financially, water would be the number one priority, even over food, if the TSHTF. we really don’t need much to survive. I only take 2 showers a,week and would be willing to cut down. I basically wipe down with a damp rag. I’d cut down on all discretionary spending to get a few gallons for home use.
it wouldn’t be the end of the society. it’d be like camping.[/quote]
I like camping (when I know I have an exit strategy), but don’t think I’d like camping when I have to account for the weapons of mass financial destruction (or geopolitics) when back in town…
[quote=motherjones.com]
Wall Street Investors Take Aim at Farmland
Corporations are starting to buy up US farmland, especially in areas dominated by industrial-scale agriculture, like Iowa and California’s Central Valley. But the land-grabbing companies aren’t agribusinesses like Monsanto and Cargill. Instead, they’re financial firms: investment arms of insurance companies, banks, pension funds, and the like.
For Wall Street, farmland represents a “reassuringly tangible commodity” with the potential for “solid, if not excellent, returns,”
The value of the California almond market hit $4.8 billion in 2012—that’s triple the level of a decade earlier. Only dairy is worth more to the state than almonds and grapes. In fact, almonds, along with California-grown pistachios and walnuts, are becoming so lucrative that big investment funds, eager to get in on the boom, are snapping up land and dropping in trees.
There’s just one problem: Almond orchards require about a third more water per acre than grape vineyards.
Why Saudi Arabia bought 14,000 acres of US farm land
The Middle Eastern kingdom needs hay for its 170,000 cows. So, it’s buying up farmland for the water-chugging crop in the drought-stricken American Southwest.
