Inflation & JIT to Cripple Food Supply

I have been following Joel Salatin for years. Some commentator wrote that he is proof that one man can change the world. I could not agree more. True heros come in muck boots.

I’m not sure the greatest threat to the food supply isn’t hoarding, encouraged by endless predictions of food shortages.

JIT, just like every other highly successful Japanese production improvement tool, was used by western nations improperly and to their detriment. ALL of these tools (Kanban, Poke-Yoke, and so many others) were simply meant as TOOLS to help one uncover the weak links in one’s chains of manufacturing and supply. Typical westerners (mostly the US), saw them as money-saving ideas and so implemented them in this manner. I remember JIT being introduced on the product line I worked on. We were nearly out of business in less than a year….mostly because some of the raw materials we used were very unique, varied greatly by batch in the way they interacted with our product (a manual medical device/testing kit), and so could NOT be purchased “just in time.” After a couple of stock outs and lost business to competitors, the idiots in the ignorance-filled corner offices finally let us purchase large amounts of the critical stuff while maintaining smaller stocks of the easily-obtained stuff. As a tool, it highlighted for everyone where our weak point were, but the point was to FIX THEM or MITIGATE against issues, not just to blindly cut costs and hope for the best. People laugh at those who stock up, but a proper assessment of other people’s supply chains makes it very clear that this kind of thinking makes far more sense than pretending that the store shelves will always be full….especially when your government has provoked a war between the two largest agricultural exporters on the planet.