Famine

Considering our society's reliance on the transport of commodities from one place to another, we do not need a vivid imagination to understand how cutting off transportation would also bring famine. Cutting off the entire nation's transportation could create the most terrible famine the world has ever known.⁽¹⁾ Whatever the cause, knowing that catastrophes will come, we are grateful that our modern prophets have also admonished us to be prepared. For example, Ezra Taft Benson warned:

"We do know that the Lord has decreed global calamities for the future and has warned and forewarned us to be prepared. For this reason the Brethren have repeatedly stressed a `back to basics' program for temporal and spiritual welfare. ... The revelation to produce and store food may be as essential to our temporal welfare today as boarding the ark was to the people in the days of Noah."⁽²⁾

The Lord used famine anciently to chastise the corrupt Nephites, and "they did perish by thousands in the more wicked parts of the land." (Hel. 11:6.)

A nuclear strike is not the only means that could cause a crippling famine. Certain economic factors, such as the unbridled national debt and other dangerous fiscal policies, predispose our country and the world to unparalleled economic catastrophe. President Benson has said, "We must reverse our present dangerous fiscal policies. If we fail so to do, we will set off an international monetary debacle that could easily make the experience of the 1930s sink into insignificance."⁽³⁾ Considering contemporary conditions, we can see that such a fiasco is probably not too far away.