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I know the name of the woman who raises the chickens that lay the eggs that I eat. Do you? I know about her daughter’s college plans and her vacations and how she got into the business of raising chickens. This might not seem so important from a survivalist perspective, but I think it is and I’ll explain why in the following paragraphs.

Now think about where you get your eggs. Chances are they come from a big chain grocery store. That means they are raised in a huge factory farm, staffed by underpaid workers of questionable legality, and overwhelmingly dependent on Chinese produced chicken feed. Which of these eggs do you think is better for the long-term goals of a preparedness minded individual? I thought so.
What I’m getting at here is that an American preparedness culture should be supporting small, local, organic farms whenever possible. In this essay I am going to avoid environmental arguments in support of local, organic foods. Although, I will confess that I believe that environmental issues are one of the largest threats to American personal and national security and that a dedication to environmental solutions will ease many of the problems that threaten us, especially including dependence on foreign oil and government corporate welfare in the form of unnecessary farm subsidies.
I started thinking about this topic because I work at a Farmer’s Market in Northern California and I rarely see customers that exhibit some of the tell tale signs of the “survivalist” crowd (Ruger hats, NRA T-shirts, etc.). However, many of the farmers can be seen wearing “the signs”. Small farmers are, as a whole, very hard working, practically minded, conservative leaning people who care deeply for their families. They would mostly fit right in at any Preparedness gathering; even the really Left of center politically leaning ones.

One morning a man walked up wearing an NRA hat and we got to talking. It turns out he had never really been to a farmer’s market because he thought it was full of overpriced vegetables and dope-smoking hippies. He was having a good experience and was really impressed by how knowledgeable the workers were about what they were selling. I could certainly offer no counter to his concerns over the hippies (it is Northern California after all. Although, to tell the truth there aren’t that many of them left). The counter to his cost concerns is more complex.
Organic food costs more than non-organic food. It is certainly more expensive to make food grow like this and the cost is passed on to the consumer. There have been plenty of recent big agriculture financed studies showing that there is little nutritional difference between organic and factory produced food which leads a consumer on a budget to validly wonder “why should I buy this if it isn’t better for me?” Even if these studies are true, they do not tell the whole picture.

Organic has become a major buzz word and a major marketing tool. Plenty of the stuff that’s labeled organic gains a lot of its cost from being shipped from South America and the big grocery stores (especially the big health food stores) are more than willing to tack on high prices for perceived value. It’s the same thing that goes on with the designer bags my wife covets. They might not do anything special (they hold stuff the same as my backpack does), but they look nice and are sought after by a particular and demanding consumer that is willing to pay extra for premium.
But this isn’t the whole story or even the segment of the food producers I’m suggesting we as survivalists support. There are huge hidden costs to the production of cheap factory food. First of all, cheap food requires cheap labor. When people in South America are sick of being sprayed by pesticides and working for next to nothing, where do you think they are going to go?
Your hard earned dollars should not be supporting factory farms that are abusing humans (a Christian issue if ever there was one if that concerns you) or creating an economic climate that gives incentive to millions of desperate people to illegally enter the country. The cost of supporting these South American factory farms is inestimable when you factor in all of the issues surrounding illegal immigration, issues that should be on the minds of all Preparedness minded citizens. |

Second, factory farming requires the use of fertilizer made from oil, largely derived from the Middle East. Ask anyone with a child serving in Iraq what the cost of oil is and you are not going to get a dollar amount. I’m not suggesting that we should not use oil or that our actions in Iraq are unjust or unnecessary, far from it. I am suggesting that supporting a food production model that uses very little oil-based fertilizer is in the best interests of Americans. Small, local farms that utilize crop rotation and sustainable practices do not destroy the land at the same rate (often the land is replenished) and do not need to pump Saudi chemicals into the ground.

A trip to a farmer’s market is far different than a trip to a place like a Whole Foods store. Vegetables and livestock that are in season and not delivered very far (the Locavore rule of thumb is to try not to eat food from more than 100 miles away if you can help it) have a negligibly higher cost at the register and virtually no societal costs associated with factory farms.

This is really just the tip of the iceberg of the issues surrounding the ways factory farming weakens national security. The more you dig, the more you see that true freedom and liberty depends on the yeoman farmer so celebrated by Thomas Jefferson. The Jeffersonian agrarian ideal is alive and well and you can help it survive simply by shopping.

Think about this: if the stuff really hits the fan and the country goes to h*ll, whom do you want to be friends with? I want to be friends with hard working men and women that know how to grow food and make their land work for them. Shopping at farmer’s markets is a great way to make community connections that are both personally rewarding and potentially life saving. I know the names of many of the people I buy my food from and if I’m lucky I just might get to be a farm hand if things go bad.

Thankfully there seems to be a shift away from the “hoard away somewhere with guns and MREs and ride it out” model of survivalism. Those MREs are terrible and will eventually run out. If you had to survive on them for any period of time you would likely add a great deal of depression to what is likely going to be a stressful situation. I want to be in a position to eat real food. That requires knowing how to grow it, something that is well beyond even moderately accomplished hobby gardeners. Even the gnarliest “I’m gonna drive ‘the last of the V8 interceptors’ and pump .50 caliber rounds into any desperados I see” survivalist is likely including gardening books in their personal survival library.

If you want to learn how to do something, a book can be a great source of information, but it will likely never replace hands on learning from someone that knows what they’re doing. If you want to be able to grow enough food to live on you should know a farmer. It’s real easy to meet them. Just go to a market and ask them about their product.

Being able to grow food is more important than even being able to properly operate a firearm (and many who can do the former know the latter simply by cultural osmosis). If you are willing to buy premium American made firearms, learn from the knowledgeable through conversation and classes, and enjoy them, you should be willing to do the same with your food.
Like all the best survival preps, gardening is fun and rewarding on its own and provides a wonderful opportunity to connect with your family. It ranks right up there with teaching your kids how to fish and shoot, but it has unfortunately fallen out of vogue in the last fifty years. When you’re picking up a head of lettuce from your new friend that grew it for you, ask him how you might do the same. It could save your life.

Shopping at farmer’s markets protects national security interests, builds important connections with like-minded people able to withstand hard times, and provides a way for families to connect with the traditions of one of America’s most hardworking and iconic professions, the farmer. Much lore and utility can be learned from those that actually know how to do things and no thing is more important than being able to produce food.