The weather has dealt a blow to food prices and not in a good way. Prices are going up.
Food inflation driven by freezing weather in Florida during December and in Mexico during February, is hitting the US supermarkets in the coming day’s. Sysco sent out an alert that announced an “Act of God”, to address their contracted supply issues.
The cold of the Superbowl weekend in Texas, has had a more lasting impact than on just the game plans for lots of travelers. The deep cold sank into the produce fields of northern Mexico, destroying fresh produce crops. This is the biggest page 16 story, about to hit a headline, that you have seen in a while. Your restaurants will be low on fresh produces for weeks. They will have to raise prices significantly or cut the produce out of the menu.
That global warming we hear so much about really is a killer. Naturally Watts Up With That has more.
May I suggest you get this book and read it before spring:
How to Have a Green Thumb Without an Aching Back: A New Method of Mulch Gardening
Then pick some seeds and start a garden.
Cross Posted at Power and Control
Update Welcome Instapundit Readers! Thank you to Glenn Reynolds for the link. You might also want to have a look at Nuclear Material Found Entering The Port Of San Diego?. No actual bombs or anything else radioactive was found in San Diego. But the report indicates that they may have been found elsewhere. The report itself did come from San Diego from a reputable source.
Cross Posted at Power and Control
Comments
5 responses to “Food – Force Majeure”
Simon,
We’ve been feeling the pinch in our grocery bill for months — now, I grant you we have two teen boys in the house which means we buy enough food to feed a small army — and right now lettuce at the store is… well… let’s say tiny and double the price it was. (If I had to guess, they’re taking leaves for the packaged salad, then selling what’s left as a whole lettuce. It has that look. Not complaining. They have to live too.)My plans for taking advantage of relatively cheaper summer produce already included an (already purchased) dehydrator. Now I’m wondering if they should include a leased plot as well (an iffy endeavor since summer is my busy conference month. But it might have to happen.)
Try indoor gardening:
1. http://www.gwenshealinggarden.ca/Article.Learning_About_Indoor_Container_Vegetable_Gardening.htm
2. http://www.suite101.com/content/grow-an-organic-indoor-vegetable-garden-a160547
Once you sort out the growth periods for each plant, you can schedule/rotate them to produce fresh produce as desired.
Cheers
To get good information along with the best varieties seeds, I recommend buying from a catalog: Pinetree, Johnny’s or Stokes (a commercial catalog which sells to home growers) in the Northeast; Territorial or Nichols in the Northwest; Willhite (commercial) in Texas. There are others. A good clue to a quality catalog (outside some of the excellent heirloom catalogs and sites) is whether specific disease resistance is listed for varieties of hybrid tomatoes and other crops. If you want to save heirloom seeds or extend the life of hybrid seeds, pick up some rechargeable desiccant packets from victoryseeds.com. Keep seeds dry and cool (don’t use a desiccant with bean seeds).
I also recommend this book for an easy version of Stout’s “weedless” methods. Mel Bartholomew has also updated his squarefoot gardening techniques for even easier gardening. (I would recommend lining the bottom of beds with 1/4 inch galvanized hardware cloth if you have gophers or moles in the nieghborhood). Last year I made a similar narrow cinder block garden against a fence which utilized a 2-foot wide roll of hardware cloth with no cutting. I lined the inside surfaces of the cinder blocks with plastic to prevent evaporation and topped them with foil to deter insects.
Or there’s the option of self-watering containers, recommended by Glenn Reynolds.
How interesting. (Nuclear material in San Diego.)
Does anyone recall Brian Ross of ABC news DEMONSTRATING how to smuggle Uranium into the United States?
I said at the time that that Idiot just showed the terrorists how easy it was, and that he didn’t seem to understand that the problem is basically insolvable.
When a Congressional committee asked Robert Oppenheimer what equipment would be needed to detect atomic material being smuggled into the country he said “A screwdriver.”
An Acknowledgment that the only recourse is to open every single crate.
People like Brian Ross ignorantly made the world less safe with their political advocacy in their positions of trusted news sources.
Indoor gardening is good, but outdoor in-the-ground does give better yields (unless you can afford to put in all sorts of the best grow-lights.) Otherwise, you’re best off sticking with greens, leafy herbs and other shade-tolerant plants.
Where indoor really helps is getting a serious head-start on the growing season. And if you have to grow in containers, (due to space/apartment living… what have you) you will get somewhat reduced yields, but you also have the advantage that if a sudden freeze (due to global warming of course /s) comes along you can haul them inside. 😉