to buy back their own shares. The BIS said 40pc of syndicated loans are to sub-investment grade borrowers, a higher ratio than in 2007, with ever fewer protection covenants for creditors.

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^{40pc of syndicated loans are to sub-investment grade borrowers}

The disturbing twist in this cycle is that China, Brazil, Turkey and other emerging economies have succumbed to private credit booms of their own, partly as a spill-over from quantitative easing in the West.

Their debt ratios have risen 20 percentage points as well, to 175pc. Average borrowing rates for five-years is 1pc in real terms. This is extemely low, and could reverse suddenly. “We are watching this closely. If we were concerned by excessive leverage in 2007, we cannot be more relaxed today,” he said.

“It may be the case that the debt is better distributed because some highly-indebted countries have deleveraged, like the private sector in the US or Spain, and banks are better capitalized. But there is also now more sensitivity to interest rate movements."

The BIS warned it is annual report two weeks ago that equity markets had become "euphoric". Volatility has dropped to an historic low. European equities have risen 15pc in a year despite near zero growth and a 3pc fall in expected earnings. The cyclically-adjusted price earnings ratio of the S&P 500 index in the US reached 25 in May, six points above its half-century average. The Tobin's Q measure is far more stretched than in 2007.

^{Volatility has dropped to an historic low}

“Overall, it is hard to avoid the sense of a puzzling disconnect between the markets’ buoyancy and underlying economic developments globally,” it said.

Mr Caruana declined to be drawn on when the bubble will burst. "As Keynes said, markets can stay irrational longer than you can stay solvent,” he said.

The BIS says prolonged monetary stimulus in the US, Europe, and Japan has led to a leakage of liquidity, contaminating the rest of the world. The rising powers of Asia are no longer able to act as a firebreak – as they did after the Lehman crash –and may themselves now be a source of risk.

^{Tobin's Q shows the difference between an equity's market value and the cost to replace the firm's assets.}

Emerging markets have racked up $2 trillion in foreign currency debt since 2008. They are a much larger animal than they were during the East Asia crisis of the late 1990s, so any crisis would do more damage. “The ramifications would be particularly serious if China, home to an outsize financial boom, were to falter," it said.

BIS officials doubt privately the whether China can avoid a ‘hard landing’, fearing that the extreme credit growth over the last five years must lead to a financial reckoning. They also doubt whether the aftermath will in the end be easier to deal with in a state-controlled banking system where the Communist Party controls the credit levers.

The annual report suggested that China’s $4 trillion of reserves are a Maginot Line defence. It noted US was also a large external creditor in the 1920s, as was Japan in the 1980s, before each went into deep crisis. “Time and again, in both advanced and emerging market economies, seemingly strong bank balance sheets have turned out to mask unsuspected vulnerabilities that surface only after the financial boom has given way to bust,” it said.

The BIS is the doyen of world’s financial institutions, created in Basel in 1930 to clean up the mess left by German reparations payments under the Versailles Treaty. It has since evolved into the bank of central banks, and lately the bastion of monetary orthodoxy. It issued a crescendo of warnings in the build-up to the Lehman crisis, implicitly rebuking the US Federal Reserve and others for holding interest rates too low, which in their view robs economic growth from the future.

The BIS was vindicated, though not everybody agrees that it was right for the right reasons. Monetarists argue that the Great Recession was due to over-tightening into the downturn. This caused M3 broad money growth to collapse months before the banking crisis.

The BIS backed QE as an emergency measure in early 2009 to avert a deflationary spiral but has long since called for a return to sound money, and even rate rises. "The predominant risk is that central banks will find themselves behind the curve, exiting too late or too slowly," it said.

This has earned BIS a reputation for Austrian School ideology , accused of encouraging crude liquidation. The bank denies this, tracing the bank’s doctrines to the pre-Keynesian Swedish economist Knut Wicksell.

Wicksell posited a “natural rate of interest”. Holding rates too low creates a host of problems. While his model looks like the modern “Taylor Rule” used by the Fed and other central banks, it is different in crucial respects.

Confident in its cause, the BIS more or less indicts the central bank establishment of malpractice. "Policy does not lean against the booms but eases aggressively and persistently during busts. This induces a downward bias in interest rates and an upward bias in debt levels, which in turn makes it hard to raise rates without damaging the economy – a debt trap."

"Systemic financial crises do not become less frequent or intense, private and public debts continue to grow, the economy fails to climb onto a stronger sustainable path, and monetary and fiscal policies run out of ammunition. Over time, policies lose their effectiveness and may end up fostering the very conditions they seek to prevent," it said.

Basel's lonely call for discipline pits it against the Fed, the Bank of Japan, the Bank of England, and even Frankfurt these days. It prompted an unusually piquant riposte from London earlier this month. "Has monetary policy aided and abetted risk-taking? I hope so. That's why we did it," said the Bank of England’s chief economist Andy Haldane.

"It is good to have the debate,” said Mr Caruana gamely. Yet he refuses to back down. “There is something strange about fighting debt by incentivizing more debt."

He is now skirmishing on a fresh front, questioning the Fed's new enthusiasm for macro-prudential curbs as a first line of defence. "On their own there is little evidence that they can constrain financial imbalances. We don’t think macro-pro can serve as a substitute," he said.

Mr Caruana said the US recovery is not a vindication of monetary stimulus, but evidence that the best answer to "balance sheet recessions" is to clear away the dead wood and unlock resources for new technologies. “The Americans were quite aggressive in forcing recognition of losses and there was a very rapid recapitalisation of the banks. This is why it was successful. The role of quantitative easing is an open question.”

Mr Caruana dismisses the global deflation scare as alarmist, even though Sweden's Riksbank has just abandoned his camp and slashed rates to near zero to avert a Japanase-style trap. Deflation is very unlikely to happen in the West, he insists. Gently falling prices are typically benign in any case. "We should not exaggerate the role of deflation in history," he said.

The Great Depression is the exception, not the rule. Welfare systems and unemployment insurance now make such an outcome almost impossible. "In the 1930s the stabilizers were very different," he said.

Critics are unlikely to accept this assurance since Spain, Greece, Portugal, Ireland, and Latvia have all gone through depressions over the last six years, and Italy, France and Holland are all close to debt-deflation. The concern is what would now happen to parts of Europe if there were a fresh downturn or an external shock. Debt ratios are higher than they were in the 19th Century. The "denominator effect" of deflation is therefore more destructive today.

The International Monetary Fund has hinted that it might be best for the world to chip away its debt mountain with a few years of inflation, as the US did in late 1940s and early 1950s, armed with financial repression.

Asked whether he would support this form of loss recognition for creditors, Mr Caruana came close to choking. “It must be clearly resisted,” he said.

Surviving Underground: Planting Your Own Secret Underground Garden

With the worsening economy it is very difficult to keep a family alive. Also, the looming danger of terrorism and the collapse of government, will give anyone a nightmare. I, for one, will not be waiting for the disasters to approach before I prepare my family for the inevitable. With a wife and two kids, I have to plan carefully how the family can sustain itself with or without disaster. An underground garden or an indoor garden is one way to start living off the earth. It can also serve as a small private place if planted with various fast growing indoor trees, maybe Ruby Red Grapefruits? I started mine years ago and by reading gardening books and many trial and error, I found out the advantages and disadvantages of growing such gardens. However, the possibility of feeding my family from my own efforts, and saving a lot of money at the same time, is more than enough to persuade me that the garden is worth pursuing. Here are a few things I did for my garden.

Underground Greenhouse

We have a large basement that can hold a decent-sized indoor garden. However, I worried about the structure of the house and if it can take the regular flow of water on the soil. So, instead of using the basement, I decided to use the backyard as my location for the underground garden called walipini.

Developed 20 years ago in South America, a walipini is an affordable and effective alternative to glass greenhouse. It was developed so that growers can maintain a garden even through winter. The walipinitakes advantage of the principles of passive solar heating with earth-sheltered building.

According to Tree Hugger, a walipini is, “a rectangular hole in the ground 6’ to 8’ deep, covered by plastic sheeting.”

To capture the heat coming from the sun, an angled, two-layer plastic roof must be built with a thick wall of rammed earth at the back of the building and a lower wall at the front. By building the greenhouse using the earth as walls, it taps into the thermal mass of the earth. It requires much less energy to heat the interior of walipini. The whole structure only costs around $300 and is functional the whole year.

Watering the Underground Garden

People think that underground gardens are difficult to irrigate. Most gardeners use hydroponics systems to save time in watering their plants. There are kits available online and I found detailed instructions in building hydroponics gardens.

However, there is a much simpler way to water plants without shunning off soil all together. Using PVC pipes and careful planning, I built an underground sprinkler system for my underground garden!

First, I dug trenches just a few inches deep through the garden. I also have plants on pots and large containers. I just drilled holes on their sides just enough to fit the pipes and hoses through them. The trenches are connected to a single trench that runs along on end of the garden.

I laid 3/4 inch PVC pipe on the trenches. For the plants on pots and containers, I inserted soaker hoses through the holes to provide a little bit of flexibility. I connected these with three-way pipe connectors, using rubber cement to glue the pipes to the connectors. For the soaker hoses, I used two-way hose splitters. I closed the holes on the posts with rubber cement to prevent leakage. Note that it is not recommended to connect more than 100 feet of hose or pipe together. Drip irrigation loses pressure when it is too long. End caps are then placed on the ends of the pipes and hoses.

I drilled 1/16 holes into the pipes and hoses to drip water. The spacing varies with each plant. But, groups of holes should be three to five feet apart to keep the integrity of the pipes and hoses. Of course, the sprinkler system should be automatic. I connected a backflow preventer to the faucet and placed a timer over it. I installed a pressure regulator on the timer and attached a garden hose to the pressure regulator. The garden hose then connects my faucet to the irrigation system. It’s just a matter of setting the timer to turn the sprinkler on and off.

Plants

Before building my underground garden, I already had plants and herbs in mind. The goal of my garden is to feed my family with organic produce so that was my priority. Tomatoes, eggplants and peppers are really easy to plant in lighted areas. I placed them in the sunny part of my garden. I typically use fluorescent bulbs during winter when the sunlight is not enough. I was careful about planting root crops as they root deep and they can ruin the walipini by softening the ground. However, radishes do not root very deeply and I was still able to plant some in boxes above the ground. I also planted potatoes in buckets. The key to planting root crops is to provide them with a steady supply of compost.

A friend also said mushrooms are great especially if the garden has dark and moist corners. Since mine is mostly lit throughout the year, I did not consider planting them. I added dwarf French beans early in the winter so they can soak in the sun during spring.

Of course, organic food need not be bland. Herbs are surprisingly easy to grow in underground or indoor gardens. During spring, I plant lots of basil as it likes the sun. I also add oregano if I have time. I’ve also planted parsley in the past springs. During summer, I have the most success with chervil. During winter, I was able to grow tarragon taken from my outdoor garden. Just recently, I planted bay as it grows easily regardless of the season.

Starting the underground garden was a challenge for me as I did everything on my own, with the occasional help from the family. As the garden grows, I slowly learned about the value of food and how easy it is to grow with enough effort. Prepper or not, I believe having a garden helps a lot, not only with food and preparedness, but also as a productive hobby. I gave my two kids their own little spots in the garden so they can plant whatever they want. My wife also helps a lot since she seems to have the green thumb. Gardening relaxes me a lot, especially after work.

If You Are Waiting For An “Economic Collapse”, Just Look At What Is Happening To Europe

If you are anxiously awaiting the arrival of the "economic collapse", just open up your eyes and look at what is happening in Europe.  The entire continent is a giant economic mess right now.  Unemployment and poverty levels are setting record highs, car sales are setting record lows, and there is an ocean of bad loans and red ink everywhere you look.  Over the past several years, most of the attention has been on the economic struggles of Greece, Spain and Portugal and without a doubt things continue to get even worse in those nations. 

But in 2014 and 2015, Italy and France will start to take center stage. France has the 5th largest economy on the planet, and Italy has the 9th largest economy on the planet, and at this point both of those economies are rapidly falling to pieces.  Expect both France and Italy to make major headlines throughout the rest of 2014.  I have always maintained that the next major wave of the economic collapse would begin in Europe, and that is exactly what is happening.  The following are just a few of the statistics that show that an "economic collapse" is happening in Europe right now...

-The unemployment rate in the eurozone as a whole is still sitting at an all-time record high of 12.1 percent.

-It Italy, the unemployment rate has soared to a brand new all-time record high of 12.7 percent.

-The youth unemployment rate in Italy has jumped up to 41.6 percent.

-The level of poverty in Italy is now the highest that has ever been recorded.

-Many analysts expect major economic trouble in Italy over the next couple of years.  The President of Italy is openly warning of "widespread social tension and unrest" in his nation in 2014.

-Citigroup is projecting that Italy's debt to GDP ratio will surpass 140 percent by the year 2016.

-Citigroup is projecting that Greece's debt to GDP ratio will surpass 200 percent by the year 2016.

-Citigroup is projecting that the unemployment rate in Greece will reach 32 percent in 2015.

-The unemployment rate in Spain is still sitting at an all-time record high of26.7 percent.

-The youth unemployment rate in Spain is now up to 57.7 percent - even higher than in Greece.

-The percentage of bad loans in Spain has risen for eight straight months and recently hit a brand new all-time record high of 13 percent.

-The number of mortgage applications in Spain has fallen by 90 percentsince the peak of the housing boom.

-The unemployment rate in France has risen for 9 quarters in a row and recently soared to a new 16 year high.

-For 2013, car sales in Europe were on pace to hit the lowest yearly levelever recorded.

-Deutsche Bank, probably the most important bank in Germany, is the most highly leveraged bank in Europe (60 to 1) and it has approximately 70 trillion dollars worth of exposure to derivatives.

Europe truly is experiencing an economic nightmare, and it is only going to get worse.

It would be hard to put into words the extreme desperation that unemployed workers throughout Europe are feeling right now.  When you can't feed your family and you can't find work no matter how hard you try, it can be absolutely soul crushing.

To get an idea of the level of desperation in Spain, check out the following anecdote from a recent NPR article...

Having trouble wrapping your head around southern Europe's staggering unemployment problem?

Look no further than a single Ikea furniture store on Spain's Mediterranean coast.

The plans to open a new megastore next summer near Valencia. On Monday, Ikea's started taking applications for 400 jobs at the new store.

The company wasn't prepared for what came next.

Within 48 hours, more than 20,000 people had applied online for those 400 jobs. The volume crashed Ikea's computer servers in Spain.

Of course that should kind of remind you of what I wrote about yesterday.  We are starting to see this kind of intense competition for low paying jobs in the United States as well.

As global economic conditions continue to deteriorate, things are going to get even tougher for those on the low end of the economic food chain.  Poverty rates are going to soar, even in areas where you might not expect it to happen.  In fact, one new report discovered that poverty has already been rising steadily in Germany, which is supposed to be the strongest economy in the entire eurozone...

A few days before the Christmas holidays, the Joint Welfare Association published a report on the regional development of poverty in Germany in 2013 titled “Between prosperity and poverty—a test to breaking point”. The report refutes the official propaganda that Germany has remained largely unaffected by the crisis and is a haven of prosperity in Europe.

According to the report, poverty in Germany has “reached a sad record high”. Entire cities and regions have been plunged into ever deeper economic and social crisis. “The social and regional centrifugal forces, as measured by the spread of incomes, have increased dramatically in Germany since 2006,” it says. Germany faces “a test to breaking point.”

Of course poverty continues to explode on this side of the Atlantic Ocean as well.  In the United States, the poverty rate has been at 15 percent or above for three years in a row.  That is the first time that this has happened since the 1960s.

And this is just the beginning.  The extreme recklessness of European banks such as Deutsche Bank and U.S. banks such as JPMorgan Chase, Citibank and Goldman Sachs is eventually going to cause a financial catastrophe far worse than what we experienced back in 2008.

When that crisis arrives, the flow of credit is going to freeze up dramatically and economic activity will grind to a standstill.  Unemployment, poverty and all of our current economic problems will become much, much worse.

So as bad as things are right now, the truth is that this is nothing compared to what is coming.

Wild Edibles: Getting Started

A couple of years ago I decided to dig a little deeper into finding wild edible plants that are around me. I had a very limited knowledge from a farming childhood, and from working in an outdoor career. I had picked wild onions from the yard, and my grandmother (Mamaw) had shown me Poke-weed, but I was extremely limited to say the least. I didn’t remember how to prepare Poke, I just knew how to identify it, and the fact that it wasn’t safe to just pick and eat.

Finding information on wild edibles

Now, we live in an amazing age, where you can click on a few buttons and get a tidal wave of information pouring in. This can seem like a real positive until you start trying to sift through the mass of general information and conflicting opinions, and find real practical information for you to apply and use. So I was able to find enough information on Poke-weed to add that to my diet, but I wasn’t sure just where else to go. Should I just go pick stuff, or take photos? How do I prioritize?

Some survival experts focus their programs on plants that are most common and easily identified. This is because many plants are regional, and might only help specific people, and there are a lot of dangerous even deadly plants that are dead ringers for their edible counterparts. So for television their goals are to reach the largest possible audience, and to avoid issues with mistakes in identification. But as a local forager, my idea was to find as many edible plants as possible outside my back door. (Now, I am also interested in natural medicinals, but I will focus here on edibles.)

In the beginning, identification is really difficult. You walk into the woods, and are bombarded with all the diversity and choices. I do recommend you get a field guide, (Peterson’s are good.) But it’s almost like there is so much visual noise, you can’t focus on a single plant.

And when you do, you still have to get past the fear of the unknown. After all, getting it wrong can be deadly. You have read general rules like “all thistles are edible.” But when you actually go to the woods, you stand there and wonder….. is this a thistle or are there look-a-likes? Edible how? These spines seem like a lot of work…. Hmmmmm what else is there?
And it seems overwhelming.

So I started by looking online, and finding an expert who was giving an edible weed-walk near me. My premise was that whatever he would show in his class would likely be near my house too. I was fortunate enough to find that one of the most known and respected guys in this field lives in my state, and gives walks at a park about 25 miles from me. Now for plant species, that is fairly close. The only thing I had to consider was that the park he teaches at is by the ocean, and I am inland, so there will be some plants that aren’t at both locations.

At this point some of you might be thinking, “Wow, you took four hundred words to tell me to get a teacher.” But give me a minute to explain further. He has a website (www.eattheweeds.com) And on it, I found the information about his program, and I looked up his list of what plants he usually finds in this park. So before I even spent a dime on classes, I had a list of plants that were pretty likely to be near me. I printed pictures of each of these plants, and made a notebook with room for notes, and went for a walk.

Elder

I found Elderberry, Caesar Weed, Poke-weed, Amaranth and several others, but only because I had narrowed down what I was looking for to plants that I was fairly sure were in my area.

I also found a couple that I thought I had right, but just wasn’t sure. So I just marked them on my notes with plans to check them again later.
I went back inside and started looking up as much as I could on the exact plants that I had found out back. I found a lot of information including recipes. But I didn’t just start chowing down, just in case I had blown the identification.

Purslane

NOW, I booked a class with the expert. He was due in my area in a couple weeks. Just before I left for his class, I gloved up, and picked a couple stems of the plants I was unsure of. These I took with me.
I arrived at the class, and it was awesome. He was showing so many plants that I had already found. And one of the plants I was unsure of, he pointed out and we all picked a leaf and tasted it. (This is now my favorite wild edible Purslane.)

Sea Purslane

He also showed us a cousin of that plant, usually found on beaches, Sea Purslane. On a whim, I broke off a stem and put it in my backpack. Now I have several Sea Purslane plants growing in planters around my yard.

And this started my final step in this project, propagating wild plants around me. Because they are wild, these plants are still aggressive and hardy. They are easy to break and plant. So it has become a project to plant as many of these secretly edible plants as possible around me.

I am still a young student in terms of gathering wild edibles, but by approaching it in the way I did, I have several plants around my home that I don’t have to worry about sharing with the neighbors. They just think they’re weeds!

10 Great Android Apps for Helping You Develop Your Garden

There are many ways you can go about maintaining your garden with traditional methods. However, why not use technology to help you plan and manage your garden, and simplify your garden chores? There are a variety of apps that are available today that can help you keep the most beautiful gardens thriving. Whether you need an informative “how-to,” a journal to keep your progress or a timer to help you keep track of your planting needs there is now an app available to assist you.

When planning your garden this winter, you may want to take some time to familiarize yourself with these new technological assistants. They are designed to reduce your workload while improving garden results.

1. Garden Manager: Plant Alarm

This app helps you keep track of watering, spraying and fertilizing times by giving you an alarm on your mobile device. It also allows you to create a photographic diary of your planting experiences while sharing information about your plants with friends and colleagues. If you are in need of finding a nearby florist for your gardening needs, Garden Manager has that too. With this app, you can track the progress of your garden from germination times through harvesting fruits and vegetables. You can download the app here.

 2. Garden Squared

This app allows you to plan out your vegetable garden using dimensions from one by one square foot plots to four by eight foot beds. Using graphic and detailed information of your crops, Garden Squared allows you to track and monitor your plants while providing you with a journal and task tracking. You’re able to save plots according to your own design for future plans or expansions. You can download the app here.

 3. Landscape & Garden Calculators

This collection of calculators can help you design everything from the plot of land you are using for your garden to the dimensions of the fences you wish to build. There is a great deal of information available to help you build nearly any aspect of your outdoor garden and landscape needs. The app uses both US measurements in feet and metric calculations in order to provide you with the most accurate information regardless of your location. You can download the app here.

 4. Garden Design Ideas

Garden Design Ideas provides you with a large database of garden images to inspire your own creations. From simple gardens to more elaborate depictions of grand landscaping ideas, this app can inspire you to develop your own masterpiece. Whether you are looking for ideas pertaining to the actual flower bed or would like to consider the possibility of adding a fountain, this app can help you determine what you should incorporate into your own design. You can download the app here.

 5. Vegetable Garden

A good guide to growing vegetables can be worth it’s weight in produce. Vegetable Garden not only has more than 50 different vegetables and the best ways to grow them, but more are constantly added with each update the app receives. You are able to add to your favorites and detailed information pertaining to each as well. Users are able to share with friends on Facebook, Twitter or email to friends. You candownload the app here.

6. Beginners Gardening Guide

For those who are just developing their green thumbs, the Beginners Gardening Guide may be of some help identifying various plants. Links to videos, content and integrated information provides the most novice of gardeners pertinent information to succeed in developing his or her own garden. News and other related materials are provided with each additional update of the app. You candownload the app here.

 7. Gardenate

Gardenate is a detailed app that provides a great deal of information for a variety of vegetables and herbs in your garden. You are able to add your own notes to each individual plant in order to develop the best methods that have worked for yourself for future use. As well as the database of plants, you are able to add your own and detail the information for customization. The “My Garden” area provides a “predicted” harvest schedule for plants that you have submitted for tracking. You candownload the app here.

 8. Expert Gardening Solutions

For those who need more detailed information about gardening, Expert Gardening Solutions is a free app that can help you develop that garden of your dreams. The app is centered around tips and ideas to help you while providing eco-friendly advice for a more organic planting. Although this app is fairly new, the information contained could be greatly beneficial if anything to add to your collection of apps for your gardening purposes. You can download the app here.

 9. Organic Gardening

The Organic Gardening app will provide you with home recipes in order to develop a successful organic garden without using toxic pesticides or soil additives. The information contained within the app can help you keep an indoor garden growing all year round without worry of dying from the harsh weather. You can download the app here.

10. Garden Time Planner

The Garden Planner by Burpee provides you with the best times to sow a variety of food producing plants. The app contains a great database of a wide range of plants including local weather reports. Users receive updates of when to plant or transplant young growth to larger vessels. Although the app itself hasn’t received stellar reviews, it is free and many have had a degree of success using the application. You can download the app here. 

These are just a handful of apps that you can install on your smartphone or tablet devices to help you develop a garden that you could be proud of. Although some of these apps are free to use, some of the more elaborate ones could cost a couple of dollars to download. However, they can all find a place in your collection of gardening apps in order to increase your knowledge and versatility.

How to Prepare For the Coming Food Crisis

Opposed to what people think: Food Crisis are very common. In fact there are countries and regions which are going through one right now. The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization estimates that nearly 870 million people, or one in eight, were suffering from chronic undernourishment in 2010-2012. Almost all the hungry people, 852 million, live in developing countries. But there are 16 million people undernourished in developed countries including US (FAO 2012 Report).

My guess is none of you experienced a long time hunger. But probably most of you are familiar with the feeling of skipping 3 or 4 meals. Not a very pleasant one. During that time did you experience fatigue or dizziness? These are the first general symptoms of malnutrition. If you don’t eat for days, your condition will get worse and you start losing weight. Your body will consume first the fat reserves, than your protein (muscles). If untreated, starvation may lead to mental or physical disability, illness, and possibly death. An average man cannot survive without food for more than 8 weeks. A food crisis may last for months or years. And it’s not enough to stockpile food In order to properly prepare yourself and your family. Take into consideration that you may develop malnutrition if you lack a single vitamin in the diet.. This is why it’s very important to start preparing after having read a proper guide.

What creates food crises?

There are many reasons why people cannot grow or buy enough food to feed their families. Most of the reasons causing a food crisis are a combination of the issues below. A hunger crisis develops when families experience these factors for a long time and run out of ways to cope.

Poverty

The main reason why most people are unable to feed themselves is that they cannot afford it. And this is exactly the issue in many poor countries. You may think poverty cannot be an important factor in the US, but in a major economic SHTF event things could start to get out of hand. When economy collapses the food will become scarce, like the North Korean famine 1994-1998.

U.S. Economy since 9/11

For example the 9/11 attacks had both immediate and long-term economic impacts. The attacks caused the Dow to drop more than 600 points and led to one of the biggest government spending programs in U.S. history – the War on Terror. Now think about the US spendings in case of a real threatening war or maybe a world war. In the First World War Germany capitulated because of its economic collapse. Families were actually starving back home: 763,000 German civilians died from starvation and disease caused by the Allied blockade. This is only an example, but there are hundreds of similar scenarios.

NATURAL DISASTERS

Drought, flooding, hurricanes, tsunamis and earthquakes can disrupt the commercial means of alimentation. You might have all the money in the world but no food to buy. Remember when Hurricane Katrina hit in 2005, a lot of stranded people in New Orleans endured hunger, little water and limited emergency supplies for days. What happened during Katrina could also happen on a wider scale. Climate change is having an increased impact on food production as droughts and flooding become more frequent and more severe. Natural disasters are very real and very likely to happen even more than once in a lifetime. When it strikes will you be prepared? It very well can happen tomorrow. And could last for four years like the Tempo Famine in Japan.

CONFLICTS

Food crisis are very often associated with conflicts. War makes delivery of food much more difficult, particularly if aid workers are attacked and supplies are looted. Conflict can drive people from their homes and away from their normal food supply, leave them unable to afford food or simply stop them planting. The deadliest war in modern African history had killed 5.4 million people, mostly from disease and starvation, making the Second Congo War the deadliest conflict worldwide since World War II. Even after the war had ended, 1,000 people died daily in 2004 from malnutrition and disease.

DISEASE 

Food shortages are also often associated with widespread epidemics. Disease outbreaks such as the 2005 Ebola-like Marburg virus in Angola put pressure on food supplies as deliveries ceased due to drivers staying away. If a new deadly virus hits the USA, I doubt people will be confortable leaving their homes. And rightly getting in touch with as few people as possible may save your life. If you have stockpiled food, of if you have the means to produce it, then there’s no need to worry.

Of course there are other factors that may start a food crisis. For example the famine in Ukraine – a man-made famine in 1932 and 1933 that killed up to 7.5 million Ukrainians. There are 127 recorded great famines and almost at any given historical period there was a food crisis somewhere in the world.

How to be prepared for a food crisis?

In case of a food shortage you should be aware that grocery stores only have about 3 days of food in stock. People will rush and buy as much as they can so probably the food will vanish in less than a day or hours.  So if anything was to disrupt the food supply chain for an extended period of time, there would be chaos in most communities. It’s very important to start preparing NOW. There are several ways to start. The choice you make should depend on event you are preparing for. Of course the best way is to prepare for all scenarios including long periods.

1.    Stockpiling Food

You should see your Food Bank as an investment. My advice is to buy food that you actually like to eat. So in case a major SHTF event will not hit until the expiration date of your food, then you can eat it (without spending additional money on food) and then renew your stock.

Another issue is where and how to properly stockpile food. You may need to create some space to keep the extra food, both frozen, and dry/canned goods. This may mean purchasing an extra freezer, or some closed storage shelves. If you have a panic room or maybe a basement you can start stockpiling there. Check storing advices (temperature, humidity, etc.) on the packages and see if it matches with your stockpiling room. Remember you should easily access this room and very few people should know about it.

Decide what food you want to store and how much. This depends on the food crisis period you want to be prepared for and of course the budget you plan to invest.

You can find bellow some items easy to stock because they have lengthy expiration dates, so you can stash them away for long periods of time. Make a list of everything you actually like and take into consideration that your stock has all the vitamins, carbohydrates, minerals, fats and protein. In a food crisis the most important food is the one with most carbohydrates which are the main fuel for physical energy. So keep in mind that having at least on item like rice, pasta, cereals is almost mandatory.

Before stocking other items take into consideration:

Bottled water: If a person can live without food for more than a month, without water it’s unlikely to survive more than 4 days; a normally active person should drink at least a half-gallon of water each day;

Salt: One of the most useful items. It’s used for storing food, curing beef, and flavoring most meals. Salt will stay forever!

Supplements: Multivitamins and minerals will help replace the nutrients you would have consumed on a normal diet;

Peanut Butter: Peanut butter is a source of protein, fat, and calories; can last up to five years;

Fish: essential fatty acids to keep your immune system strong. Also contains vitamin D. Try storing dried fish, canned or frozen fish;

Powdered milk: contain all twenty-one standard amino acids, and are high in vitamins and minerals. The typical average amounts of major nutrients are 36% protein, 52% carbohydrates, calcium 1.3%, and potassium 1.8%. One of the best items to get your calcium from;  if stored properly can last for more than 2 years;

Carbohydrates

Rice: If kept properly rice may stay in good condition for 10 years or more; there are a lot of dishes you can do with rice;

Pasta: Stores extremely well and like rice can you can make a lot of dishes;

Flour and whole grains: Grains are the cheapest items one can buy on a per-pound basis. If you have the means to grind than you should stock whole grain because it preserves better;

Nuts and trail mixes: high-energy foods, healthful and convenient for snacking.

Protein

Beans: High in protein, and if stored properly can stay for up to ten years. Make sure to store them in a cool, dry, dark location.

Canned Meat: typically will keep for 6-10 years and they’re an excellent source of protein. If the grid is down for a long time it’s very important to have this item because excessive hunting and fishing may extinct some species;

Vitamins

Canned Fruit & Vegetables: Not a very good source of calories and it takes a lot of space to store but the best natural source of vitamins;

Dried fruits, such as apricots and raisins: potassium and dietary fiber; really easy to store;

Fat

Lard: offer much-needed calories during times of crisis, cooking oil for multiple uses, and it will keep longer than cooking oils because of the hydrogenation.

Sugars

Honey: is also excellent as it will store forever. Mostly made from sugars and contains only trace amounts of vitamins, minerals and antioxidants.

These are just some good examples but you may find here the nutrients of almost all types of food.

Produce Your Own Food

Although it’s very important to stock food, on a long term food crisis can be wiser to have the means to produce your own food. If you live in a city and you don’t have a backyard, you should take into consideration buying at least one acre somewhere in the countryside. Most famine victims are townspeople. Living in the countryside makes it much easier to procure your food. If you don’t know much about gardening, then start small with a few garden boxes for tomatoes, herbs, or sprouting. And also you can raise animals. Choose only domestic animals that can provide you with more than meet: chickens or ducks for eggs, cows or sheep for milk, fishes for fish eggs. Just like stockpiling food think that you should get all vitamins, carbohydrates, protein, fats, and minerals.

Remember that you may need to:

- Protect Your Harvest against looters: visibly mark your land and if you have the means try building a fenced yard; looters will know that your land it’s better defended so it’s likely to try stealing from someone else; always keep a gun by your side;

- Learn Food Preservation: maybe you need to store food for the winter or maybe you want to have a food reserve just in case. Food preservation comes in many forms such as canning, pickling, and dehydrating. Some tools and materials are required along with a good deal of knowledge. Also build a basement to better stock your food;

- Store Seeds: save some of the harvest to collect the seeds and to plant them the next year. Collect your seeds from the healthiest plants. Also learn how to properly store and plant them;

- Trade Food in order to supply with other materials you can’t procure otherwise;

One of the best ways to produce your food in a SHTF situation is to build an AQUAPONIC SYSTEM.Aquaponics combines hydroponics and aquaculture into one symbiotic system consisting of plants and aquatic organisms. Practically an Aquaponic System it’s a self-sustained bio system where the fish excrements are broken down by nitrogen-fixing bacteria into nitrates and nitrites which are utilized by the plants as nutrients. The water is then recirculates back to the aquaculture system. It’s a win, win, win for the plants, the fish and for you.

I’d rather choose aquaponics in a food crisis or major SHTF situation because:

-        It can provide you with almost any type of vegetables/fruits and fish; you’ll have all your protein, vitamins, calories and good fats; you’ll also have fish eggs;

-        Aquaponics saves water; in case of a drought or in a SHTF when water may become scarce keep in mind that your plant will not be affected; aquaponics uses 90% less water than soil based agriculture because the water recirculates within the system rather than seeps away;

-        You’ll always have a surplus of water for you and your family to drink;

-        Plants grow faster. Because we are continually bringing fresh nutrient to the plants they grow faster;  you’ll find that plants growing faster means you need half the space than in soil based gardening;

-        can be adapted for small spaces; In urban environments where space is a valuable commodity, it can come in all shapes and sizes;