A Prepper’s Greenhouse

A greenhouse can be so much more than just a great place to relax, get your hands dirty, and nurture the fruits, or vegetables, of your labor. Sometimes, it can be a lifeline. For preppers, this is especially true. What exactly is a prepper? A prepper gets their name from the word “preparation,” or “preparedness.” Preparedness for what exactly? This can vary widely from person to person, but in general, “prepared for anything,” is the singular goal. Preppers anticipate a wide array of disasters and disruptions that may complicate accessing resources. Our modern world makes most things easy to get, including food, medicine, clothes and shelter. However, this requires a complicated system of supply chains. We’ve seen multiple examples of supply chain disruptions in the past 3 years. Like COVID-19, outside influences can create havoc across almost every industry, making the manufacturing and distribution of resources increasingly difficult. A prepper anticipates these disruptions and seeks to nurture a self-sustaining home. A well-prepared prepper is less likely to feel the consequences of supply chain failure, as they are already fulfilling their own needs, rather than relying on outside sources.

  1. Short-term Preparation: These preppers know that even a small storm can have disastrous effects within their community. Power outages can mean grocery stores are unable to open, and freezers or refrigerators can stop working completely. High water, or downed trees/power lines can make it difficult to access resources, especially for those living in rural areas, far from nearby shops. Water can be turned off, making cooking and showering difficult. While there are lots of federal and local organizations designed to help protect and take care of people in these circumstances, there isn’t always enough to go around, and it can sometimes take weeks to restore power, water, or road access.
  2. Long-term Preparation: Some preppers look out even further than just a few weeks. While a natural disaster is mostly short-lived, rarely lasting longer than a few days, there are other kinds of disruptions whose consequences can stretch out for years on end. War, famine, pandemics, and other types of social upheaval can make accessing resources incredibly difficult. Especially in areas where conflict has existed for generations, safe and readily available food, water, and shelter can become incredibly hard to come by. Even if these circumstances aren’t currently, or haven’t yet, impacted where you live, preppers know that things can change quickly, and are ready for anything that may come their way.

Food has been one of the most affected areas when it comes to supply chain issues. For food from all seasons to end up in your grocery store, a complicated system of growing and distribution is required, sometimes internationally. These systems quickly degrade as one domino falls, affecting another. Even if your local grocery store is still able to offer food, it may not be the kind you want, or as fresh as you desire. As the effects of weather pattern changes, environmental collapse, and war continue to impact our world, food scarcity grows in its likelihood.

What creates a food shortage?

  1. Weather Patterns and Environmental Collapse
    1. Droughts can have a huge impact on food availability. As droughts increase in their frequency and severity in the western US, farmer’s access to water has become more and more difficult to come by. Certain counties across the country can produce nearly 90% of all the country’s produce and can’t easily be replaced by importing foreign goods. Today, over 95% of the western US is impacted by drought, meaning that growers can’t grow as much food, or as high in quality.
    2. Pollution can contaminate water, soil, and air, weakening farmer’s ability to produce lots of healthy food. Fatigued soil loses its internal nutrients, and can degrade in its ability to hold water, or support root structures. Irrigation can pick up pollutants in the soil, especially in the case of furrow irrigation, further depleting the soil of nutrients and negatively impacting crop’s health and nutrition.
  2. Social or Political Unrest
    1. The US, like every other country in the world, relies massively on resources gained from importing or exporting food goods. Across the world, war, famine, and drought disrupt international food chains. Like in the case of wheat; 4 out of the 5 top wheat exporters in the world are facing either severe drought, or devastating war. Naturally, access to wheat and wheat-based goods have been severely impacted, making them more expensive, or simply unavailable.

To mitigate, or even eliminate the effects of a food shortage, a greenhouse is an excellent option. A greenhouse can be used to grow food year-round if it’s insulated and heated, and can produce faster and healthier than crops found outside a greenhouse. Extending growing periods means that there can be multiple harvests throughout a year, rather than just one. For a family full of hungry mouths, this excess food can make all the difference. Preppers sometimes utilize several greenhouses to grow different kinds of produce which require different environmental conditions. This provides a diverse, nutritious diet throughout the year. 


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