If you live in America, there is a good chance you have a ton of holes in your food chain. The vast majority of Americans don’t even know what food security is. As long as they can get to the store and buy their food, they are happy. Unfortunately, when the pandemic hit, it was eye opening for a lot of people. This series is here to help you identify and start to fill the holes in your food security.
To start we need to figure out what food security means to you and your family. To me, food security means having the ability to source the food, water, and necessities my family and animals need to survive at a minimum. If you don’t know what that looks like, you came to the right place.
In order to start filling food security holes, you need to first identify them. Then you can start figuring out how to close those holes. Remember, we are trying to source these items. Are you on a special diet? What do you know how to cook? What do you like to eat? These are all very important questions in closing food security holes.
After you have figured out steps to close those holes, we are going to talk about things that you can start doing no matter where you live to close food security holes.
Lastly, we are going to cover how to have an emergency food supplies so that if you end up in a situation where you don’t have or can’t get food, you can feed your family.
Why is this so important to me?
Well, recently we had to replace our well pump. I know you’re thinking, “Leigh, a well pump isn’t about food and food security.” But it is. Without water, all things will die.
When we moved on to our homestead, we were told that the well pump was pretty new but to have a couple of pump switches on stand by because the power would surge and cause the switch to fail. The first night we were here, the water cut off in the middle of my shower. I had to use bottled water to finish washing my hair. I called my step dad and the old owner trying to figure out what happened. The switch failed. For the next several months we dealt with the water randomly cutting off or the water stopping if we ran the back spigot. Multiple plumbers came out and no one knew how to fix it. Then one morning, the water cut off completely.
This is a big problem, without water you cannot drink, shower, water crops or animals. Since the other plumbers couldn’t figure out the problem, I decided to call a well plumber. We were showering at the stations because we had no water at home and we were giving our animals bottled water. There was also a winter storm bearing down on us that was supposed to hit that weekend. The stores were running out of water. In short, we were screwed if we couldn’t get water.
The well plumbers came out and said it was the well pump. When we explained it was a brand new pump, they said that everything we were describing; running out of water, low pressure, etc were all because of the pump. Once it was replaced, we never had another problem.
So how does this relate to food security?
Simple: if you do not have water, you cannot cook, clean, drink, or survive. Without that well pump, our animals would die of thirst.
Food security includes water, food, and basic necessities like soap, medications, first aid, and clothes just to name a few things. So what can you do to start identifying holes in your food security and fixing them?
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