Survival Homestead

Vegetable Seeds

The headline above and the paragraphs below are from the most recent edition of Fedco’s seed catalog.  As we have been suspecting (and Fedco confirms) seeds prices have risen dramatically.

Oct. 10, 2008: We are in the midst of the deluge now: a financial hurricane the likes of which I never would have imagined. Commodity price fluctuations I have not seen before in my lifetime. Oil, shooting up from $60 to $145 a barrel, then back down in just a few months to $80. Gasoline prices up and down like a yo-yo.

And now, seed prices. I’ve been 30 years in this business and these are the highest increases to us I’ve ever seen. The ethanol boom diverting land to corn production has had a tremendous impact on farm commodity prices including vegetable seeds. Wholesale prices for pea and bean seed are up 30-50%, for corn and squash 20% or more. Even so, wholesalers could not find growers for all crops so several varieties are missing from our catalog. Horrible growing weather this summer has exacerbated the shortage.

With the collateral damage only beginning to ripple out from the broken
financial centers to our communities, this is a hard time to have to raise our prices. We are a lean operation and are doing our best to absorb what we can.

This is exactly what we have been expecting.  Now, that being duly noted, purchasing vegetable seed and growing your own food is still by far a superior, healthier and more cost effective way of providing food for the family than relying on one of your local grocery stores.

Here are some general numbers:

• The average American household allocates approximately 13-14% of it’s income for Food. This is sure to continue to rise, as it has over the past few years.
• In 2006, American families spent 44% of their food budget eating out and the average household spends roughly $5,000 a year on groceries.

Food inflation has been going on all summer, as far as I have noticed, and it’s done not by necessarily raising prices alone, but also by reducing the overall size or portion of the food product itself.  So what happens is that you end up spending more money for even less product.

Put a stop to it now, and start growing your own food, it is imperative that you do so for the future, for the survival of your family.

Technorati Tags: seed prices, famine, food crisis, gardening

It’s interesting that, as time went on, many of the offspring of the people who lived through the depression retained fewer and fewer of the skills and values that would be necessary to successfully cope with difficult economic times.  This is in part due to ignorance, greed, the inability to delay gratification, and most importantly, manipulation by a greedy and corrupt system.

The “System” has developed numerous means by which to separate the individual from their capital.  An excellent treatment of this is an article called “The Gospel of Consumption.”  Understand this!  And do not allow yourself to be milked like some stupid cow.

We will learn these lessons of depression-era living again it seems, but maybe this time, after the dust settles and we count the heads of those remaining, we can retain them and pass them on to future generations so that they will not be so dependent on an increasingly fragile and complex system that is just itching to shear them like sheeple.  Do this for yourself, but more importantly, do it for your children.  Teach it to them, and do so primarily by example….that’s what they will be paying most attention to anyway.

• Avoid debt like the plague it is.
• Make due or do without.  If you cannot afford it then you cannot have it.
• Be happy with what you already have.  It’s called “Thankfulness”
• Be good stewards of the resources you currently possess
• Run your household like a business, because it is a business.

Source: CNN.com

Memories of salvaging and stealing to avoid going hungry are part of the legacy of the Great Depression. Some iReporters say they can’t help but look at the current economy and feel the past holds lessons for the present.

…

Donna LeBlanc of Waxia, Louisiana, says she carries no credit to this day as a result of the frugality and self-reliance instilled in her by her family. Her husband keeps the couple’s credit card and maintains a zero balance.

The Great Depression meant scary times for many households as a period of economic downturn spread throughout the world. Historians trace its start to the “Black Tuesday” stock crash on October 29, 1929, and argue that the resulting global desperation set the stage for World War II.

LeBlanc said her grandparents were fortunate that they didn’t have investments and could grow — or catch — their own food during the Depression years.

Her grandfather Lester was a “Cajun cowboy” often seen wearing a cowboy hat, and her grandmother Ida was a resourceful woman who spent much of the 1930s working as a store clerk. LeBlanc, always told never to keep credit card debt, heard frightful stories from Ida

Full Story…