It’s a fact that there is a growing world food shortage.  More people on the earth means more strain on the environment, rising food prices.  Even though there may be a surplus of wheat in one part of the world, it doesn’t counter balance the food shortages happening in other parts.  What does this mean for us?  Well, for now it just means higher prices for food.   Corn costs more to grow as the price of land goes up, the quality of the soil goes down, and production and transportation costs rise.  For consumers that means it’s going to cost more to make a pan of corn bread.

How do we cope?  What if the food shortage gets worse?  What if rising prices isn’t the only thing to happen.  It’s possible that food could not just be expensive but also more difficult to come by.  There are food shortages in Africa.  There are sometimes riots because of food shortages.  For some people the solution to a worsening food shortage is to learn how to prepare their own food and store it so they have their own supplies if things get bad.  The idea is to create your own personal warehouse pantry, from which you could live for a long time without having to rely on grocery stores.  Granted, you won’t be eating gourmet meals or things like whole wheat pancakes any more. But you will survive.

A survival pantry won’t include everything…dairy will be hard to come by of course.  You won’t be eating much of that wonderful creamy greek yogurt for a while. And you probably won’t be able to make your own pizza with fresh vegetables. I for one will miss whole wheat pizza dough.

A garden might not be possible in some climates because of cold weather, but there are cold weather crops that can withstand colder temperatures.  Things like onions, carrots, turnips and Swiss Chard can be grown in northern parts of the US, even into late Fall.