Famine

[prairiegardens]

A few thoughts the first being the Ted Talks by Hans Rosling who found consistently around the world as countries raised the standard of living and health care improves, the birth rate drops. IIrc a few years back Canada had a negative birth rate, not sure if Japan is close to that now, so encouraging retired people to stay working. Or so I read a couple of months ago.

The second is that war and the aftermath typically are marked by a baby boom, so stopping blowing people up would probably help.

The third is that estimates are that between a third and a half of all food produced now is wasted.

The fourth is I was just listening to a docuseries and the researcher was saying that autistm was 1 in 10,000 up until the 1980s, right now it's something like 1 in 43 and if it keeps rising at the same rate by 2030 it will be 1 in 2, "and that's the end of a civilization".

The other day was looking at posters from WW 2 about Victory Gardens, it was the patriotic thing to grow food.  One thing which seemed odd was that a 25x50 foot garden plan suggested on one looked very detailed but didn't include corn or potatoes. 

[blueadzuki]

Well, I find it doubtful that corn was high on the priority list for the VG designers. Sweet corn would not have helped the war food supply much (it couldn't be transported readily and while there is some starch, I'm not sure there is enough that the people in charge of the VG design team would have considered it a carbo source worth its space)

And the average small time grower hadn't grown field corn since the days of the "corn patch and cabin rights". Not to mention that a bunch of little itty bitty plugs of field corn are not going to give you anything of the yield of what you would get if you stuck all of them together into one spot. If they had been clever they could have encouraged communities to turn their large public spaces (such as town squares) into corn and wheat fields to be tended by the community as a whole, but they didn't. And people back then might not have been all that familiar with growing potatoes on a small personal scale (again, that was something no one had really done for a while) They were basically encouraging people to grow the kind of things they had been growing at home for a while, just on a larger and more purposeful scale. If you looked at the types of beans and peas in those gardens, I am pretty sure what you would mostly see are types designed for green beans and snap/sweet peas, not dried beans and soup peas.

It is important to remember that while the Victory Garden was sort of designed to up food production, it tended to be along the lines of encouraging people to grow the more perishable vegetables they ate on their own so as to free up the land of the places that normally grew them for sale for more industrial commodity products. VG were sort of an urban suburban thing; people who owned actual FARMS were probably encouraged to turn their WHOLE farm into a place making food for the troops (as in growing things the government could buy and process into food to send over there). Turning each little patch of land into a full fledged homestead which produced all the food it needed to survive and then some extra for the troops just wasn't the model they were looking for. It MIGHT have been, if the war had dragged on long enough (or if casualties had become so severe the government had to consider the possibility that, even IF they won, they'd then have to deal with a massive labor shortage as there wouldn't be enough men coming back to father enough children to make up for the losses (it happened in parts of Russia and Europe, which is why they came up with the idea of the Motherhood medal) Or if they actually got so low on men they had to draft all the women too and place all children in government boarding schools/ education centers) But it didn't so they didn't

[mskrieger]

The Motherhood medal is fascinating. I just looked it up. They weren't fussy about whether the woman honored was married or not. She just had to have at least 10 children. Women who had between 5 and 9 children were eligible for the Maternal Order of Glory. And these laws are still in effect in some parts of the former USSR.

[blueadzuki]

I actually imagine they would PREFER the woman and man were not married. This IS the USSR we are talking about. Not married meant you had the opportunity for something similar to the German Liebensborn program; "superior" Soviets brought together for reproduction (or once the tech got good enough, simply artificially inseminating prime mother material with "superior" sperm,) the resultant children raised by the state to be "perfect" Soviets. Do that for a few generations and Stalin could liquidate EVERYONE else.

Even if it was just random liaisons, there would be less loss of labor in the form of soldiers/workers who wanted to come home at some point to raise a family (if no one knows who thier kids are, the workers and soldiers can be made workers and soldiers for LIFE, no need to ever let them end their service) and less money (no one needs to be able to send money home to take care of their wives if no one HAS a wife)

[steev]

Yes; people as fungible resources; so much more amenable to Top-Down government and Central Planning by those really "qualified" to rule.

If you have more people than you can employ/manage, you can start a war to dispose of excess people, if not win valuable resources.

Totalitarian/monarchial regimes have often made population growth a primary goal; having trouble producing food? Produce cannon fodder; we'll get the resources to produce food from the neighbors through force of numbers! All you patriotic women: can you say "MOO"? C'mon, now: MOO! OINK! and BAAH! are also acceptable.

Given the population losses of the Soviet Union in WWII, one might have some sympathy for their desire to re-build their population, except that less population means the pie gets cut into less-small pieces; not very important to oligarchs, of course, as is so obvious here in the USA.

Stop breeding and eat the rich!

[prairiegardens]

Read yesterday that one city in Texas is subsidizing chicken coops and offering chicken raising classes. Texas has to be one of the more complicated places in the US., so tangled up with contradictions, most elements of which seem to be fervently supported no matter how conflicting they appear to be.

[steev]

Back in the 70's, when I was a "graveyard shift" cabbie in the East Bay, near dawn, it became obvious who had chickens/ducks in their yards; nowadays, it's "trendy", with weekend classes in "urban poultry-keeping". It's all good.

[prairiegardens]

Apparently it's not in the cause of better food it's in the cause of less garbage, a place to put garbage is a growing headache for most cities. It seems Austin has realized that waste food can go through a chicken rather than directly to the landfill and thus ease the rate the landfill is growing. Good result, whatever the motivation, except I'm wondering what they are going to do when all those chickens get past the point of laying eggs in a few years. I bet even in Texas there are lots of people who don't think twice about carrying a gun but will be squeamish about doing in chickens.

[steev]

If they don't know what to do with over-aged chickens, they don't know where chicken soup comes from; I do think a lot of urban poultry-keepers fall into the "pet" trap and buy birds raised in "factories" for food.

I have a farm-neighbor who raises pigeons for fun, but won't eat them; they over-populate, so he'd be happy to give me some, even knowing that I'd eat them; grilled with a nice cilantro-jalapeno marinade: fine chow!

[reed]

I recently "inherited" some city chickens from a woman who realized 15 pet chickens in a tiny back yard just wasn't going to work out. All beautiful birds with colorful plumage and tame as can be. Terrible layers of small eggs, worthless other than on the grill. She knows their likely fate, just doesn't want to hear about it. I can do that.

[prairiegardens]

I can't point fingers, years ago I got some rabbits after a neighbor assured me he would do them in for a share. I can skin, gut, cook and certainly eat them once they are dead but actually killing them is another story. Turned out it was another story for him as well and he begged off. A week or two later we moved and somehow the rabbits got out, my daughter was looking after a German Shorthair Pointer, beautiful dog trained to hunt birds. His instincts kicked in and he nailed every one of them highly efficiently, I hated to think about his next bird hunting adventure but was very grateful. It was the first time I knew rabbits had voices, they scream like a child. He was very quick though, grab shake drop next!

Recently bought a rabbit cage, supposedly have found someone to do the deed....I know I'm a wimp and it's hypocritical to eat them if I can't kill them, but so far times haven't been that dire. Intending to add chickens as well but those as much for tick and bug patrol as eggs/meat, guinea hens better for bug hunting but the noise level and wildness suggest chickens a better fit.

[prairiegardens]

Apr 24, 2017 14:34:21 GMT -5 mskrieger said:

The Motherhood medal is fascinating. I just looked it up. They weren't fussy about whether the woman honored was married or not. She just had to have at least 10 children. Women who had between 5 and 9 children were eligible for the Maternal Order of Glory. And these laws are still in effect in some parts of the former USSR.

Years ago there was a huge furor in Toronto, someone with an.... unusual... sense of humour and a whole lot of money died and left some unique bequests, among them I think it was a million dollars to the woman who produced the most children in ten years. At the time a million dollars was a LOT of money.  It led to all sorts of legal tangles such did a stillborn child count and did the mother have to live in Toronto and did kids who were already on the way before the start date count.  I don't remember how many kids the winner had, actually I think there was a tie.  But a whole lot of women ended up with a whole lot of kids they probably wouldn't have otherwise,  in a valiant effort to win the money. 

[blueadzuki]

I think you mean thislink

[steev]

There is/was a thing called a "Rabbit Wringer", for breaking their widdow necks, no blood or commotion involved.

[prairiegardens]

There still is, a very efficient gadget it is too, apparently. It's not the blood and commotion that bother me; cutting off the head after the animal was dead would still give me the collywobbles.although after that I'm good to go. Same as chickens...speaking of which does anyone ever skin chickens, geese etc to short circuit the plucking time? I wonder if it's possible to do that and maybe freeze them until later then separate the feathers from the skin. I wonder if anyone has ever tried to tan a chicken skin with the feathers still attached. Some breeds the cockerels in particular have magnificent colouring.. I could imagine that being used in haute couture when nobody is actually expected to wear the clothes ( are they? Isn't it sort of clothes as art, rather than clothing?)

Anyway that's all off topic sorry 5 am ramblings