Source: Roger Froikin, May 6, 2025
Whether a nation can be self-sufficient or not, two things are needed — One being availability of energy and natural resources and the other being ability bio feed the population well with domestic production.
One reason the US Sanctions on Russia have been much less successful than anticipated is that Russia is one of the few nations that can potentially be self-sufficient. The USA is one of the others should it choose to be.
But, over the past 60 years, Federal Policy has leaned (other than mega-farming operations) toward food imports over domestic production, and smaller farms have died as a percentage of agricultural activity.
What is needed in the USA, is a program, under the Department of Agriculture, to encourage the development of smaller, family, farms in almost every state in the union, to produce those foods that now are imported.
Three things might be encouraged to facilitate this:
(1) The development of greenhouse operations in the colder northern states.
(2). The development of equipment cooperatives in small towns so farmers can share equipment rather than have each farmer with the burden of the cost of owning equipment that is used only from time to time.
(3). Informational resources from the DOA, using newer technology which has been very successful in increasing yields and profit in places as diverse as Israel, and Gujarat, India, where in both cases, the yield per investment is one of the highest in the world.
