Prepping

Prepping is the expression being used for emergency prepardness. That is, being ready for the coming emergency, be it from financial collapse, energy crisis, or other event affecting the food and fuel supply. Crucially, it goes beyond self-sufficiency to what previous generations were aware of - stocking of supplies, whether in a pantry or in an emergency store. It also implies a distrust of central government, a belief that what began with state control of cannabis and sexuality will move to food production. US Federal SWAT teams are already raiding home milk, fruit and vegetable producers.

This website is about both self-sufficiency and planning for economic or other emergencies when food may become hard to obtain or simply not available.

The initiative discussed here is based on the experiences of two groups, one in County Wexford, Ireland and one in Texas. These two could hardly be more different. County Wexford, for example, has a cool climate, fertile soil and a ten month annual grass growing season. It is in one of the few countries most able to weather a severe international economic meltdown, because, unlike heavily populated neighbours, it has a good carrying capacity – that is, the amount of potentially productive land and other resources for the size of its population. Texas is drier and less fertile but has more space and probably more ingenuity.

The individuals behind both initiatives are agreed that what could slow down or stop their activities are incompetent government, bureaucratic state agencies, and an over-regulated society. The Texas group believes that the United States is headed for economic and financial collapse and, if this is so, with its dependency on US industry Ireland will follow. Apart from the dire economic state, governments and police forces in the Western world have become intolerably intrusive and over-bearing. Never was the quotation about government at the top truer. If you decide to begin or join in an initiative, such as that described here, do not expect assistance from the State, but instead expect regulation, taxation or even being shut down should the authorities learn about it.There is a growing movement worldwide to adopt the initiatives described here.

What is here, however, is applicable mainly to Ireland in the first instance and brings together two ideas that are already underway elsewhere, especially in the US, which are the need for both long term self-sufficiency and that of a short-term interim procedure.

The overall political picture

Countries with strong economies and political systems that have not been compromised by corruption and incompetence can survive national and international crises without descent into anarchy. The carrying capacity of the country is as important as a stable and trusted political system. Canada, for example, although suffering long and extreme winters has the greatest amount of arable land per citizen in the world. Unfortunately for Canadians, however, right next door to them is what is becoming the world’s most perilous country with huge profligacy, spiralling debt, collapsing manufacturing industry and widening social issues, such as a growing number of its citizens disenchanted with government and planning for coming crises by both stockpiling and armed defence.

Where there is both carrying capacity and a trusted government, which there could be throughout North America, citizens can be mobilised into a national response to an emergency as happened in Ireland during World War Two when imports, including fuel for transport, ceased. There can be a harmonious marriage of government rationing, food distribution and local markets. Ireland, however, while having perhaps the best carrying capacity in the world and being an island safe from invasion from hungry hoards, has at present what has been demonstrably one of the most incompetent governments and corrupt banking systems in the world. Despite this, if the population is not to descend into anarchy in a major crisis, the government has to be supported to the extent that it is prepared and has the competence to set up a rationing and food distribution system, which means that it must work constructively with farmers.

Those striving for what will be a necessary degree of self–sufficiency, which will have the two elements of reducing demand on the shared national food stock and increasing the amount of that stock, will have to maintain a fine balance between supporting government in the overall interest of law and order and resisting official interference. The best way to achieve this is to increase the effectiveness of local co-operative efforts: engage as much as possible with local producers and small local markets and depend on the national system for what is available through them only, such as fuel, medicine and food that cannot be sourced locally.

An interesting comparison between the Wexford and Texas groups is that the latter is armed and expecting to have to use the guns for protection, in other words expecting anarchy, while the Wexford group, armed only to the extent of having shotguns for normal farming and hunting purposes, is expecting a repeat of the World War Two experience from government, although not one so competent and from government leaders no longer trusted by citizens.

More here on the Texas initiative

There is no recovery. There is a cover-up.

Watch and listen to Youtube video #1

Watch and listen to Youtube video #2

How this web site will work

From the very beginning, those who believe that they can participate in the initiative, or repeat it elsewhere, are invited to assist in designing, planning and carrying it out, particularly by correcting and improving on the information here and by providing sources of products and expertise.

While locals will achieve the greatest effect in terms of physical sharing, in the form of volunteering or bartering, the sharing of information will have no geographical limits for as long as we have energy to power our communications.

Go to Starting out

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