Preparedness for when

RAS

fuddle wrote: »

See that story RAS has the cynic in me bubbling out. MP's warn then on next paragraph Mp's urge the embracing of GM crops and robots that weed fields. Money making ideas for little effort and cost under the guise of less backbreaking work for our farming populous or the real truth of trying to feed our folk in these lands?

Agreed fuddle - what concerns me is not just the problem with growing enough food but the solutions they seem to think appropriate.

Given the energy and embodied energy requirements of those solutions, its a no brainer long term.

With respect to DD, I was about 7 years old when the the Cuba missile crisis led to a LOT of concern about WW3. Think it was the first time I was really aware of political issues, "What's a world war daddy?"

Probably took him by surprise but he talked through his experience of WW2 as a child not much older than me at the start of the war. It was scary but I also understood that he and his family survived and so I could survive if it happened.

It may also be worth explaining that different people identify different "enemies" and that these change form time to time. In particular that sometimes it suits politicians (include in that those leading major terrorist organisations) and media to create or monsterise certain enemies. I remember studing recent political history and one or two presidents were very good at reviving certain border disputes to rally the country behind them, whenever the domestic situation was going against them.

I also recall the alarm that some people felt locally when a school exchange was organised in about 1970, with Germany. For some folk they were definitely still the enemy.

RAS

Frugalsod wrote: »

I suspect that this is going to be used as an excuse to allow GMO's. This technology is still too new for us to be sure of the outcomes. I am concerned about the spread of genes to other plant species. Also in Bangladesh and India where they are using round up resistant rice they are finding that the Round Up pesticide is becoming next to useless, yet they cannot exit the GMO usage because of debts and inability to get Non GMO seeds. And guess who owns many of the worlds seed banks? Monsanto of course.

Learning to save your own is almost an act of civil disobedience now.

And with respect to MrsLW's comment, the use of capital intensive kit creates enormous barrier to entry into farming which encourages the intensification of land ownership.

There was some work done years ago that showed that production per financial unit is higher in large farms (very large) but that production per acre is highest in small units with higher labour input.

I think that the measurement was of tonnes produced not just value, so not comparing high value goods with staples.

nuatha

GreyQueen wrote: »

fuddle, I think a lot of the problems with self-sufficiency in the UK is that we were the first country in the world to industrialise, and the 'spare' countryfolk were essentially forced into towns to work in the new industrial economy. And I do mean forced; the various enclosures acts made it impossible to have even a subsistence-level income, one the access to the commonwealth of woodland, common pasturing etc was denied. 'Five acres and a cow' was the cry for a minimum substance. You can get away with less than that if you have access to grazing on common land, but not if your personal property has to include both the grazing for beasts and the veggie plots.

My maternal grandparents were small scale farmers/ large scale small holders. With a fair bit more than 5 acres and a herd of cows they still needed outside incomes to make ends meet. While its feasible they could have been completely self sufficient, the system of running on credit till settlement day (fairly well through harvest) has long gone to be replaced by credit cards etc which require monthly payments and aren't receptive to the highs and lows of farming cash flow.

I think the legacy of a post-feudal society is with us still, as well as the historical disconnect from the land. With my only family, I'm the first generation not to have done land-work, bar a bit of fruitpicking. My Dad did farmwork from 15-21 but the generation prior worked their whole lives on farms. Mostly other people's farms, in our case. And were dirt-poor and barely scraping a living.:(

That legacy is everywhere, the structure of school holidays is based around when the children were needed to work the land.
As a kid I was one of the few in the village who wasn't potato picking (I had a different sideline that earned money year round), now its all mechanical.
Marts used to be in town centres, then they were shuffled out to near the railway station. Slaughter houses were centralised away from towns, the forced disconnect between food and its origins stems from the 60s and 70s.

The trick for the ruling castes is that you must give just enough sustenance to the peasantry to allow them to live and work another day, but not so much that they can ever get themselves into a position of financial independance.

Bread and circuses or at least the modern equivalent, dole dope and Sky TV.
A bit of false hope, a lot of distraction.

Oh, and last but not least, you must make sure that everyone is up to their eyeballs in debt and too scared to agitate for better conditions. You don't want the beggars in cheap council housing on secure tenancies going out on strike, you want to offer them the 'opportunity' to buy them, and once they're mortgaged, they'll have to behave. All other forms of endebtedness are to be encouraged, too - the more the merrier.

I used to be a cynic but I'm just flipping angry about it now.

When you get the working classes to regard unions as too powerful, irrelevant, and disruptive, then you've largely won.
I'm too tired to continue being angry.

Frugalsod wrote: »

I suspect that this is going to be used as an excuse to allow GMO's. This technology is still too new for us to be sure of the outcomes. I am concerned about the spread of genes to other plant species.

There's lots of things that will be used as excuses for GMOs, in fact just about every excuse - food security, reduce dependence on pesticides, higher yields, the planet's growing disability to support itself, improved food storage, water shortages, climate change. Can and has been used to promote GMOs, the major reason is that they generate increased profit and that profit is invested in promoting the idea that GMOs are a good thing. Unfortunately mother nature has never had a large political lobbying budget - and those that commit to lobbying on Her behalf are seen as cranks and terrorists.

fuddle wrote: »

See that story RAS has the cynic in me bubbling out. MP's warn then on next paragraph Mp's urge the embracing of GM crops and robots that weed fields. Money making ideas for little effort and cost under the guise of less backbreaking work for our farming populous or the real truth of trying to feed our folk in these lands?

How do you know a politician is lying? Are they breathing? The odds are they are lying.
We know fossil fuels are running out, we know that renewables aren't popular with big business - therefore the current government is ending investment subsidies, we also know that nuclear isn't the panacea that was promised - so how are these robots going to be fuelled? GM crops require fossil fuels, they arrive coated in petroleum derived fertilisers, are designed to be planted by petroleum powered equipment etc.
And so far we've been told they are infertile - so why is Monsanto suing farmers whose crops have been fertilised (contaminated) by GM crops. We've been told that GM crops are resistant to pests and herbicides - so why are the levels of these poisons used increasing. If the crops are more efficient to produce and safe and accepted by the general public, why are the companies resistant to labeling them and marketing them separately from traditional crops?

fuddle

When you get the working classes to regard unions as too powerful, irrelevant, and disruptive, then you've largely won.
I'm too tired to continue being angry.

Miner's grandaughter here, grew up in a mining village in Durham during the 80's strikes and I very nearly, very nearly, adopted the view that striking serves no purpose than to disrupt those of innocent people in my early 20's. I was working in education at the time and coaxed into not striking.

It isn't until my 30's where I have really looked into what unions did for us working class folk - they fought for mine and every body else's right for that 15 minute tea break. Now that is progress and a progress that my new zero hours contract (some days I love it's flexibility, other days I loathe it's 'on call' feel) stamps it's mucky fat feet all over.

[Deleted User]

VJsmum wrote: »

I think what happened was that the flame from the burner set fire to the grass underneath it. That spread to the canister, which exploded.

It's more likely, that the O ring wasn't in good condition (or not present), allowing the gas to leak out.

As the burner points upwards, and heat rises, the stove is unlikely to set fire to the grass.

mardatha

Same here fuddle, well said. The miners never got any favours from anybody did they.

nuatha

fuddle wrote: »

Miner's grandaughter here, grew up in a mining village in Durham during the 80's strikes and I very nearly, very nearly, adopted the view that striking serves no purpose than to disrupt those of innocent people in my early 20's. I was working in education at the time and coaxed into not striking.

It isn't until my 30's where I have really looked into what unions did for us working class folk - they fought for mine and every body else's right for that 15 minute tea break. Now that is progress and a progress that my new zero hours contract (some days I love it's flexibility, other days I loathe it's 'on call' feel) stamps it's mucky fat feet all over.

Zero hour contracts are a two edged sword, that I'd rather see become illegal. (No disrespect for those who chose to work on them, just I see the power balance as being completely one way).
There is much that union members fought for that is now being given away by workers - enhanced unsocial hours payments, the right to be paid in coin of the realm (the Trucks Acts etc), even safer working environments and practices.

Not to mention that unions and their political wing got so wrapped up in ideology that they forgot who and what they were supposed to represent. The Cooperative movement, the trade unions and the Labour party were supposed to be a SHTF solution, like many solutions they exacerbated the problems.

History is full of lessons that could benefit Preppers, however, in the words of Aldous Huxley:
"That men do not learn very much from the lessons of history is the most important of all the lessons of history."

Possession

RAS wrote: »

It may also be worth explaining that different people identify different "enemies" and that these change form time to time. In particular that sometimes it suits politicians (include in that those leading major terrorist organisations) and media to create or monsterise certain enemies. I remember studing recent political history and one or two presidents were very good at reviving certain border disputes to rally the country behind them, whenever the domestic situation was going against them.

I also recall the alarm that some people felt locally when a school exchange was organised in about 1970, with Germany. For some folk they were definitely still the enemy.

When I went to live in Japan 20 years ago the Japanese were definitely still the enemy to my Grandma. She had 5 brothers fighting in WW2 and one captured as a POW of the Japanese, and she was NOT fond of them all those years later.

GreyQueen

Possession wrote: »

When I went to live in Japan 20 years ago the Japanese were definitely still the enemy to my Grandma. She had 5 brothers fighting in WW2 and one captured as a POW of the Japanese, and she was NOT fond of them all those years later.

In the 1990s my parents were travelling on a train in France and fell into conversation with a very pleasant young woman in her early twenties, from Japan.

She was shortly to travel on to visit the UK and was keen to ask about a few places, and my parents were happy to chat. After a while, she said that she had heard that some British people don't like the Japanese, did they know why?

My Dad is a keen student of history and could have told her but felt the actions of some of her great-gradparents' generation are not to be laid on the shoulders of the young, so he just made some neutral comment. He also knew very well that there has been a selective editing of Japanese schoolbooks, in respect of their own history, and it was very likely that this young lady did not have a clue, and it wasn't her fault.

SuperGran has an annual gift exchange (local calendars) with a Japanese lady whose student daughter she took under her wing several years ago. Mama was rather nervous of how her daughter might be treated in the UK and was very glad to know she had a responsible matron looking out for her...........we're all just peeps, aren't we?

Interesting convos with Auntie and others over the weekend. My family are stalwarts of the Royal British Legion. It seems that several men known to them, in their early eighties, have suddenly started having flashbacks to their time in Malaya. My uncle had a nervous breakdown over PTSD about 20 years ago from his time out there, which seems to have got it out of his system, but these men are suddenly getting it all back in rush. I wonder if it's all the stuff about WW1 which is stirring up memories of what they went through as national servicemen?

Had the best part of an hour and a half on my allotment. Transplanted some more runner beans and started picking my blackcurrants. OMG, but there are so many and they're huge, totally awesome crop. I was picking into those oval Carte D'Or ice-cream tubs and discover they weigh in at 1 lb 6 oz when full. Have rinsed them, picked out the stalks and debris, and am open-freezing them on trays and will then bag them. They're lush when eaten straight from the freezer as a dessert.

As I looked at how much was coming off one blackcurrant bush, and how little effort it has taken to produce all that, I was awestruck. Seriously, a few mins pruning once a year, I chucked a coupla lumps of horse manure under the bush and it grew.....and grew......and grew.....

Imagine the productivity if some random shrubs loitering in gardens were switched out for fruit bushes; premium healthy berries on tap, no food miles and a little of our burden on the world eased.

I sometimes think that doing stuff I consider to be good and worthwhile is a bit like p-ing in the wind against a constant weather front from the Wasteful part of the compass (near to Stupidshire) but then I get a rush of hopefulness and feel energised.

I accidentally broke a 10' section of blackcurrant branch off. All this year's growth. A lottie neighbour was passing and I handed it to her to see if it'll strike into a new fruitbush. Haven't a clue whether they propagate this way, but it seemed to be the right thing to do at that moment.

Oh, and I have a self-set sunflower out. It smiled at me, and I smiled at it. Such a happy flower.

nuatha

GreyQueen wrote: »

I accidentally broke a 10' section of blackcurrant branch off. All this year's growth. A lottie neighbour was passing and I handed it to her to see if it'll strike into a new fruitbush. Haven't a clue whether they propagate this way, but it seemed to be the right thing to do at that moment.

That's how I propagated mine, currants and gooseberries want to grow, seems any chance they get they'll take. Literally sticking a pruning or broken branch in the ground results in a new bush.

I agree they'd be wonderful replacing some exotic shrub in most gardens.