Beginning in June, but steadily ramping up, I began to see stories in the alternative media regarding food shortages that were hitting already. These were occurring in scattered Walmart’s and Costco’s and the like, centered in primarily small towns and rural areas. Then, readers around the country began to weigh in and send photos which seem to paint a picture of an emerging crisis. These reports were coming from all over – and all with a similar theme. There are shortages in processed vegetables. Signs on the shelves would blame a poor harvest and “hope’ that most items would be back by the end of August. The popular wisdom looked at the millions of acres not planted due to the massive rainfall thus far – and the huge livestock losses – and said: ‘Yeah that’s bad. But it shouldn’t be hitting us for several months.’ But the evidence was telling a different story. One Arizonan told the All News Pipeline, “In Arizona we started having empty shelves in the grocery stores starting back in May.”[i]
So wanting to learn for myself, I interviewed the manager of one of our local grocery stores here in Buffalo. Her knowledge of the subject was reinforced by the fact that her husband is also in the food supply industry and has intimate knowledge in that field. She told me, yes, they have been seeing shortages for some time now, especially in frozen vegetables. That is quite alarming, because, she said that there had traditionally been a 3 to 4 year backlog of supplies in the warehouses. So the fact that they were seeing shortages now, before the full effects of this year’s expected record poor harvest, is quite alarming. That local manager expected to have continued issues with boxed food as well as frozen.
Now the food production problems have not been limited to the US. This is a global problem with different areas facing different issues. Some areas of Canada have been dealing with drought. In China, swarms of armyworms are “devouring grain crops.” Australia is importing grain.[ii] Europe is being seared with record temperatures. This problem is a world-wide phenomenon. A headline in the Israeli paper Haaretz emphasizes the point. “Revealed: Israel Is Dangerously Unprepared for Global Food Shortages.”
But weather has not been the only culprit. According to NASA, we can expect significantly lower temperatures due to the “grand solar minimum”, which is a time of greatly reduced sunspot activity. That, combined with the spate of volcanic eruptions, spewing volcanic ash into the atmosphere, could mimic some of the effect of the ‘volcanic winter’ that set in on the northern hemisphere in 1816. That event caused a drop in global temperatures resulting in major food shortages.[iii]
Let’s add in one last factor. America’s enemies are planning and launching attacks against our food supplies. ANP reports: “Police charged Amer Sinan Alhaggagi, a 22-year-old man from San Francisco, who spent time in Yemen. He is alleged to have tried to support ISIS, but also to “redefine terror” in the Bay Area. In his December 2016 court hearing, details emerged that he had discussed lacing drugs with rat poison and distributing them in nightclubs across the Bay Area. He had sought information from an undercover agent about mixing highly-toxic pesticide strychnine and cocaine.” And the Daily Mail warned that ISIS was using Iraqi prisoners to test various poisons that could be added to the food supply chain.[iv]
The bottom line: GET PREPARED! First of all spiritually. But also materially. You do not want to panic when a disaster hits – or – have to accept the government solution of FEMA camps and loss of all control over our own lives – if that is even available. The saying is ‘Civilization is nine meals away from chaos.’ Even when fully stocked, supermarkets only carry enough food for a few days. And then chaos descends, because people will go to great lengths to gather food for themselves and their families. That’s when society breaks down.
And it is NOT a sin to prepare. Recall, Pharaoh’s dream interpreted by Joseph found in Genesis 41. The Egyptian king saw 7 fat cows followed by 7 lean cows. “And the gaunt and ugly cows ate up the first seven, the fat cows. When they had eaten them up, no one would have known that they had eaten them, for they were just as ugly as at the beginning. ” (v 20 & 21) Then came a second dream where 7 healthy heads of grain were swallowed up by 7 “withered, thin, and blighted” heads.
(v 23) Then God gave Joseph the interpretation. Seven years of plenty would be followed by seven years of famine. God’s recipe for dealing with it: Prepare! We may not have seven years before the stuff hits the fan. But we have today. It is time to prepare. And it is time to put our full trust in Jesus, as our Lord and Savior and our provider, Jehovah-jireh! Trust Him!!
[i] Susan Duclos, Exclusive Photos From Readers Across The Country: Food Shortages Are Here, ANP, July 25, 2019
[ii] Stefan Stanford, New Crop Loss Map Shows A Trainwreck, ANP, June 28, 2019,
[iii] Stefan Stanford, New Crop Loss Map Shows A Trainwreck, ANP, June 28, 2019
[iv] ISIS tells its fanatics to poison food in Western supermarkets after testing the method on its prisoners in Iraq, Daily Mail,
September 6, 2017
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