Opinion from the blog: Survival Acres: http://survivalacres.com/wordpress/?p=688
Localized Food Security:
Food security isnt something that most people have given a lot of
thought to. But perhaps you should, because immediately upon the heels of
any natural disaster, peak oil, drought or any number of other factors such
as pests, pandemic or natural disaster, the worlds food supply can be
severely threatened, even to the point of causing a nations collapse.
The world food stocks are in a global decline due to drought, disease,
climate change, soil loss, acidification, peak oil, bioethanol production
and pollution. These factors are worsening each year, reducing our global
food security to alarming levels.
The answer to these problems is relatively simple to identify, but in
real life, very hard to enact. What is required is localized food
security that is non-dependent upon excessive energy inputs (ie.,
petroleum based) that meets the needs of its community and one that
encompasses a long term strategy.
Although there are many thousands of community gardens, and millions of
private gardens, their combined output remains woefully inadequate to meet
even the basic nutritional requirements of 300,000,000 people. Consider how
much the average American family buys each week at the supermarket. While
this is probably excessive compared to other countries (we do have
a severe obesity problem) the fact remains that it is the mega-corporations
that are feeding America. Now multiply this fact by every developed nation
around the world and most 2nd and 3rd world nations. The supermarket and the
entire mega-corporate agricultural industry is the essential lifeline that
is keeping billions of people alive today. And it is this lifeline that is
now seriously threatened.
In particular, the umbilical cord is the sea of cheap oil that we have
guzzled like a growing, gargantuan baby. As global oil supplies dwindle, the
ability of the worlds corporate farmers who are totally dependent upon
petrochemicals and vast fields to grow billions of tons of crops is also
dwindling.
Without corporate conglomerates and mega-industrial farms and agriculture
(and thousands of trawlers mining the oceans), the sad fact is, the worlds
population could not possibly survive. This is a situation the needs to be
changed, immediately and with all possible haste
because of the coming global food crisis.
Localized Food Security
The definition of this is the localized growing, harvesting,
storing, transporting, processing, packaging, marketing, retailing, and
consumption of locally produced food. Understanding the logistics is
relatively easy, but the actual production of localized food isnt.
In fact, its very hard to produce enough localized food to
feed the population.
In Its Not Easy
To Eat Local, the author notes that it is prohibitively
expensive. Testing the concept of eating local, the conference failed
miserably to even find enough localized food at affordable
prices to feed the attendees. This exemplifies what oil crash really means -
food will be prohibitively expensive.
If and when (because there is much room for doubt) localized food
production actually ramps up to full-speed, then (and only then) will
eating local even be possible. Until then, its another vapor-ware type of
promise for most of us, localized food production is at present, woefully
inadequate and prohibitively expensive to meet the needs of the population.
Notably, the conference above had only a few more then 100 people in
attendance!
It IS all about price when you consider
availability as they did, but in reality,
there is much more then availability to consider too. Growing the food is a
huge, huge factor and it is not as easy as it may appear. In fact, my own
experience has shown me that its pretty hard to grow enough food to feed
yourself.
Im not really a green thumb, not yet and I work 7 days a week, so
getting in the garden and getting it done right with seasonal variations,
soil, planting and adequate watering takes time. And you make a LOT of
mistakes. Personally, I find the idea of growing all your own food rather
ludicrous because 99% of us simply have no idea how to do this or how much
work and calorie expenditures this is going to take. Im very certain Im
expending more calories then Im taking in right now, making this effort a
net loss, but the experience is absolutely invaluable.
But this is indeed what needs to be done on a community level. The days
of transporting every morsel of food we eat an average of 1500 miles are
soon to be over. Localized growing is the only option we have.
Localized food security means learning from all the mistakes well make as
budding gardeners and unskilled and untrained preservationists and dealing
with all sorts of problems that will seriously impact that actual consumable
caloric output.
Learning How
It takes years to develop the proper skills, knowledge and
experience to even meet half of your daily calorie requirements. Unless you
have been blessed with perfect soil, abundant sunshine, ideal weather and an
absence of bugs, parasites, rodents, youll discover like Im discovering
that growing your own isnt easy at all.
The motivation to do this and stick to it, learning from your mistakes
must be there too. Hungry people are highly motivated (and dangerous), but
hungry people make terrible farmers. The likelihood that a crop will be
ruined, or the seeds eaten (think Irish potato famine for case histories) or
the sheer impatience of hunger pains of having to wait and adequate length
of time before you can really have something worthwhile to eat.
Without a survival food storage, the majority of people simply wont make
it. It takes (at least) one entire season or longer for a crop to produce
harvestable food. Factoring in crop loss at every step due to bugs,
infestation, depredation, honeybee loss, variable climate, drought, theft,
processing loss, preservation mistakes, and even personal illness and health
conditions, the idea of feeding yourself or even the community becomes
dicey as hell.
If like me, you dont live in an area with good soils, long growing
seasons or adequate sunshine (all three are factors here), then growing your
own becomes extremely challenging. This year, I built earthboxes, and
theyre working okay, but theyre not perfect and theyre inadequate to meet
my individual needs. At best, I can grow some vegetables, but nothing even
close to my daily calorie requirements. I would need a greenhouse full of
these containers to do so (for one person).
Were a nation of know nothings when it comes to personal survival. And
we need to immediately admit that fact. Dishonesty or denial of
this fact isnt going to help. Were all alive and owe our
existence right now to the experts that do exist, and theyre scattered
pretty far and wide. Fewer and fewer farmers are being used to feed the
world. Using my town for example, not one of these people
lives here. So were left with forging our own path and making our own
mistakes, which we must do right now while we have a small window of time
left to us to survive from these unavoidable mistakes.
Book learning just doesnt cut it either. I have a personal library that
I keep adding to, but its inadequate when it comes to understanding
everything that you need to know. There is no replacement for
experience (and proper climate, soil, sunshine, etc.,). If we are really
serious about localized food security, we must start immediately to
implement these efforts, because if we dont, we are all facing severe food
shortages as the world powers down.
Energy Decline and Costs
There is another side to this issue that bears mentioning too. Earlier, I
mentioned that food will become prohibitively expensive due to the lack of
localized growers. Thats true and this will take quite some time to change.
The other reason food will become prohibitively expensive is the mega-farms
will start shutting down as localized growing attempts to ramp up. Their
market base will shrink. Their farms and their productive output will shrink
too as oil supplies dry up or become so prohibitively expensive in their own
right that farmers simply quit. Whatever they do produce will be
outrageously priced.
Food IS oil and vice versa in our modern society. Ive covered this issue
before, but in a nutshell the planting, fertilizing, watering, harvesting,
processing, packaging, distribution, storage and selling of food today is
only possible because of the ocean of oil we consumed. Those days are soon
over. When the oil goes - we go. Nothing has been
found to replace the portable energy found in oil, nothing.
The only way to prevent our demise from happening is localized food
security.
Take a look around in your community. What is grown there? Does
it depend on huge quantities of outside energy inputs (oil or hydro or
whatever)? What about fertilizers and insecticides? What kind of harvesting
and processing equipment is used? Does that depend on a constant supply of
cheap oil too? How far does your localized food actually travel before its
available to you to eat?
Or better yet, check out the stocks of food in the grocery stores near
you. America has a 3 days supply of food on the shelf and a limited back up
of food in warehouses in distribution centers. A single seasons crop failure
can have national impacts. Bear in mind that wed not be importing food
anymore from Mexico or Argentina or Chile because oil prices would prevent
that. How far has that food on the shelf traveled? The American average is
1500 miles. Will that food selection and variety always be there
when oil reaches $100 a barrel? $200 a barrel?
The answer to these questions for most of us is depressing as hell. Now
examine your growing season, how climate change is affecting this, whether
an adequate water supply can be truly relied upon, soil composition and
compaction, and a host of other factors. Can your community actually grow
your own? Ive traveled a great deal of the western U.S. and the answer is
most definitely NO for many cities and towns Ive visited. There are too
many people to support with too few resources and all too often, too little
water.
Some towns are simply going to dry up and be entirely abandoned. The city
of Perth, Australia is facing this crisis right now. Throughout many dry and
desert areas of the U.S., there is almost no chance future water supplies
will be adequate to permit the feeding of millions and millions. This will
cause massive migration waves (and a huge homeland security problem) as
people flee their dried out towns in hunger.
Someone else can chime in regarding the eastern U.S. states. But the
issues of population density, water, soils, climate and the all important
required skills set is the same everywhere, throughout the world. There is
a reason why countries face famine and it ties directly into the
available land and human resources, and often, because of too many
humans, who usually resort to extreme violence (war) to horde or
control whats left.
Time Is Of The Essence
Theres little time left, realistically speaking. And we are now 100%
certain that our esteemed leaders remain totally clueless of the severity of
this issue. No matter what we do, even if we start immediately, we have
serious life-threatening crisis on our hands for the reasons stated above
(arable land, too many people). Multiply this in every nation throughout the
world and you will begin to grasp the dangerous situation we are all in.
Unfortunately, its too late and cannot be helped. The only thing that can
be done is to honestly fess up to the crisis and the situation we have
placed ourselves in and start dealing with it now, on our own, while we
still can.
Learn everything you can about growing food. Work with others in your
community to bring about awareness and attention to this issue. Start
planting and raising your own garden and animals. Learn about composting,
greenhouse growing and water preservation techniques. There are some
technologies like aquaculture that will probably become huge lifesavers (and
big businesses) that have the potential to meet community needs. This
methodology has yet to be widely supported, which makes little sense
considering its incredible potential, but that will hopefully change very
soon.
Community cooperation will become absolutely essential. Finding others
within your community that you can work with is challenging enough. Attend
the local farmers markets and find out if there are others who are at least
aware of the issues. Attend community meetings and speak up. Expect the
usual condemnation and ridicule, since business as usual is the only thing
people seem to still understand. Go prepared with facts regarding the oil
and climate crisis and leave this material with those who show an interest.
It wont be easy, but it will ultimately be necessary.
Community leaders will bear the responsibility to enhance these efforts,
with tax breaks, zoning laws, designated land plots (donations) and
community support. Of course, this assumes the community will remain
relatively intact, of which I have some doubts. There is a lot of
uncertainty about the future we all face, but this really doesnt matter. It
is a future largely of our own making. Together, we may indeed live if we
can learn to cooperate and communicate the essential skills and knowledge
that we will need and take action while there is still time. Only time will
tell which path most of us will
take.