Would you eat dirt?
Kathy McKinney
I’m not ashamed to admit that I’m scared these days. I’m a voracious reader, particularly of news sites online, and what I’ve been reading does not make for restful nights.
Did you know that in Haiti, people are eating dirt? Yes, dirt. Vendors are selling butter and salt flavored dirt to starving people. When I was a kid, Mary Elizabeth Cravey (now Shehane) and I used to eat dirt in the back yard with gigantic spoons we’d steal from her mama’s kitchen, so I can say, I’m something of an expert. You have to be darned hungry to eat dirt. (Unless you’re seven years old, of course.) How long until the Haitians tire of their dirt diet and join the hordes of illegal aliens we’re already trying to care for here now?
People are hungry all over: there have been food riots all over Egypt, the Caribbean, and the Phillipines, and the Director General of the UN FAO is predicting new ones in Asian countries. The price of the food staples of the poor: rice, wheat, and corn has been growing at an alarming rate. Food prices in Indonesia, for instance, are up 80% over two years ago. Rice prices are at a 20 year high, wheat is at a 28 year high…and countries are bidding up the prices in a frantic effort to stockpile enough to feed starving populations.
OK, well enough, it’s horrible and all that, but what does that have to do with us, right here in Dixie County? Have you been to the grocery store lately? Prices here are up, too. I felt the increase in corn prices just the other day as my normal dog food bill at the feed store went up almost 10% overnight. A courthouse chat with Ray Hodges about the price he’s charging for his beef (he’s going to have to raise it due to…you guessed it…feed costs) reminded me that the price of fertilizer is also climbing.
One side effect of rising grocery prices I’ve noticed is that more people seem to be planting gardens this year. Heck, I planted one, and I have killed a cactus. Yes, really, I have. I left it out in the rain. Apparently, they’re not as indestructible as you’d think and rain is bad for cacti. Since my friend Doug is doing most of the work (with the “assistance” of my three plant-stomping kids), the garden will hopefully have a better shot at survival than the ill-fated cactus.
That’s one blessing that we have, as a rural people. Most of us have the land and the knowledge of how to provide some of our own food. Like Hank, Jr. says, “He can skin a buck, he can run a trout line, and a country boy can survive.” Darn good thing, because I have the unnerving certainty that we’re going to need some of that self-reliance in the days ahead. Do your family a favor; plant something. Just in case. UPDATE: Link to story about Japan’s butter shortage