Food Storage

Dreaming of biting into a garden-fresh cucumber sandwich this summer? Better order your seeds now.

A poor growing season last year and increased orders from Europe could make it difficult for home gardeners to get seeds for the most popular cucumber variety and some vegetables this spring. Farmers, who usually grow different varieties than home gardeners, aren’t likely to be affected.

Seeds for what’s known as open-pollinated cucumbers seem to be most scarce, but carrots, snap peas and onions also could be in short supply.

“I suspect there will be some seeds you just won’t be able to buy if you wait too long on it,” said Bill Hart, the wholesale manager in charge of seed purchasing at Chas. C. Hart Seed Company in Wethersfield, Conn. “The sugar snap peas we’re not able to get at all, and other companies that have it will sell out pretty quickly.”

The problem is primarily due to soggy weather last year that resulted in a disappointing seed crop. European seed growers also had a bad year, leading to a big increase in orders for American seeds.

Demand for seeds in the U.S. soared last year, as the poor economy and worries about chemical use and bacteria contamination prompted many people to establish gardens. Homegrown food seemed safer and more affordable. But some wonder if the wet weather that ruined gardens in many areas last summer will discourage first-time gardeners from planting again.

Source/Full Story: Yahoo! News

Call it a paradox of plenty. In the world’s wealthiest country, home to more obese people than anywhere else on earth, almost 50 million Americans struggled to feed themselves and their children in 2008. That’s one in six of the population. Millions went hungry, at least some of the time. Things are bound to get worse.

This the bleak picture drawn from an annual survey on “household food security” compiled by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and released in mid-November. It showed the highest level of food insecurity since the government started the survey, in 1995, and provided a graphic illustration of the effect of sharply rising unemployment.

This year’s picture will be even bleaker – the unemployment rate more than doubled from the beginning of 2008 to now, at 10.2 percent the highest in a quarter century. It is still climbing, and for many the distance between losing a job and lack of food security is very short.

Source/Full Story: The Great Debate

AUSTRALIANS have been advised to stockpile food and water after the World Health Organisation raised its swine flu alert to phase five yesterday, indicating an imminent pandemic.

The Federal Government’s pandemic plan, a 132-page manual issued to medics, media and the public, insists that once the world reaches phase five, Australians should stock their pantries with food and bottled water to last 14 days, check on elderly neighbours and put emergency numbers by the phone.

Residents are advised to stock their pantries with drinks, including three litres of water for each person each day, dried and long-life food such as canned meals, toilet paper, batteries, candles, matches, manual can openers and water sterilising tablets. Analgesics, masks, gloves, a thermometer, disinfectant and prescription medications should also be stockpiled and people should have enough supplies to stay in their homes for 14 days.

Householders should also have plenty of tissues, alcohol-based hand-wash dispensers in kitchens and bathrooms, and soap and disposable towels near all sinks, the manual says.

Source/Full Story:: Swine flu

With the recession in full swing, many Americans are returning to their roots — literally — cultivating vegetables in their backyards to squeeze every penny out of their food budget.

Industry surveys show double-digit growth in the number of home gardeners this year and mail-order companies report such a tremendous demand that some have run out of seeds for basic vegetables such as onions, tomatoes and peppers.

"People’s home grocery budget got absolutely shredded and now we’ve seen just this dramatic increase in the demand for our vegetable seeds. We’re selling out," said George Ball, CEO of Burpee Seeds, the largest mail-order seed company in the U.S. "I’ve never seen anything like it."

Gardening advocates, who have long struggled to get America grubby, have dubbed the newly planted tracts "recession gardens" and hope to shape the interest into a movement similar to the victory gardens of World War II.

Those gardens, modeled after a White House patch planted by Eleanor Roosevelt in 1943, were intended to inspire self-sufficiency, and at their peak supplied 40 percent of the nation’s fresh produce, said Roger Doiron, founding director of Kitchen Gardeners International.

Source: news.yahoo.com

Via: The Associated Press

NEW YORK (AP) — In a disaster such as an earthquake or terrorist attack, nearly two-thirds of U.S. parents would disregard orders to evacuate and would rush to pick up their kids from school, according to a new survey.

The survey found that 63 percent of parents would ignore orders to evacuate and instead attempt to reunite with their children, possibly hindering rescue efforts by adding to traffic congestion.

The authors of the study, released Thursday on the seventh anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks, said that despite years of government efforts to enhance disaster preparedness, schools need to do more to plan for disasters and parents need to be made aware of the plans.

The report was commissioned by the National Center for Disaster Preparedness at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health and the Children’s Health Fund.

Among parents of school-age children, 45 percent said they do not know the location where their children would be evacuated as part of the school’s disaster plan.

“There should be an outcry from parents to push their schools and their school districts to develop a plan that makes sense,” said Irwin Redlener, associate dean for public health preparedness at Columbia and president of the Children’s Health Fund.

The federal Department of Homeland Security has allocated billions of dollars to help state and local governments set up disaster contingency plans.

But just 44 percent of the U.S. residents surveyed this year said they have all or some of the basic elements of a disaster preparedness plan, including food, water, a flashlight with extra batteries and a meeting place in case of evacuation.

The survey has been administered annually since 2002 by the Marist College Institute for Public Opinion.

The telephone survey of 1,579 adults was conducted between July 25 and Aug. 9. The margin of error for the entire survey was 2.5 percentage points. The margin of error for the subset of households with children was 4 percentage points.

Parents said Thursday they were not surprised by the finding that most of them would disregard evacuation orders and pick up their children.

Diana Ennen, of Margate, Fla., is the author of “The Home Office Recovery Plan: Disaster Preparedness for Your Home-Based Business” and a mother of three.

“As a mom, you wouldn’t be able to keep me away from picking up my children,” she said in an e-mail. “My first instinct would be to get them at all costs. I would literally run the entire distance to get them. I believe most parents would feel the same.”