I’m often amused by a particular attitude that runs through much of the prepper/survival community. Usually held by those in a rural setting, there is an assumption that farm and rural folk are better prepared, better positioned, and better skilled than those living in an urban setting, and thus more likely to survive a major crisis. Indeed, attitudes often border on contempt when the country mouse considers his city cousin. But how true is it that farm trumps city?
Much will depend on the type of crisis that occurs. In a pandemic, being isolated from the hundreds of human contacts that a city dweller experiences in a day will likely be an advantage. That’s not a certainty, as rural children are often bussed to large schools which are likely vectors for disease. If a food crisis, having the ability to grow food, or having food on hand will likely be an advantage as well.
In other forms of crisis, the advantage is less well defined. In an EMP scenario, whether natural or manmade, or a severe fuel shortage, the rural advantage is smaller. Unless Mr. Farmer is one of the few hobbyists that maintain a working team of horses and the equipment sized for them, he’s out of luck. Modern tractors, combines, trucks and so on depend on electronics in their systems nearly as much as do newer cars. A farm without modern machinery is unlikely to prosper.
Indeed, if we look at modern farming, it is nearly as dependent on the present supply network and infrastructure as are cities. Fuel, parts, fertilizer, seed, herbicides and pesticides are all inputs produced off the farm. In some extreme cases, farms don’t even have their own water, as some rural areas have municipal water systems, with farms depending on water piped out to them rather than wells. Many farms would be in as much trouble without power as any city dweller, as few farm homes have alternate heating or lighting sources anymore. Manitoba Hydro has been too darn dependable.
Even livestock operations are often dependent on electrically lit and heated barns to produce livestock, get feed from off farm, or need inputs like antibiotics and supplements in order to produce on the scale that they presently do. Sometimes, in the case of feedlots, or chicken or turkey operations, the animals being raised are born elsewhere than the farm that ‘finishes’ them for market.
Surely, though, the average farmer has skills that will give him an edge in survival? Possibly true. Many farmers I know are damn good amateur mechanics, can weld with the best of them, and a few are even decent machinists. Sadly, all of these skills depend to an extent on society staying whole. A talented mechanic can do nothing without parts, and without power to run a lathe or welder, the machining and welding skills are useless..
Without modern machinery, pesticides, herbicides, and fertilizer, it is likely most farmers would be little farther ahead than the urbanites. Neither group now knows how to cut grain with a scythe, tie a sheaf, or stook those sheaves. Few now remember how to make harness, shoe a horse, or smith a tool from raw stock. Nor can these skills be acquired in without practice and experience, in many cases, years of it.
Then what about the farm wife? There must be a repository of skills there that give an advantage to rural folk? There will at least be a kitchen garden to fall back on, won’t there? There might well be, but Ms. Farmer is buying her hybrid varieties from the same few companies as the city folk, her seedling tomatoes from the same greenhouses. She is dependent on the same weed killers and pesticides, and without a gas tiller, she is turning the earth with the same sort of garden fork. It won’t much matter how much land she has if she has to dig it by hand. Gardening after a collapse will be little different wherever you are.
And perhaps she doesn’t garden at all. Many farm wives work full time off the farm, often from financial necessity. That full time job likely means that the farm pantry looks little different from the city one, and has as few reserves. Processed, ready to eat is the norm on the farm now. It is likely that Ms. Farmer is as dependent on a well stocked supermarket as anyone else.
Some farms I know of do produce their own food to an extent. There is often a side of beef in the freezer, or chickens or pigs that were raised on the farm. In most cases, these animals are slaughtered and processed off the farm. Few people have the skills or facilities to butcher their own stock. I hardly need to mention that even if you have a freezer (or two) stuffed with meat, it doesn’t last long without power.
The traditional domestic skills have suffered as well. Fewer and fewer people can or preserve food, do their own sewing, or can create a warm quilt from little more than scraps. Even cooking from scratch is becoming a rarer talent, with so many families being pressed for time.
Being situated in a rural area might even be a disadvantage. There is the possibility that in the city, you may find, along with or instead of disorder and violence that people organize, and share the burden of raising food, obtaining water and maintaining a defense. The farm dweller has likely a far smaller labor pool to draw on to do what is necessary. It is often miles from the nearest neighbor, a poor arrangement when mutual aid and defense is considered.
Of course this is not the situation with every country dweller, but it is more common than not these days. I think many of us that live in rural Manitoba would do well to reassess how prepared we actually are, and be honest with ourselves as to how self sufficient most of us are not.
Like anyone, the country mouse needs to look at the range of possible emergencies, and to actively prepare for them. We’ll look at farm preparedness in a future post.
Originally posted February 12, 2011 @ MPN
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