If the Stuff Hits The Fan (SHTF) where is the food going & water going to come from? To me, that’s the single biggest question when it comes to choosing a bugout location. So… let’s talk about where the food is…
Strangely, at least in my opinion, it doesn’t seem to be the number one concern for many if not most preppers.
As we often have, here’s a podcast to listen to while to while you read the rest of this article.
This scene could be just about any major city around the world, right? If the SHTF, where is the food & water for the people who live in these buildings going to come from? How soon with the food rioting start?
Cities are just like deserts
Seriously, look at the picture above. That could be any modern city around the globe. Think for one moment about how many people live and work just in the area that’s visible in this picture. Now, think about how much food and water is grown and / or collected in this picture.
Cities consume, they don’t produce, food and water.
If there’s a shortage of food and water, doesn’t it make sense to be where the food comes from, not where it ends up?
A question, an answer
“Ok everyone, SHTF and your hunkered down in your house with your family. Everything you prepared for is happeneing. There is a family outside (Father, Mother and 2 kids). They were not prepared. They have no food, tools, shelter etc…
Do you help them out? Let them shack with you for a night or 2? Do you give them a few supplies and send them on their way? Or too bad for them they should have prepared, every thing you give to them is taking away from your family?”
Here’s my answer:
There is a HUGE advantage to living where we live, in a very small town. Everybody knows everybody. We know who the good people are, and we know who the trash are. Everybody knows everything.
In the situation described, we would deal with it as a community, we are small enough that we are basically one big extended family. People wouldn’t just be “wondering lost up and down our streets”, no matter how bad things were.
We live where city people’s food comes from. We have more food in our grain elevators than we could possibly eat. Our area produces enough cattle to feed 100,000 people and there are less than 4,000 people in our county. This is a big deal.
The decisions we are forced into making “if the SHTF” are influenced by our choices today.
So what does this mean?
Many/most people don’t see living where the food is as a viable option, for many reasons. Family ties are high on many people’s lists, as obviously are jobs… why would anybody move to a place where they couldn’t find employment?
Most simply wouldn’t, and I get that.
My point, however, is that while you may not live where the food is, I think it’s a good idea to have a plan to escape to where the food is if you have to bug out.
Instead of bugging out into the wild, where there’s a lot less to eat than many people think there will be, I’m encouraging everybody to start paying attention to bug-out options into areas where food will be in excess if the Stuff Hits The Fan (SHTF), not where people will be fighting over the limited chow that there is.
Food doesn’t grow on trees… oh, wait… strike that, I guess it does
I’ve got a whole yard full of trees growing food, as well as many raised garden beds growing fruits and vegetables as well.
Another option is to make your place, wherever you are, where the food is by growing a significant part of what your family eats. By developing a well protected, well managed garden now… when times are plenty… you will have it as a resource for when times get bad.
Additionally, I think it’s important to have a deep larder stored inside your house, so that you house is where the food is as well. A deep larder will get you by for quite a while, if you are able to keep it secure, but it’s not the long-term answer to survival… eventually, you will have to raise or bring in food.
So… where is the food? Where is the water
I live in a small town (less than 2000 people) that’s basically remained the same for the last 30 years. My county’s population is growing not because of industrial development but rather because Amish and Mennonite families tend to have 6-10 kids.
In my state, Missouri, yes, there have been a lot of small communities eaten by St. Louis, Kansas City & Springfield, but there’s still a lot of towns that have changed very little… you just have to get off the interstates and onto the blue roads to find them.
I live here because I like clean air, it’s safe, and it’s free. If I want to strap on a 6-shooter and go to the grocery store, nobody’s even going to give me a second look. We have rifles in racks in our pickup-truck’s back windows. We go to church, most of the community will be at the football games on Friday night (whether they have kids involved or not).
We are an agricultural community. We are exporters, not importers. We grow things for city people to consume. We are where the food comes from, and where vast amounts of grain are stored (to feed livestock that we grow). We are where the orchards are. We grow grapes for the wineries. We are where there’s enough cattle to feed 40 times the number of people that we have.
We don’t have movie theaters, there are just 2 places in town (not counting spinning meat at our 2 C-stores) to eat. We have agricultural jobs, we have a bunch of people who do metal and wood fabrication and who sell their products nationally. There is work here, it’s just not office 9-5 in most cases.
My point? Thousands upon thousands of towns just like us, many a little bigger (5000 or less) and some a little smaller (1,000) are out there. By and large, if/when the stuff hits the fan (SHTF) these towns are going to be a whole lot better place to live than any suburb or city.
In conclusion
I don’t expect anybody to read this and think “Wow, I’ve got to go plan our move!”, but I’m hoping to at least get you looking around and considering where it is the food you eat comes from… because that’s where the food is going to be if the trucks stop running… and that’s something you need to plan for.
Like this:
Like Loading...
FEMA IS AWARE OF YOUR FOOD STORAGE, BEWARE OF FEMA, THE DEEP STATE, SHADOW GOVERNMENT, KEEP YOUR POWDER DRIED AND RIFLE ZERO IN.
Somehow I think FEMA would be much more likely to be concerned about gathering up all of the elevators worth of grain, and all of the tens of thousands of heads of livestock that live in my county as opposed to my few cans of freeze dried veggies and a couple dozen cans of tuna.