The Last Centurion

by John Ringo

  Am I gonna justify it? I could try. People that lived through 2020 and 2021, though, can probably justify it better by the results of farming "special interests" NOT getting their way in 2019 and 2020.

  The point is the links between the USDA and the Army went waaay back. Back before the Civil War when it was the Agriculture Bureau of the Department of the Interior.

  Here's a thing for you. Army veterinarians and vet techs (yes, the Army has both) were also the Army's food safety inspectors. Why?

  Because the Army used to buy most of its meat on the hoof. And then slaughter same. You didn't used to be able to store beef and pork for very long. If you wanted meat, you slaughtered a steer and ate it. Vets made sure the beef wasn't ridden with diseases. Ergo: Food inspectors.

  When storage methods improved big companies started supplying in big ways. ("Uncle Sam" actually came from the Civil War. One of the main suppliers of Union Forces was owned by a guy named Sam. The stuff was stamped "US." "We got another food delivery from Uncle Sam.") But the food still had to be inspected. Companies did then and do now occasionally cut corners a little too close.

  Thus vets were the food inspectors. End of history lesson.

  But, generally, the Army kept out of agriculture and the USDA didn't tell us how to fight wars. As long as USDA kept up the supply of food for the troops and we kept people from invading, nobody tread on each other's turf.

  Problem was, in 2019 the USDA wasn't keeping people fed.

  Don't get me wrong. The USDA can't feed a damned person. They're not farmers or distributors or processors. But they can, and their mission was, to "create a favorable environment for American agricultural production."

  The problem being . . . the Bitch. And all the thousand of appointees she'd brought in.

  Look, the Bitch wasn't, essentially, an environmentalist. I don't think so anyway, not beyond the "I won't throw stuff out my window cause that's littering" level of environmentalist. She contributed to some environmental groups, sure, but that's just feel good stuff unless you give all your money to them and live in a hut and a ragged shift.

  But she had had to make a lot of political deals to get elected. And more notably to get the nomination because she was not what the hard left considered "a true believer." And while she'd packed important posts like Justice and Commerce and Defense and State with her more core supporters, mostly lawyers, she'd had to give stuff to the wackoes to keep them on her side.

  Where did they go? All those departments they'd been feuding with for decades. Interior, USDA, Met Service (where there was too much support of "global warming deniers"), EPA of course. Anything that had to do with keeping the "environment" in that pristine state of pre-Columbian U.S. You know, where the Indians wiped out the mammoths and horses and used to run giant herds of buffalo off cliffs to get a few cuts of meat and a really cool blanket.

  Logging had gotten to the point of "well we're shut down," CO2, which is produced by every living thing on earth and the oceans and volcanoes, was a "pollutant" and under strict regulation. Taxes had been imposed for "excess carbon generation" and things were already starting to get hard in industrial farming before the Emergency Powers Act.

  But before the Act there was only so much they could do. Congress knew that the farmers were a massive lobby and huge income, tax and jobs generator. Hell, about the only major export you could put your hands on from the U.S. anymore was food.

  They hadn't thought the Bitch would use the Act to screw up the one thing that was sort of working post-Plague. But she did.

  USDA cannot produce food. What it's supposed to do is create a favorable environment to produce food.

  What it can do, easily, is create an unfavorable environment to produce food. It had detailed knowledge of the American farming industry. It knew where all the levers were.

  The long-service people in USDA fought back, passive aggressively, as hard as they could. They, I'm told, tried like hell to keep the damage to a minimum. But they couldn't stop it.

  And USDA had been being infiltrated, if you will, for years by the tofu-eaters. Why?

  Most things that county agents used to be used for were pretty much gone by the 1980s. Back in the 1930s, say, county agents conducted classes in things like proper tillage to reduce soil erosion, better crops for the local soils, how to use modern fertilizers, soil chemistry, etc.

  By the 1980s, you'd better have had classes on those and lots of experience before you were making decisions on a real productive farm. Or you were going to go out of business.

  But you couldn't get rid of county agents. They were county agents! Besides, they were the eyes and ears of the USDA. They were the guys who compiled all the local crop reports.

  But as the need for county agents to be expert in real farming decreased, there was an upswing in their need as "alternative farming" experts. Tofu-eaters were moving away from the cities because their "little brown brothers" were making them harder and harder to live in. Rich tofu-eaters would move out to the country, buy a small farm that was going under anyway and then not know what to do with it. (See Green Acres and multiply by hundreds of thousands and both members Eva Gabor. But crossed with Karen Carpenter and take away all shreds of common sense.)

  Well, the tofu-eaters wanted to grow grapes or broccoli or whatever, but not using those icky and "should be illegal" methods. They wanted to be "all natural."

  My dad didn't talk much but when he did get to talking he could tell a hell of a story. I recall one time he'd come back from a convention (yes, farmers have conventions) and was talking about a group of "old time" county agents, old guys who were actual experts in mass production of huge quantities of food using every method that was currently available, talking about the "Green" invaders they were encountering more and more. Very heavy along both coasts, less so in the Midwest but still some. But the tofu-eaters invading in Virginia were a particular source of amusement. And the old guys were just shaking their heads. Whatever. "They're not real farmers."

  But they were, increasingly, the county agent's main customers.

  So the old guys got out as fast as possible. They didn't want to deal with the airheads who couldn't understand why their corn was getting eaten by grasshoppers and worms and fields that had been pretty clear when they got them were cropping up with weeds.

  Enter the new generation of county agents. Their mainstay was helping out the tofu-eaters. The "urban immigrants." They'd conduct seminars on organic methods and quite happily explain "alternative methods" that were "fully organic." Didn't stop the pests and weeds but it made the tofu-eaters happy that someone from the government, which was Good, was there treating them like adults. Actually, they were being treated like children but they had been their whole lives and didn't know the difference.

  Treating like an adult: You're fucking up. Here's how to fix it. Now fix it.

  Treating like a child: You're trying really hard! Good job! It's not the result that matters, it's just that you try!

  (That's actually a functional way to deal with children up to a point. In most cases they can't do a real job. But when they get to the point they can, when they're ready to learn to be adults with adult responsibilities, "it's a good try" should never cut it.)

  The old guys treated them like adults and it "hurt their feelings." The new guys treated them like children and they were happy little tofu-eaters.

  So by the time of the Big Freeze, the stage was set. Most county agents couldn't explain industrial farming methods or modern farming tech if they were held over a fire and interrogated. That's the ground troop level. The "generals" and "colonels" were people so dead set against modern farming techniques they'd rather the country starve to death than support them. And the guys in the middle were just getting squeezed out. If they opened their mouths, well, there were the bread lines. Go get in them.

  Farming depends on weather. The Met Service, which should have been beating the drum and sounding the alarm about the upcoming weather cycl
es, was also in a bind. Lower level employees had grown up on a constant drumbeat of "global warming, global warming." One of the big environmentalists sounding the drumbeat had actually said once: "Global warming, global cooling, it's all the same thing." And it was all caused by man.

  Various bad hypotheses had been advanced over the years about what drove long-term fluctuations. They'd all been debunked, one by one, but the New Breed of meteorologists knew that they were True and they were Right no matter what the science said.

  Look up (during the daytime). See that big burning ball in the sky?

  That's what drives temperature. Always has, always will. Eventually it will cool down then expand and we'll be absorbed into its arms and the Earth will become more iron in its dying furnace. It won't be as hot then, but it will be very big. And then it will either explode, not too violently all things considered, or die down to go to a long slow bake until it's not much more than a big, fairly hot, metal planet.

  Guys and gals further up the chain knew better. They knew that things were cooling off, fast, and that it was old Sol driving it and that things were going to a very hell in cold handbasket.

  But their bosses knew better than they did. They knew it was all "global warming." This was just a temporary fluctuation then things will get hotter and hotter again until we all burn up! Seas will rise! Dogs and cats will be living together!

  So the forecasts for weather conditions, which were based on "climate models" that ignored solar activity, were all for a long-term warming trend. It's cold right now, but it will be hot next spring. Expect droughts and hurricanes and terrible tornadoes! (Well, we had those but for all the wrong reasons.)

  Real farmers knew there were more prediction groups than the U.S. Meteorological Service. Most of them had gone down in the Plague but a few were still up. And their forecasts were dismal. But even in dismal weather, good farmers can react, adapt and overcome. They'd started to.

  Then came the Big Grab. Most major farms, including those run by massive farming corporations like Arthur Daniels Midland and Con-Agra, were seized. The tofu-eaters in the USDA had lists and lists of fellow-travellers, many of whom were standing in bread lines, who were ready to "assist in this time of need."

  Out they went to the farms. Taking the place of experts with decades of experience.

  In Zimbabwe it had been "veterans." Most of them weren't; they were just violent psycopathic supporters of the president. They had gone out, thrown out the (experienced, professional) owners and been settled on high function farms then run them into the ground.

  In the U.S. it was reluctant sheriffs going to farms and telling the managers-owners that this is the new boss. You obey his/her orders, now.

  I don't have much charity in my heart for those tofu-eaters but there is some. They'd been going to soup kitchens and lining up for their bowl of gruel in the snow. Suddenly, they're plucked up and whisked out to a fucking farm and told to run it.

  These were people who had written pamphlets on the proper care and storage of your organically grown vegetables. How to run an organic garden. Some of them not even that, just people who subscribed to those journals in the hopes that someday they, too, could be expert organic farmers.

  They're dropped off on a massive farm in the beginnings of a killer winter and told: You're in charge.

  Ever seen a combine harvester? Even the small ones are fucking huge. They look like a cross between a dump truck and an insect.

  Most of the managers had already been told their services were no longer required. They'd stuck around long enough for the "government nationalization management personnel" to turn up then waved goodbye. Most of them didn't live on the farms. The ones who did had family they were going to. There were houses, with small acreage, up for grabs. Might be some trace of the dead residents but that's okay. They'll understand.

  They were planning on setting up for the winter as well as they could and using their long experience to provide enough food for their family to survive. Most of them were thinking greenhouses, most efficient production method thereof. Where can I get a whole bunch of plastic sheeting and some iron tubes?

  Ranches. Here's how the majority of the beef in the U.S. is produced.

  Cattle produce males (bulls) and females (cows) at the same rate as humans, pretty much 50/50. Cows have a long-term economic benefit; they provide more cattle. In the dairy industry, well, you don't get milk from a bull or a steer.

  The majority of males, 90%, do not. They are useless for providing more cattle. One bull and ten cows is a decent ratio. You can go with one in fifteen or so.

  The rest are deballed at six months, generally, and spend the next few years, three normally, eating grass on big spreads. (These are steers. Males without balls. Also what farmers call male tofu-eaters.) People think they're all in Texas. They're not. Florida had more beef cattle than Texas. More rain equals more grass equals more steers you can run on an acre. Average in Florida was three head of cattle per acre.

  Out west, Wyoming and such, there were areas where it was three acres per head. But they had lots of room. And there wasn't anything else you could do with the land. (Unless you were a tofu-eater and then you just left it "pristine." And killing cattle is murder. Fine. You eat your tofu. I'm going to be over here with a nice juicy steak.)

  They get up to a certain age and they're then moved to feed lots. Cattle that eat nothing but grass are a) very very tough meat and b) taste "gamey." (I don't really mind gamey meat but most Americans were pansies about their eating. I do mind tough.) There they sat on "feed lots" with piles of corn and mixed foods (to give them that perfect taste) and fed up. Also various additives to speed up the fattening process.

  Last they were moved to slaughter houses and turned into steaks, hamburger and all the rest. Bits that American humans wouldn't eat became pet-food.

  Comes the Big Chill. Professional ranchers are looking at the real weather forecasts and going "oh, my God."

  See, even in good winters the grass falls off. You've got, say, one head per acre. That works in spring and summer and into fall. But come winter you've got to lay out hay (cut grass) for the cattle so they can make it through the winter. Harsher environments you have to lay out more than nicer environments. But in both you've got to lay out some.

  Hay harvests had gotten massively fucked up by the weather. Storms were coming in all through the summer, what there was of it. To get hay, you have to cut it, let it dry and then harvest. If it gets rained on after it's cut, or if it's still wet from the rain when you cut it, it "sours" and gets fungal infections. Even cows can get sick from it. (Horses will die.) Ever heard the term "hay-making weather." Hot, dry and stays that way?

  We didn't have much of that in the summer of 2019.

  Hay was short. And they were looking at the most fucked up winter in recent history.

  Way up north, cattle will die if it gets too cold. And it was predicted, by everyone except the Met service, to get really fucking cold. That meant the only cattle they could run were those they had shelter for. Which meant nothing but "base stock." Those ten cows and one bull.

  Ranchers were calling feed lots all over the place, trying to get their cattle sold. Nobody was buying. There wasn't food to feed them. The slaughter houses were overrun and everyone was trying to recover from the Plague.

  The USDA probably couldn't have been any help. But even if it could, the bosses didn't see the issue.

  "The forecast for the winter is not that severe. And killing cattle is murder, anyway. Let them graze in happy peacefulness. It's good that they can't be industrially slaughtered."

  Are you grabbing your hair in fury? You should be. The famines of 2020 and 2021 weren't because of the farmers or the evil farm corporations. Hell, they weren't in charge of food production. The "rationalizers" were in charge. When the farmers got back in charge, they proved they could react, adapt and overcome. 2022 wasn't a bumper crop year, but it fed not only the U.S. but various other nations.
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br />   Ranchers, too, were getting pushed out. Nationalization of the farming industry was the Hero Project of the latter Warrick administration. People could sign up at the soup kitchens. A lot of people figured that being on a farm was going to be a better place than in a city come winter. And how hard could it be?

  The county agents were overwhelmed. They were supposed to be "organizing" the local "farming cooperative groupings" to "produce maximal output for the upcoming season" and they knew they were in deep shit. They might like organic methods but they knew that industrial was more efficient. And most of them were smart enough to know that the shit coming from the Met Service was so much baloney.

  Enter the U.S. Army.

  We'd gotten, in most areas, the food distribution, what there was of it, under control. We'd gotten local groups, "voluntary associators" and even companies to handle it. We couldn't turn it over to corporations because they were "bad." (Bechtel, by the way, handled something like 90% of the recovery from Hurricane Katrina. It was defunct but another would have started up, from pretty much the same people, if we'd put out bids. We couldn't let bids. Neither could FEMA.)

  But the point was, we were distributing what we could and turning most of it over to local control. However, we also knew we were going to be fucked come winter. Because our meteorologists were going "holy FUCK."

  USDA was acting like a tofu-chicken. "Nationalization" was hammering what production there was. Something had to be done or the nation we were sworn to protect and serve was going to starve to death. Not just over the winter, but the projections were for widespread famine by next May.

  "Emergency Supply Methodology" was a department that had gotten formed when the U.S. Army had to try to supply food to a famine in Somalia. What was absolutely evident to anyone who was there was that there was no reason for the famine. Yes, there was a drought. All a drought means is that you get less food from an acre. There were enough acres and enough acres that could be irrigated, that Somalia should have been able to feed itself.