Marjory Wildcraft Visits Cuba to Study Economic Collapse Survival

Posted on October 20, 2013 by Mrs. WaterBuck

Author Marjory Wildcraft told us recently she is a wild woman on a mission to put homegrown food on every table. The feisty 50-year-old rollerblader is not kidding.

To learn to grow food herself, Marjory has talked to more than a thousand, maybe 2,000, gardeners worldwide. This year, she went to Cuba to learn not only their gardening techniques, but how to grow food when your country’s entire agricultural and industrial system falls apart.

Marjory relays her extensive food-growing skills on her website and others, through her “Grow Your Own Groceries” videos and with numerous personal appearances. I have an entire cabinet of horticultural books, some dating to the late 1800s, and can probably recite many chapters from memory. Still, I learned totally new talents from Marjory’s videos, which cover everything from rainwater collection to butchering rabbits and eating bugs.

Marjory, a former financial consultant, said that as the U.S. debt crisis looms scarier each day, she wanted to learn about surviving economic collapse from those who already lived through it. She figured the best way to witness Cuba’s recovery was to go there personally and talk to common gardeners and farmers.

What happened in Cuba could just as easily happen here. There are many parallels, she said.

“These are crazy and dangerous times,” Marjory said of the recent snafu with food stamp cards. With 47 million Americans on food stamps, there will likely come a time when the U.S. will not be able to provide benefits. “A lot of the riots that happen in big cities start at the welfare office when people can’t get their benefits.”

To learn more about preparing for such chaos, Marjory traveled to the island country, just 30 miles from the southern tip of Florida, with Millions Against Monsanto, a subgroup of the Organic Consumers Association, to talk with working-class Cubans about their transition to gardening.

Before the collapse 20-some years ago, Cuba relied on imported oil to grow its main export crop, sugar. Just like the United States, Cuba had been using large farm machinery and chemical fertilizers and pesticides to produce only a few types of crops.

“The big question,” Marjory asked, “was how do you feed 11 million people when your entire agricultural system no longer works?”

Economic collapse

Cuba’s collapse followed the Soviet Union’s dissolution in 1991, which immediately halted 80 percent of Cuba’s imports and exports. Besides petroleum, other important imports such as food, machinery parts, medicine and textiles, came to a halt. Also, the bottom dropped out of the sugar market for Cuba, partly because of the introduction of high fructose corn syrup.

In time, Cubans got healthier growing their own food. But first, they suffered, even resorting to eating domestic pets and zoo animals, according to a Forbes news report. The buffalo, peacocks and rhea (a rare, flightless bird similar to an ostrich) turned up missing from the Havana zoo. Housecats also disappeared from city streets.

Soon after the collapse, Australian and other permaculturists distributed aid and taught their techniques to Cubans, who implemented them in former sugarcane fields, raised beds and urban rooftops across the nation, according to Cuba History.org.

The Cuban government mandated organic agriculture, ousting the old industrialized form of agriculture Cubans had grown accustomed to. Localization, permaculture, and innovative modes of mass transit were rapidly developed. Food consumption was cut back to one-fifth of previous levels. Although starvation was avoided, persistent hunger, something not experienced since before the Cuban Revolution, suddenly became a daily reality.

Poverty benefitted Cubans in some ways, however. Adults lost an average of 20 pounds, while cases of diabetes and high blood pressure declined as meat, milk and other dairy products became scarce. Walking and bicycling came back in style. And farmers reverted to using horses and oxen, which need only “grass and water and to be caressed.”

When imports end

Besides learning about crops and growing methods, Marjory sought Cubans’ advice for Americans preparing for economic collapse. Their answers surprised her.

“Every single one of them said something about being ready to share with your neighbors, to help out in your community and do your best to keep your spirits up,” Marjory said. “Not a single one said to go out and buy a bunch of stuff.”

Marjory said that instead of storing beans in bulk or buying guns, the Cubans did what people naturally do in times of stress – they grew gardens and shared with neighbors. Many of these community relationships were built upon generations.

After the revolution, the government gave Cubans property, but does not allow them to sell it. Unlike Americans who move on average every 5 years, Cubans generally live in one neighborhood for decades. As such, there is a very high level of connectedness with the people and very little violence, Wildcraft said.

“They are all family,” she said.

Now as old-fashioned gardeners who walk or pedal for transportation, Cubans are healthier, according to a British Medical Journal study.

Parallels with Cuba

Marjory noted several parallels between Cuba’s pre-collapse system and the current financial crisis in the United States. For instance, Cuba was highly dependent upon fuel imports. Similarly, America now imports 60 to 65 percent of its fuel.

“More than any other Latin American culture, Cuba embraced monoculture, which is what America definitely has, and that completely failed,” she said. Cuba relied mainly on sugar exports; when the sugar market dried up, Cuba had no other major cash crop. American also has lost crop diversity.

Another similarity, she said, is in U.S. reliance on large agricultural machinery and big farming enterprises. When Russian imports to Cuba halted, fuel and tractor parts were unavailable.

The common folks Marjory spoke with said the economic collapse “came as a big surprise they didn’t see coming.”

Marjory Wildcraft on ‘Beyond Off Grid’

Earlier this month, Marjory highlighted her experiences with a slide presentation on the first of a series of webinars hosted by the producers of “Beyond Off Grid,” a film documentary projected to be released in early 2014. The film, which includes more than a dozen agricultural, economic and homesteading specialists, strives to help people reduce their dependency on the modern control grid. Incidentally, Darren was filmed here in May talking about water issues and the mistake of relying on technology to pump water.

Film producer Jason Matyas, a lifelong gardener, spoke with Marjory on the 1-hour program about the municipal and private food plots she toured during her 10-day trip to Cuba.

Cubans ate a lot of rice, beans and pork before 1991, Marjory said. All of their rice was imported. Post-collapse, Cubans began eating more vegetables and fruit they grow themselves. They learned to improve their predominantly clay soil by composting and now raise produce and small livestock wherever possible.

“The Cubans did what people all over the world do when in crisis – they started growing food on windows, in backyards, and on corner lots,” Marjory said. “They use all the classic techniques from organic gardening such as composting, vermiculture, companion planting and crop rotations. Why? Because it works.”

Dependence on oil

During the program, Jason explained how an attack on Iran by the United States or Israel could almost immediately double or triple fuel prices as Iran likely would close its main shipping lane, disrupting oil transports.

“Whether that kind of scenario happens or not, the more local you can make your food supply, the better,” Jason said. “The ultimate is growing your own food.”

The next best thing, Jason said, is to trade among neighbors, followed by purchasing from a local farmer where you know the production methods.

“The question is no longer ‘if.’ The question is ‘how’ and ‘how quickly’” Jason said of U.S. economic collapse.

Marjory added that in a crisis, skills are much more valuable than goods. The items usually becoming scarce first are food, seeds, transportation, clothing and medicines. People should also consider how they will do without their addictions (such as chocolate, liquor or coffee).

“These are all patterns that happen fairly predictably,” Marjory said, urging people to begin gardening now. “Growing food is not a skill you can learn quickly or easily.”

Besides gaining self-sufficiency skills, your physical health also will be rewarded as much industrial food isn’t good for us anyway.

To see Marjory’s video interviews with Cuban farmers and gardeners and see more photos, visit her website.

Composting Explained in 1881 Household Cyclopedia

Posted on October 6, 2013 by Mrs. WaterBuck

When I was young, my mother sent us out every evening to bury the day’s apple cores, carrot tops and hickory nut hulls in the garden. And, because we ate so much wild game, we always had animal innards, bones, skin and other scraps to get rid of. Our neighbors also gave us all the free cow manure we could pitch.

It grossed me out as a kid to put all that stuff in the garden, but Mom had it right – we were imitating nature.

The “1881 Household Cyclopedia of General Information” includes much information about enriching soil. Best of all, it’s from the days before chemical fertilizers. By comparison, a 1940 textbook, “The Earth and Its People,” applauds the invention of manmade fertilizers, herbicides and pesticides for increasing food production.

According to the 1940 text, “By practicing more intensive cultivation, by using greater quantities of fertilizers and by taking advantage of scientific discoveries, the production per acre of the leading food crops of the United States can be increased greatly.”

I prefer the older book.

The cyclopedia explains the basics of plant structure and why good soil was vital for a successful harvest, and likely meant having enough to feed a family through winter. Only a lazy farmer was not continually building up his soil. And to neglect the earth meant to have poor vegetables and crops.

“The best natural soils,” according to the book, “are those where the materials have been derived from the breaking up and decomposition, not of one stratum or layer, but of many divided minutely by air and water, and minutely blended together: and in improving soils by artificial additions, the farmer cannot do better than imitate the processes of nature.”

Although the 813-page book was published in 1881, it contains information from farming practices in use before the Civil War, according to the authors. My mother started gardening in the 1950s; but when others were using chemicals in their gardens, she favored the old-time methods – compost and manure.

The old book applies the term “manure” indiscriminately to all substances known from experience either to enrich the soil or contribute in another way to render it more favorable to vegetation. Healing the soil, the book reports, is just like healing a body.

“In an agricultural point of view, the subject of manures is of the first magnitude,” the book states. “To correct what is hurtful to vegetation in the different soils, and to restore what is lost by exhausting crops, are operations in agriculture which may be compared to the curing of diseases in the animal body, or supplying the waste occasioned by labor.”

Like other household hint books on the era, the Cyclopedia is compiled of 10,000 submissions by farmers and home gardeners on topics from 80 topics from agriculture to wine-making. The book states the following conclusions may be regarded as scientifically sustained, as well as confirmed by practical experience:

Organic Manures

1. Fresh human urine yields nitrogen in greater abundance to vegetation than any other material of easy acquisition. The urine of animals is valuable for the same purpose, but not equally so. Still, none should be wasted.

2. The mixed excrements of man and animals yield (if carefully preserved from further decomposition), not only nitrogen, but other invaluable saline and earthy matters that have been already extracted in food from the soil.

(NOTE: A 1972 Mother Earth News story by Elizabeth Allyn details how to compost and use human excrement. Allyn writes, “We rake the privy’s contents down the slope, cover the peaks with the rest, and sprinkle it all again with ashes and earth. About once a year we load the plateau of compost on the spreader and take it out to the fields or haul it by cart to the garden where it’s used as top dressing. It’s only work … the material smells like sweet earth.”)

3. Animal substances such as urine, flesh, and blood decompose rapidly and are fitted to operate immediately and powerfully on vegetation.

4. Dry animal substances (horn, hair, or woolen rags) decompose slowly and (weight for weight) contain a greater quantity of organized as well as unorganized materials. Their influence may be manifested for several seasons.

5. Finely crushed bones, acting like horns in so far as their animal matter is concerned, may ameliorate the soil by their earthy matter for a long period (even if the jelly they contain has been injuriously removed by the size maker), permanently improving the soil condition and adding to the natural capabilities of the land.

Using animal manures

“Dung is the mother of good crops,” the book states, adding that the best plan for cheaply and easily gathering a large quantity for a clay-land farm is to feed grass to livestock during summer.

Livestock manure varies in sustenance by the animals’ diets. The book recommends not letting early springtime weeds go to waste as they pop up in fencerows or alongside buildings. Cut those nutritious weeds and feed them to your animals. You’ll be rewarded for your labor.

“In a word, the dung of animals fed upon green clover, may justly be reckoned the richest of all dung. It may, from the circumstances of the season, be rapidly prepared, and may be applied to the ground at a very early period, much earlier than any other sort of dung can be used with advantage.”

Also, the practice of soiling or feeding horses or cattle in the barn or farmyard is eminently calculated to increase the quantity and abundance of manure on every farm. In the 1800s, feeding horses in the summer months on green clover and ryegrass was a common practice in grain districts where farm labor was available.

“The utility of the practice does not need the support of argument, for it is not only economical to the farmer, but saves much fatigue to the poor animal; besides, the quantity of dung thereby gathered is considerable.”

Keep your water source clean

Positioning and management of the pile is also important to obtain the best quality compost in shortest amount of time.

“When driven out of the fold-yard, the dung should be laid up in a regular heap or pile not exceeding six quarters, or four feet and a half in height; and care should be taken not to put either horse or cart upon it, which is easily avoided by backing the cart to the pile, and laying the dung compactly together with a grape or fork.”

In other words, don’t smash the manure pile. Also cover the outer edges of the pile with dirt to keep in moisture and prevent wind and sun from depleting nutrients. A small quantity of earth scattered on the top is also beneficial.

“Dung, when managed in this manner, generally ferments very rapidly; but if it is discovered to be in a backward state, a complete turn over about the 1st of May when the weather becomes warm will quicken the process.” The better the manure is “shaken asunder,” the sooner it will become usable compost.

When starting the pile, select a secluded spot not exposed to wind or where water pools. The pile should also be downhill from and at least 100 feet from water sources to keep from polluting your freshwater.

To save trouble later, start the pile in the garden or field where it is to be used. It is also most convenient to have the manure pile near the homestead.

“There it is always under the farmer’s eye, and a greater quantity can be moved in a shorter time than when the situation is more distant. Besides, in wet weather (and this is generally the time chosen for such an operation), the roads are not only cut up by driving to a distance, but the field on which the heap is made may be poached and injured considerably.”

More resources

Read this 1972 article in Mother Earth News story to learn more about composting human excrement. To learn more old-time homesteading skills, you can view a free online version of the Household Cyclopedia here.

The best modern-day instruction on making compost we have seen, by far, is Marjory Wildcraft’s “Grow Your Own Groceries” video series. Among dozens of other topics, she goes well beyond explaining how to use rabbit droppings. She also shows how to raise and butcher them, completing the cycle.

Wild Woman on a Mission: Author Marjory Wildcraft Discusses Vision of “Homegrown Food on Every Table”

Posted on August 29, 2013 by Mrs. WaterBuck

Last summer, a friend gifted me with a set of gardening DVDs by author Marjory Wildcraft. Thinking I already knew everything I needed to grow food, I set the videos on a shelf until winter. When I finally put in “Grow Your Own Groceries,” I couldn’t stop watching.

Marjory’s Texas garden

The home video, including Marjory, husband Dave and their young son and daughter, demonstrates (also with charts and a handy bonus reference CD) how the family planned and created their self-sufficient homestead. Marjory shows how they made soil from Texas sand and clay, set up rainwater catchment systems, began raising livestock and how more than half their diet comes from organic food they grow.

“Americans are incredibly under-nourished people,” Marjory said. “I believe it is why so many are so ill.”

Marjory in her garden

Ninety-five percent of food in mainstream grocery stores is toxic, says Marjory, adding that the United States is no longer food-self-reliant as it imports 65 percent of its fuel needed to grow the major crops of corn, wheat and soy.

After watching the video, I just had to learn more about the gutsy, funny, down-to-earth woman who was not afraid to admit her early gardening blunders or show how to slaughter a rabbit with compassion and dignity. By the way, Marjory recommends fasting for 24 hours before butchering your first home-raised rabbit – not to combat nausea, but to appreciate why we cultivate animals for food.

The geese provide food and fertilizer

Originally a city girl from Florida, Marjory didn’t grow up plucking geese, composting grass clippings, gathering wild herbs, harvesting turnips or eating bugs. None of that started until decades later when she says she “freaked out and panicked” over the fear of potential U.S. economic collapse.

In the 1990s when Marjory was an ex-pat electrical engineer working for Motorola in China, an Australian couple told her about the ideas of permaculture and self-reliance. Looking out from the 46^th floor of her Hong Kong apartment, Marjory wondered, “Why would I ever need to know about that?”

The years passed and Marjory left Motorola to become an engineering consultant with clients all over Southeast Asia. She loved the travel, her work and enviable income. Fascinated by money, she later created a successful real estate investing firm where she managed tremendous amounts of debt for millionaire real-estate investors. Marjory did very well for her investors and immersed herself fully in everything related to money, the world economy, and markets.

Marjory turns the compost pile under the rabbit hutches

Curious to where all the money she was managing was coming from, Marjory traced it back and began analyzing the business models of U.S. government-backed mortgage companies, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

Her research alarmed her. She saw a vulnerable interconnection of the mortgage companies, banks, insurance giants, and brokers that were in dire financial and legal trouble. From her research, Marjory saw that global economic collapse was inevitable.

“I said, ‘Oh, dear. If they go under, we’ll all be in trouble.’ The dominoes would topple,” Marjory told me when I called her Texas home this week to ask about the inspiration behind her gardening videos.

Starting in 2001, Marjory spent the next year and a half dismantling her consulting business and urging her clients to get out of the real estate investment business before the bubble burst. Although skeptical at the time, they trusted her instincts and later thanked her.

Rabbits are small, quiet and easy to care for

Meanwhile, Marjory continued traveling, this time to talk with people who had survived disaster, whether it was caused by national economic collapse, weather, war or other reasons. The number one thing they told her was that the ability to grow food was central to survival.

Dave and Marjory began searching for a homestead, a place where they could grow food year-round and work toward self-reliance. They settled in Dave’s home state of Texas, an hour’s drive from Austin. Then they began learning through a broad range of forestry, permaculture, rainwater collection and gardening classes as they set up their own systems.

“Grow Your Own Groceries” chronicles what they learned along the way. I was particularly interested in their rainwater systems, intended to be their main water source, until persistent drought forced them to drill a well. Still, if you’ve got it, rainwater is best for growing plants, followed by pond water and well water, Marjory says.

This 20′ rabbit hutch feeds the family of 4 year-round

“We started getting pretty good at growing things,” Marjory said, adding how they expanded into the whole gamut of skills needed for self-reliance; making and using herbal medicine, defense, treating water, making clothing with natural materials, bartering skills, food preservation, woodlot management, and so much more.

Marjory said that on their journey to self-sufficiency, they realized how important it is to share their skills and knowledge with their community. “I realized that community is absolutely vital to survival,” she said.

Not only can neighbors trade vegetables and skills, they can pool their resources to buy in bulk to save money. Also, if one is especially gifted at cultivating bees, another might grow the best potatoes or make wooden barrels. As Marjory sought ways to strengthen her local community, she found herself being a teacher, bringing people to the farm for hands-on lessons.

“The demand got so big, we couldn’t keep up. I physically couldn’t keep up,” Marjory said.

Marjory shows how a garden can be planted next to the street in Boise, Idaho

In 2009, Dave and Marjory produced their video with vivid details and practical instructions as a way to help more people feed themselves. “Grow Your Own Groceries” became a way to show people everywhere how to grow food anywhere, with special emphasis on backyard gardening and small livestock rearing. There are over 300,000 copies of the video being used all over the world – by homesteaders, survivalists, missionary organizations, and universities.

“Diversity is key,” Marjory said, explaining that perennial plants should be mixed with annuals, wild edibles, insects (an excellent source of Omega 3 fatty acids), livestock, and wild game. If one crop fails in a particular year, another may flourish. Realizing the need for urban and suburban solutions, Marjory is now experimenting with aquaponics.

“We have got to shift and change and evolve,” she said.

Marjory went on to explain how she loves the whole homesteading way of life. Her dream is for every family to enjoy the satisfaction and good health gained from eating food they grew themselves. The catalyzing statement for her organization is “Homegrown Food on Every Table.”

“In my journey, I’ve found that returning to a life where I produce most of my own basic needs has been the most fulfilling thing I’ve ever done,” Marjory said. “The inner strength that comes from eating deeply nutritious food that I’ve grown myself, the confidence from knowing I can provide for my family no matter what, and the joy of independence from tyrannical systems, are all so worth it.”

Grow Your Own Groceries

To learn more about Marjory Wildcraft and “Grow Your Own Groceries,” visit growyourowngroceries.org.

Off-Grid Products for Self-Reliance

Off grid products, deep well hand pumps, well buckets, human powered machines, pedal powered PTO

Tag Archives: Marjory Wildcraft

Marjory Wildcraft Visits Cuba to Study Economic Collapse Survival

Like this:

Composting Explained in 1881 Household Cyclopedia

Wild Woman on a Mission: Author Marjory Wildcraft Discusses Vision of “Homegrown Food on Every Table”

Like this: