The problem being with livestock that had to be culled, well, we're back to everything getting backed up.
"Yes, I know the slaughterhouses are overloaded. Look, you're in Wisconsin. You're not going to warm up for months. Just slaughter them on site. Should have been done months ago. Store the carcasses anywhere you can keep them away from scavengers . . . Yes, I know it's a gruesome business. I grew up on a farm. Yes, I'm a real farmer, thank you. I've got a degree in this stuff . . . Actually, I can send you a pamphlet on the proper method of slaughtering cattle. But just remember, if you've got anything like feed for them, keep some breeding stock. That's the bull, he's the one with balls, and a few cows. You'll need x pounds of stock feed or x rolls of hay per animal per week. And with the temps they're predicting for your area, you're going to have to barn them every night . . . Yes, it is a lot of work. No, I don't know where you can get more help. There's a lot of people standing in soup lines. Go to one of those and ask . . . Sorry if you found that offensive, sir. Perhaps you could find some Mexicans. But the last time a soldier saw enough Mexicans to help was at the Alamo and we all know how that turned out . . . Hello?"
Okay, a lot of complaints.
California started getting "unseasonable" rains. That would have helped, a lot, in Imperial Valley if most of the people there had any clue what they were doing. But the real farmers were on soup lines (okay, most of them weren't) and the idiots from soup lines were trying to farm.
And the farms didn't have a lot of food on them. The ones that had actual houses (many didn't) had been stripped by the departing owners or managers. They weren't going to leave their food for the grasshoppers.
So some of the "experts" sent out to "rebuild the farming industry" decided that they were better off in soup lines.
ADM, when it got "nationalized," sent out along with its pink-slips a way for their various managers and "associated farmers" to keep in touch. Basically, it was a "forwarding address" database. Some of them didn't do it. But farmers are planners. And if they had any chance of getting back onto the farms, they were going to take it. It took a while and Con-Agra just basically went tits up. But in 2021 when the new administration went into reverse on all this, ADM was waiting. Which is why it really dominates the industry now.
But that's then.
A disaster? It was more of a nightmare. And at the call center we were the acoustic engineers getting every last nuance of the sound of the train wreck.
I was still there as spring came around. And the nightmare really got in motion.
But I'm getting ahead of myself again.
I think I only contributed one useful item the whole damned time I was stuck in the call center and that was by accident.
I was just coming off shift. I looked and felt like shit. I knew I was going to get a few more complaints added to the stack. It had been one of those nights.
I have no clue why the general in charge of ESM decided to stop by the field grade officer's can. But there he was, taking a whiz, when I flipped out my pecker in the next urinal and had to, as usual, back waaay up.
(Wife Edit: Be nice!)
I knew who he was. I didn't say anything. He did.
"You're Bandit Six."
"Yes, sir."
"What the hell are you doing in here? Get lost in the Puzzle Palace?"
"I work for you, sir."
"You do?"
"ESMAESM call center night shift supervisor."
"How in the hell . . . ? Lieutenant" To his aide. "You know who Bandit Six is, right?"
"Yes, sir!"
"Sorry, Bandit. I had no clue you worked in my shop. But you were a farmer, right?"
"Yes, sir." (Zipping up.)
"Any suggestions?"
"Gotta get the livestock slaughtered, sir. That's all you can do this time of year. Should have been done months ago. And plan for next but we can't do that. All we can do is react."
"Slaughterhouses are full, so is cold storage. I had a brief on that yesterday . . ."
"Sir, we're looking at the coldest winter on record. Zones one through three, maybe four, you can slaughter them and hang them from trees and they'll keep all winter. Hell, we'll have eaten it all out by spring."
"Most of the farmers that are part of the . . ."
"Are idiots. Yes, sir. I run the call center, sir. And even then, the ranchers don't have the hands and the ones that are . . . transportees don't have the experience. Or in most cases the guts or will or willingness to do the work. But we, the Army, are going to need that food, sir. And we, the Army, do have hands. Sir. And guts. And willingness to work hard for survival. Sir."
"Interesting point. Lieutenant, block out some time for Bandit Six to stop by. I used to be a tanker before I got stuck on this crap detail. I'd like to talk to you about Khuwaitla."
"Yes, sir."
I went back to my quarters and forgot about the incident.
However, a week later the order went out to start "Emergency Slaughter Teams."
It wasn't just soldiers. Groups would go to the soup lines and pick up any people who a) looked fit enough and b) were willing to "do some hard work for better food." There was no pay. The pay was fresh meat, which was rare for most people in those days.
Some of the "farmers" didn't want to slaughter their pets. Most, however, had seen their feed almost totally depleted. In "Zones One through Three," the northern border down to North Carolina, dipping down to southern Oklahoma and then back up to northern California, snow was already on the ground to stay. Pigs, especially, were out of food. Pigs will eat anything. So will people. There wasn't any food for the people.
Well, there was. Rye bread from farmers who had seen that the summer of 2019 was going to be screwed and soup made up of anything that was available. Spices were a rare commodity.
Meat quickly became a common commodity for a while. There was quite a bit in those soups during the winter of early 2020. Might have kept the death rate down a touch.
Lost a lot of livestock unnecessarily. By the time the ESTs were really getting in gear most of the livestock, including breeding stock, had died of malnutrition or exposure. But we got some of the food. That was something. Not that it helped in the long-run but few things do.
By February all the livestock was either slaughtered down to breeding groups or dead. People were dying, too. Lots of people. Despite my "heroic efforts" fuel for power and heat was at a premium. There was a, in my opinion, good government program to make sure people could get what they needed. Ration cards and such. But there was never enough. And people died in blizzards when their meager stocks of food and fuel ran out. And cities lost power and people froze.
Everything froze. The sugar cane in south Florida froze. Old people in retirement in Phoenix and Miami froze.
And people died on soup lines because they were already malnourished (one small chunk of rye bread and a cup of soup is not enough to keep most humans going forever) and it was bloody cold and nobody had the right clothing and China wasn't making Gortex parkas anymore.
People got frostbite and hypothermia. They dropped like flies.
And it wasn't even the really bad winter.
Farmers are planners. They sit on their tractors and in their dens and peer into the future though cloudy crystal balls, trying to discern what wheat and soy is going to be worth a year in advance. They look at the long-range weather reports. They watch the flight of the wild geese.