Do You Like to Eat?

So, do you like to eat?

Then think about this: No farmers, no food.

No bees, no food.

No field workers, no food.

No water, no food.

This brief and simple statement is terrifying. I don't know about you, but I enjoy eating. And now with the roundup of farm workers - - you know, the folks who toil in the hot sun harvesting our fruits and vegetables - - either being deported or being too scared to go to work for fear of being deported, who is going to do the hot, dirty, backbreaking work on which our food supply depends? 

One member of the regime has suggested that once the work requirment for recipients of Medicaid kicks in, there will be lots of people to do the dirty agricultural work. Sure, that 65-year-old granny will be a great field worker, right? 

And now, thanks to the current regime in Washington, farmers have lost valuable markets for their crops. Food is rotting in the fields. Grocery prices are skyrocketing.

And now that our longstanding environmental protections are either under attack or have been removed completely, bees and water are ar risk. Without bees to pollinate crops, and without adequate unpollueted water to irrigate plants, we will have no food.

I am not a big eater, especially since I lost my ability to smell or taste food as a result of a respiratory infection (long before covid came on the scene). But I still must eat. I love fresh fruit, the summer fruits in particular. So while I have a stockpile of non-perishable foods, i cannot stockpile fresh fruits and vegetables. 

With the threat of climate change, increasing temperatures and drought, the lack of field workers to harvest our produce and the destruction of environmental protections by the current regime, our food supply is increasingly at risk. We know that higher prices due to tariffs (the Trump tax) on imported foods are already showing up. Expect prices to go even higher. And there may be shortages down the road as well.

So, all you people who enjoy a fresh salad or a good steak (many slaughterhouse workers are brown-skinned immigrants), enjoy it while you can.