Economic Freedom: Growing Your Own Food

But still, the negative connotations of secession live on, even within some libertarian circles. Perhaps the most puzzling thing I keep hearing from some libertarians is that those of us who adhere to secessionist ideas are wacky outliers who offer no value "to the movement," and instead, we only throw up red flags that warn others to avoid us, and libertarianism as a whole. Thus we are led to believe that our founding fathers, the architects of rebellion and the champions of Jeffersonian principles, were reactionary wackos.

The anti-radical libertarians ask for practical solutions, with "practical" being the code word for something that is acceptable to the majority of the Oprahized masses. This kind of thought is known as "libertarian lite," or as I call it, "car wash libertarianism." The car wash libertarians persuade others – “especially those new to libertarianism – to stay away from the radical, "crazy" stuff and hold true to the agenda of getting "our people" elected through legitimate political means. The car wash libertarians still have a voice in the modern LP, which is also known as GOP 2.0. These libertarians are in the game not for reasons of deep-rooted principles and love of liberty, but for the social, bonding aspects, with some mild libertarianism sprinkled on the side. They love attending their local meetings and dinners each month and discussing who is going to run for what local post, and when, and applying strategy. How fun it all is. City council or board of county commissioners? Now those are appointments that will have a significant impact upon an America that is quickly descending into a Communistic hellhole.

Truth is, the car wash libertarians will be the ones cowering in a corner the day they come for our guns (under a massive, federal gun control act) and our children (under federal, child "protective services" laws or a national service act). But they may have a post or two at some tiny township, with such important duties as arranging for an annual dinner at the VFW or setting up the car wash fundraiser to pay for new lamp posts along Main Street. The car wash libertarians tend to have scant knowledge of history, monetary policy, constitutional disputes, and the political philosophers who have, over the years, defended states' rights and the natural rights of the individual against the totalitarian, centralized state. In fact, they tend to shy away from the intellectual life because it's not as fun, or as social, as the monthly meetings and supper club invites.

In spite of the radicalism of many of the early LP’ers, in 30+ years the LP has made no advances whatsoever, except that a few of them hold feeble local offices where it is their brand of politics in charge as versus the other guy's rules. One guy’s coercion in place of another guy’s coercion offers us no progress whatsoever in terms of quelling the federal expansion that is speedily choking off life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. The rapid-fire socialization of America, I hope, will have the effect of turning many of these libertarians toward more radical plans of action.

The Feds are engaged in a sweeping series of measures to take complete control of the financial system (which is forever destroyed) and selected business entities; ratchet up plans for perpetual war; socialize health care; further implant federalized education and criminalize homeschooling; grab guns and ammo; remove children from the homes of dissenters; commence race wars and class wars; force young adults into mandatory state service camps; send protesters to FEMA camps; and on and on and on.

At this point, none of this can be undone through time-consuming, political means. Rahm Emanuel, Eric Holder, and the other agents of Obama's unfreedom brigade were brought to Washington D.C. for one very specific purpose: to centralize every last bit of property and life and put it all under federal rule, from money to education to personal behavior. Note the condescending and arrogant behavior of King Obama on the 60 Minutes television show as he laughed at the inability of majority opinion to do a damn thing to stop his freight train of power grabs and federal takeovers.

Growing your own food is for everyone not just people that want “organic” fruit and vegetables

Every day I get into my car and do a podcast on self-sufficiency during my morning commute called The Survival Podcast. Over the past few months I have dedicated a great deal of time to the subjects of Agriculture and Permaculture for a very simple reason. While the “prepper” community is of course very big on food storage there is a finite limit to how much food any individual or family can store. Once you stored food runs out in a true long-term emergency you had better have some level of production capacity.

In addition to the limitations of stored food the “green movement” is huge right now and new gardens are popping up in every corner of the nation. From those that simply want better quality food to those that actually think carbon footprints matter, it seems millions Americans are putting in gardens in a new “back to the land” movement. Many in the media are claiming the recession is driving people to garden, in some ways it is true but the reality is in the first year a garden is often a financial loss. In my view what is really driving the new gardening revolution is that people are actually becoming aware of the many risks to our food supply.

Consider for a moment the actual cost of starting up a garden in year one. Most people when starting up a garden will go with the “raised bed” model for many very good reasons, such as soil quality, productivity, ease of installation, etc. Additionally given that most “new gardens” are started by “new gardeners” most won’t be starting plants from seeds and will therefore have the expense of plants in addition to the expenses of construction, soil, amendments, and tools. In the end putting in a few raised beds, providing the necessary soil mixture, getting plants, etc. will often set many back 300–500 dollars in initial expenses.

It certainly doesn’t have to cost this much but this is quite typical because people choose to spend the money to get into production faster with less physical effort. In the first year, if you are successful, you may very well grow 300–500 dollars worth of food but odds are breaking even is the best you will expect to do. People “feeling the effects of a recession” the way the media describes it, don’t make this type of expenditure for a possible output while still paying for necessities day to day.

The individuals putting in gardens today are not thinking solely about today’s recession, they are thinking about tomorrow’s possible depression along with probable future food shortages. They are thinking long-term and understand that while today’s cash outflow is a break-even, next years and subsequent years represent independence from at least some portion of the “food system.” They also realize that long term much of our global agriculture system is in real trouble and it may not be very long before capacity of production becomes heavily eclipsed by the most basic need the global population has, the need to eat every day.

So what are the biggest threats we have to our food supply today? They include…

•Grain production has been maxed out and we have failed to meet global grain demands for 6 of the past 9 years.
•Enough U.S. produced grain to feed a half billion people for a year will be converted to ethanol in 2009.
•Many nations are now creating long-term contracts with other nations to lock up the grain being produced by the few remaining large net exporters.
•China, India, The U.S., The UK, Malaysia, South Africa and Japan are now all “net importers of food.” Translation: a combined population of over 2.7 billion can no longer feed themselves without foreign dependence.
•Many shallow aquifers have been fully depleted and the largest fossil aquifers in the world are now being depleted. 70% of global water usage is for agriculture and we are running out of the water used for that purpose.

Companies such as Monsanto are altering food at a genetic level taking massive risks with our food supply by releasing altered genetics into the biosphere via cross pollination.

These six threats are just the beginning; we have also lost a huge portion of genetic diversity via the practice of “monoculture,” soil is losing fertility faster then it is being replenished and soil erosion is turning previously fertile land fallow. In short global population and demand for food is rising while the long-term trend of increasing food production is flattening and threatening to soon go into a decline.

This is an area where many modern survivalists are finding common ground with an unlikely ally, those heavily into the eco movement. The two sides are sill miles apart on many issues; survivalists tend to be conservatives or libertarians and the eco crowd tends to be quite liberal and tends toward a socialist or statist viewpoint on many issues. Even on the issues of gardening and permaculture there are often huge differences on why the need exists but what is agreed upon is the need itself.

Hence even some of those of the edges of both movements are finding a common bridge in understanding the need to create individually managed sustainable agriculture. In other words it doesn’t mater if it is “global warming” or “incompetent politicians” that will be the cause of a coming food shortage; either way the solution is individual action. That action is as simple as beginning to produce just a portion of your own food. The potential production on even small suburban lots is shocking. One family led by a self-proclaimed “agrarian revolutionary” named Jules Dervaes is currently producing about 6,000 lbs of food per year on 1/10th of an acre! While that is the extreme, if perhaps 30% of suburban homes would produce even 10% of what Mr. Dervaes is producing, can you see how large the impact would be?

Here is the real beauty in producing some of your own food via sustainable agriculture and long-term permaculture techniques…

•You can do it now even with containers if you are an apartment dweller
•It has an immediate impact on your personal situation
•It has a positive impact on your health and property value
•It provides insurance against a future shortage of food (personal or global)
•Entering into your second year the savings of cash is significant
•It reduces your dependence upon several systems (agriculture, distribution, etc.)

In short it embodies the primary tenet of the modern survival philosophy, “Everything You Do Should Improve Your Position in Life Even If Nothing Goes Wrong.” Additionally unlike so many things that create change no waiting or government action is required. Developing some level of food production is something anyone who really wants to can just do. In fact over 10 million Americans have chosen to do so in the past two years.

In the end we should ask ourselves, “What is the real difference between a modern survivalist and a permaculturist?” The two may often be quite different in social philosophy and politics but their end goal is creating a sustainable and independent life. I firmly believe that the only way to ensure long-term survival is to create that sustainable life and it is impossible to do so without some level of personal food production capacity. The good news is getting started can be quite simple and you can slowly phase into it as you get more comfortable with the process.

I’d like to leave you with a final thought to make you think about how much opportunity we have to produce more food within the United States. Consider that what I am about to propose will requite almost no real sacrifice or effort. Simply ask yourself this question: if we were to replace just 10% of the ornamental trees planted in our cities and towns with a similar tree that produced some type of food, how much free food could we be producing right now? The next time you are in your car just observe how many trees there are planted in our cities, towns, urban and suburban areas that produce nothing edible. Start counting them and simply think of the production capacity if one in every ten were an apple, pear, pecan, walnut, etc.

In our arrogance instead we have genetically modified pear trees to not produce pears, selected pistachio trees that do not product pistachios and embraced the fruitless mulberry. Why? Because homeowners consider the fruit that falls from these trees to be “lawn litter”; only an arrogant people would consider food to be garbage while many others go without a full stomach. The danger we face if we remain apathetic and arrogant is that one day many of us could be the ones going without a full stomach.

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