One of the most enduring effects of the Israel-Iran War (which was largely funded by unsuspecting US taxpayers) is going to be food inflation --once prices go up, they never seem to go down.
A $50/acre increase in farmer’s cost becomes $500 by the time it reaches the taxpayer’s dinner table. At every way point in the food supply chain from farm to table, there’s a Private Equity “skim, scam and fraud” artist extracting excessive fees and costs. Thank the bipartisan culture of corruption in Washington.
Are co-ops an answer? This YT from A More Perfect Union explores…
We found the radical solution to inequality. It’s in Nebraska.
Driver co-op in Colorado.
Sustainable Beef co-op in Kansas.
The “Big Idea” The video contends that the U.S. economy has become overly dominated by investor-owned multinationals that prioritize maximizing shareholder returns over the well-being of workers and communities (5:24 - 6:42). To “unrig” the economy, the filmmakers propose several policy shifts:
Access to Capital: Providing government backing for bank loans or establishing funds to assist with worker buyouts, as banks are often hesitant to finance co-ops without traditional personal guarantees (11:46 - 12:07).
Government Contracting: Prioritizing partnerships with co-ops over traditional investor-owned firms for government-funded projects and services (12:07 - 12:47).
Economic Democracy: Moving toward a system where companies are beholden to their communities, producers, and workers, rather than just Wall Street institutional investors (12:47 - 13:09).
They could be. But historically, successful co-ops are eventually taken over by Private Equity, who then institute for-profit levels of excessive Executive Compensation and the MBA ethic.
Just look what happened to Kaiser Permanente. Today there are about 100 non-physician administrators drawing compensation of $1 million/year or more, devising ever more effective ways to cheat you out of the health care you paid for..
Or you can grow your own. I follow 3 gardening YouTube channels where people are growing enough in their own backyard to feed their families. One guy is attempting to grow and give away to his neighborhood 1000 pounds of fresh fruits and vegetables. So it becomes a little more than a hobby but it shows you don’t need 40 acres and a mule.
What are the UTube channels? I ask because here in my world, my daughter cannot come close to feeding her family with her garden even with my help weeding on a weekly basis. Like many young couples they work long hours earning income, raising children, and paying for their land, home and everything else.
We are getting an abundance of beautiful , fresh, fully organic lettuce, collards, kale, spinach, radishes and squash and zucchini now, and carrots, corn, melons and other late season produce and blueberries, strawberries, blackberries later, all of which add greatly to enjoyment in life. But nowhere near enough to carry them through the winter.
I do believe that a widespread local ‘victory garden’ movement with small, efficient grow boxes instead of huge, green monocultures full of poison and industrial fertilizer would be a move in the right direction for improved health and greater resilience in terms of being less dependent on the international corporate food chain.
Likewise. I don’t try to grow enough to feed myself, but I don’t come close at all, and here in the PNW we can grow crops year round. I do enjoy fresh vegetables and herbs as a supplement though.
Keep in mind grain cost is rarely a significant factor in food cost. A $3 box of corn flakes contains abt $0.10 of corn. The package almost always costs more than its contents.
Most food cost goes to processing, transportation, distribution costs, profits at multiple levels, and often advertising.
Rising grain prices is used as an excuse to raise prices. It is rarely the cause.
The site above is “Mind and Soil” (near Vancouver from what I can tell) , I also follow “Epic Gardening” (San Diego), Huw Richards (Scotland), and “The Millennial Gardener” (costal North Carolina).
Once you start watching gardening channels, the YouTube algorithm will start feeding you plenty of others so eventually you’ll come across someone from your climate or what you’re trying to do.
As far as feeding the family, sometimes it comes down to bang for the buck produce. Okra we can’t pick it and freeze it fast enough. I think was just used the last jar of homemade tomato sauce from 2 years ago. Still have eating pickles jarred last summer. My lime tree, over the past 2 years I’ve picked and made lime ice cubes so much that I’m now giving more away than using. Peach tree was a flop because couldn’t keep the squirrels away. Corn don’t have the space and not worth the effort.
If you’re trying to grow year round, look into winter crops and possibly a greenhouse.
I’m building a Yardistry greenhouse right now. I can grown year round, but the cool PNW springs means crops like tomatoes or peppers (both of which I grow a lot of) can’t be planted until at least mid-May, maybe later. So I’d like to get a head start.
Yardistry greenhouses are sometimes for sale at Costco, or on sale from Yardistry. I spec’ed it out, and it is significantly cheaper to build from kit. Significantly easier too.
While this is true in the USA and other first-world countries, it isn’t true everywhere. For example, in Nigeria, a 50kg sack of corn might be 50,000 Naira today, but if it suddenly goes up by 20%, it might be 60,000 tomorrow.
