MEMORANDUM FOR THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES
20 June 2019
Subject: Near-Term Potential for Collapse of US Food Supply Chain
1. Background. America imports 50% of their food. Of the other 50% we produce ourselves, 80% is grown in the mid-west and 20% of that is grown in California severely regionalizing it. The average unit of food travels 1,500 miles and is delivered by a sophisticated Just in Time (JIT) delivery system. If the JIT system is shut down then food delivery stops and the vast amount of Americans cannot get to it. The average household may have 1 week of food. The average supermarket may have 1 week of food. Therefore if the JIT delivery system collapses the country runs out of many forms of delivered food in only 2 to 3 weeks.
2. Discussion. Completely apart from the Gray Swans listed below that could impact on the JIT food, we have the actual developing collapse of the US farming system from a combination of environmental flooding, financial compression, and a collapse of the trucking industry. This makes the collapse a clear and present danger to the Presidency and public trust in the U.S. Government. It directly threatens our military’s private sector resupply chain. Among the Gray Swans – known events of uncertain probability – that could deepen and extent our present farming crisis that could turn into a family food crisis – are these:
- Electrical Grid (Physical Attack on Hard to Replace Substations)
- Satellite takedown (blocking GPS usage that is critical to JIT delivery)
- Cyber Attack on Infrastructure (water, oil, gas, electrical systems)
- Pandemic (Animal then Human)
- Mississippi Earthquake (New Madrid Fault)
- East Cost Tsunami (El Hierro Volcano)
- Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP) Attack (Russia, China, Iran)
Loss of electrical power – whether to physical, cyber, or EMP attack — across any region will deepen the problem by eliminating refrigeration upon which many processed foods depend. It merits emphasis that localized integrated sustainable farms are resistant to incapacitation.
3. Recommendations
- Create an Inter-Agency Emergency Evaluation & Response Team to provide the President with a complete up-to-date appraisal of farming and food production constraints and vulnerabilities between now and November 2020.
- Freeze all bankruptcies on existing farms, create multiple funding structures to incentivize sustainable farming at the community level, seeking to make each state self-sustaining in food production. Consider legislation providing a huge Return on Investment (RoI) in this domain.
- Review and reduce the centralization of the farming system including its excessive specialization – announce a Jeffersonian program to restore the family farm and to make every state – every community – self-sufficient in all aspects of food as well as water and power.
DOC (1 Page): POTUS Memo on Food Collapse – JC Cole
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