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© UnknownFood line in Detroit (2009)
Nearly everyone recognizes that the U.S. may be in for very hard times in the near future. Some economists are predicting financial collapse as catastrophic as the Great Depression. With a significant number of people now living in cities, far away from their food sources, one may be left to wonder if the degree of famine this time around may result in the starvation of the roughly 240 million Americans who are incapable of growing their own food.

The idea isn't as farfetched or alarmist as it may seem at first glance. At the turn of the 20th century, more than fifty percent of the American labor force earned a living through direct involvement in agriculture, but this number decreased to just 2% by the year 2000. Even more frighteningly, only .8% of Americans are involved in the industry full-time.

This transition is a distressing one indeed. While demographic shift from rural to urban lifestyles may seem like a blessing to many who loathe the hard labor associated with rural, agrarian life, it may spell disaster for those who are struggling through life in the Big City, hundreds or even thousands of miles from their food sources.

During the Great Depression, formerly wealthy executives stood in line for hours waiting in ragged clothes for a hand-out of hot soup, while the rural "poor" went about life as usual, barely noticing the Depression. Survivors of the Depression who lived in agrarian regions often joked that they were "too poor to notice the stock market crash", but they were, in fact, better off than the majority of inner-city workers in that they never went hungry. As a result of this, the one-half of Americans with access to their own home-grown foods were exempt from the horrors of the Great Depression.

Now imagine that, instead of 50% of the population suffering from the woes of an economic collapse, it was the 99.2% who are not involved in agriculture full-time. The comparison makes 1929 look like a walk in the park. Worse still, our food transporation services are now fully dependent on massive amounts of petroleum for transport, and the distances of food transporation have increased from tens of miles to thousands, which makes the modern grocery network look even more fragile by comparison.

Lost in our false sense of security, America has now forgotten the fine arts of gardening, canning, tending livestock, and cooking from scratch, and people who continue to do so are considered to be old-fasioned or out-dated. Anyone who tries to prepare and begins stockpiling food or raising hens is called an alarmist, and the vast majority of urban and suburban Americans make no attempt to prepare for the impending collapse.

The time has come fo anyone who is concerned about their (in)ability to feed themselves and their families to begin making accomodations to do so. A backyard garden may seem like an unnecessary waste of labor now, but it will seem like a godsend if and when our economy begins to crumble.

Source Used: U.S. Department of State. Outline of the U.S. Economy. American Agriculture: Its Changing Significance.