Selfsufficientish.com

I saw on Looks North the other evening that farmers in Lincolnshire are plowing spuds in. Then tonight a news item said America is suffering the worst droughts for years and farmers there are ploughing in wheat, corn and soya. Aparently, corn prices have climbed 45% already and soybeans, 22%.

Surely this is going to put prices up in the shops?

Should I stock up on flour and chicken food?

It's a tad more complicated than that, unfortunately. At least here in the U.S., the drought will affect the prices of pretty much EVERYTHING. That's because even if a product doesn't contain corn, the gasoline used to truck the raw materials to the factory, and then the finished products out to point-of-sale or export, is cut with ethanol, made from,....yep! Corn. Most of us aren't that happy with this, but the Big Ag guys love it.

In any case, we're being told to brace for skyrocketing prices on groceries especially (it's already started), but also home heating costs will be affected. So, yes, we are trying to put back a little extra,...of everything.

The price of beef is currently down---for about fifteen minutes.

I bought chicken feed yesterday and it's already gone up. I did think about buying two bags but it'll go off before they eat it all.
Zoe

Doesn't "plowing spuds in" just mean they'll grow again next year?

Not in any way worth having - they are being ploughed in as a soil improver rather than lose everything. The sports that might grow back will likely be small misshapes that are neither use to man nor beast in the current way of food production.

We're going to buy some flour and rice in bulk cos of the food prices - makes a lot of sense considering you get the benefit from economies of scale too. We don't have chickens at the moment but one thing I'm looking in to for when we do have some is growing our own chook food. This will either be in the form of grains or simply growing fruit trees and shrubs in the chicken run so that they can feed themselves to some extent.

Oh, another thing I read recently is that someone was feeding their chickens dead coyote (southern USA somewhere)... Chickens are omnivorous so whether it was the actual coyote they were eating or just insect larvae I don't know

EcoSam wrote: Oh, another thing I read recently is that someone was feeding their chickens dead coyote (southern USA somewhere)... Chickens are omnivorous so whether it was the actual coyote they were eating or just insect larvae I don't know

Wherever that is they must be very skilled at killing predators !They're very hard to hit with a rifle. We've got them all around us---packs of them. They run through the yard some nights,...which drives the dog crazy (his "bedroom" is our mud room). One night, right after we bought the place, I heard noise in the backyard and went out to investigate, and as I rounded the corner of the house I came face-to-face with numerous sets of eyes glowing in the flashlight! Scary!

Chickens or coyote? I have visions of packs of rabid chickens running amock, using their skill as preditors to catch and eat coyote!

marshlander wrote:Chickens or coyote? I have visions of packs of rabid chickens running amock, using their skill as preditors to catch and eat coyote!

Coyote,...I've never been "chicken" of chickens