Real farmers knew there were more prediction groups than the U.S. Meteorological Service. Most of them had gone down in the Plague but a few were still up. And their forecasts were dismal. But even in dismal weather, good farmers can react, adapt and overcome. They'd started to.
Then came the Big Grab. Most major farms, including those run by massive farming corporations like Arthur Daniels Midland and Con-Agra, were seized. The tofu-eaters in the USDA had lists and lists of fellow-travellers, many of whom were standing in bread lines, who were ready to "assist in this time of need."
Out they went to the farms. Taking the place of experts with decades of experience.
In Zimbabwe it had been "veterans." Most of them weren't; they were just violent psycopathic supporters of the president. They had gone out, thrown out the (experienced, professional) owners and been settled on high function farms then run them into the ground.
In the U.S. it was reluctant sheriffs going to farms and telling the managers-owners that this is the new boss. You obey his/her orders, now.
I don't have much charity in my heart for those tofu-eaters but there is some. They'd been going to soup kitchens and lining up for their bowl of gruel in the snow. Suddenly, they're plucked up and whisked out to a fucking farm and told to run it.
These were people who had written pamphlets on the proper care and storage of your organically grown vegetables. How to run an organic garden. Some of them not even that, just people who subscribed to those journals in the hopes that someday they, too, could be expert organic farmers.
They're dropped off on a massive farm in the beginnings of a killer winter and told: You're in charge.
Ever seen a combine harvester? Even the small ones are fucking huge. They look like a cross between a dump truck and an insect.
Most of the managers had already been told their services were no longer required. They'd stuck around long enough for the "government nationalization management personnel" to turn up then waved goodbye. Most of them didn't live on the farms. The ones who did had family they were going to. There were houses, with small acreage, up for grabs. Might be some trace of the dead residents but that's okay. They'll understand.
They were planning on setting up for the winter as well as they could and using their long experience to provide enough food for their family to survive. Most of them were thinking greenhouses, most efficient production method thereof. Where can I get a whole bunch of plastic sheeting and some iron tubes?
Ranches. Here's how the majority of the beef in the U.S. is produced.
Cattle produce males (bulls) and females (cows) at the same rate as humans, pretty much 50/50. Cows have a long-term economic benefit; they provide more cattle. In the dairy industry, well, you don't get milk from a bull or a steer.
The majority of males, 90%, do not. They are useless for providing more cattle. One bull and ten cows is a decent ratio. You can go with one in fifteen or so.
The rest are deballed at six months, generally, and spend the next few years, three normally, eating grass on big spreads. (These are steers. Males without balls. Also what farmers call male tofu-eaters.) People think they're all in Texas. They're not. Florida had more beef cattle than Texas. More rain equals more grass equals more steers you can run on an acre. Average in Florida was three head of cattle per acre.
Out west, Wyoming and such, there were areas where it was three acres per head. But they had lots of room. And there wasn't anything else you could do with the land. (Unless you were a tofu-eater and then you just left it "pristine." And killing cattle is murder. Fine. You eat your tofu. I'm going to be over here with a nice juicy steak.)
They get up to a certain age and they're then moved to feed lots. Cattle that eat nothing but grass are a) very very tough meat and b) taste "gamey." (I don't really mind gamey meat but most Americans were pansies about their eating. I do mind tough.) There they sat on "feed lots" with piles of corn and mixed foods (to give them that perfect taste) and fed up. Also various additives to speed up the fattening process.
Last they were moved to slaughter houses and turned into steaks, hamburger and all the rest. Bits that American humans wouldn't eat became pet-food.
Comes the Big Chill. Professional ranchers are looking at the real weather forecasts and going "oh, my God."
See, even in good winters the grass falls off. You've got, say, one head per acre. That works in spring and summer and into fall. But come winter you've got to lay out hay (cut grass) for the cattle so they can make it through the winter. Harsher environments you have to lay out more than nicer environments. But in both you've got to lay out some.
Hay harvests had gotten massively fucked up by the weather. Storms were coming in all through the summer, what there was of it. To get hay, you have to cut it, let it dry and then harvest. If it gets rained on after it's cut, or if it's still wet from the rain when you cut it, it "sours" and gets fungal infections. Even cows can get sick from it. (Horses will die.) Ever heard the term "hay-making weather." Hot, dry and stays that way?
We didn't have much of that in the summer of 2019.
Hay was short. And they were looking at the most fucked up winter in recent history.
Way up north, cattle will die if it gets too cold. And it was predicted, by everyone except the Met service, to get really fucking cold. That meant the only cattle they could run were those they had shelter for. Which meant nothing but "base stock." Those ten cows and one bull.
Ranchers were calling feed lots all over the place, trying to get their cattle sold. Nobody was buying. There wasn't food to feed them. The slaughter houses were overrun and everyone was trying to recover from the Plague.
The USDA probably couldn't have been any help. But even if it could, the bosses didn't see the issue.
"The forecast for the winter is not that severe. And killing cattle is murder, anyway. Let them graze in happy peacefulness. It's good that they can't be industrially slaughtered."
Are you grabbing your hair in fury? You should be. The famines of 2020 and 2021 weren't because of the farmers or the evil farm corporations. Hell, they weren't in charge of food production. The "rationalizers" were in charge. When the farmers got back in charge, they proved they could react, adapt and overcome. 2022 wasn't a bumper crop year, but it fed not only the U.S. but various other nations.
Ranchers, too, were getting pushed out. Nationalization of the farming industry was the Hero Project of the latter Warrick administration. People could sign up at the soup kitchens. A lot of people figured that being on a farm was going to be a better place than in a city come winter. And how hard could it be?
The county agents were overwhelmed. They were supposed to be "organizing" the local "farming cooperative groupings" to "produce maximal output for the upcoming season" and they knew they were in deep shit. They might like organic methods but they knew that industrial was more efficient. And most of them were smart enough to know that the shit coming from the Met Service was so much baloney.
Enter the U.S. Army.
We'd gotten, in most areas, the food distribution, what there was of it, under control. We'd gotten local groups, "voluntary associators" and even companies to handle it. We couldn't turn it over to corporations because they were "bad." (Bechtel, by the way, handled something like 90% of the recovery from Hurricane Katrina. It was defunct but another would have started up, from pretty much the same people, if we'd put out bids. We couldn't let bids. Neither could FEMA.)